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Before I formed opinions about which sports I loved, pre prejudiced, when I were a lad, I had two heroes.
Kenny Dalgleish. Even as a Rangers fan, in direct opposition to our kenny, I loved him. A fantastic footballer blessed with remarkable vision and an eye for goal that would see him more than live up to his predecessor, a certain Kevin keegan, I adored watching his performances for Scotland and Liverpool.
Allan wells. Incredible to see a Scotsman up against the Eastern European power houses.
Who did it for you as a mere cherub then?,
A bit obvious, but Senna.
Barry Sheen
Hi
As a kid loved motorbikes (still do) but my hero was Barry Sheene.
Watched him at Oliver's Mount passing people with his front wheel in the air.
Just awesome
Cheers
Steve
Edit- damn beaten to it
Bobby Charlton, Bob Wilson, Eddy Merkx
Sheene.
🙂
Meadowlark Lemon.
Emerson Fittipaldi.
Tony Currie.
Alan Woodward.
Alf Tupper.
As a teenager, Ralph Milne.
muhammed ali
neil fox
Ralph Milne. Now yer talking.
James Hunt
Barry Sheene
Daley Thompson
I've tried to rack my brain but i can't remember having any sporting heroes as a kid, but in my adult years i have the utmost respect and admiration for Graeme Obree.
Yup.
🙂
He was genuinely appalling.
I used to go and watch Man United with my mates and I've never heard anything so funny as the entire Stretford End taking the piss in unison.
So in the spirit of supporting the underdog, we became his little matchday fanclub.
I've just checked Wikipedia.
He died last year.
😐
Dennis Conner, 1980 America's Cup winner on Freedom..
I was young, I was sailing and racing and this guy inspired me..
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Cycling...
Big Mig (Miguel Indurain)
Gianni Bugno
Super Mario (Cippolini)
Tashkent Terror (Abdujhaparov)
John Tomac
Chris Boardman
Obree should rightfully have been but I never fully understood his efforts at the time.
Motorsport...
Nigel Mansell
Sailing...
Peter Blake
Lawrie Smith
Tracy Edwards
Rugby...
Jonah Lomu
Georgie Best
I've met Obree a couple of times in the local supermarket, genuinely great guy. However, it saddens me in the extreme that pretty much everyone in the shop wouldn't know who he is, but if Wayne Rooney walked in.....
Alberto Tomba.
Beefy.
Dean Richards.
Fair do's, Tomba was awesome.
David Bedford
Barry Sheene.
Martin Lampkin.
Ivan Mauger.
Sammy Miller.
My uncle Mike. (played ice hockey for GB against the USA when he was 16)
Marco Gabbiadini
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Senna
Michael Jordan
Graham Noyce & Barry Sheene
Davie cooper as another, God bless him.
Kenny Dalgleish 65 now, Jesus that makes me feel old.
Brian Jacks and Daley Thompson.
Eddie Kid and all the Lampkins.
Derek Collins
Miguel Indurain
Luis Enrique
Michael Schumacher
Janne Lindberg
Van Homan
Jinky Johnson
Billy Bremner
Martin Buchan
Mark Spitz
Jackie Stewart
James Hunt
Nadia Comaneci, Olga Korbut, and various other gymnasts
I T Botham
John Tomac
Chris Boardman
Roger De Costa the first ever MX superstar.
Then when I got a bit older Johny O'Mara and George Jobe.
The Viet-Gwent.
unovolo - Member
Brian Jacks and Daley Thompson.
Superstars fan by any chance?
Stephen Hendry
The Viet-Gwent
There's always one.
Daley Thompson
Miguel Indurain
Greg Lemond
Walter Payton
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Graeme is perfectly happy with that anonymity though so don't feel saddened by that , he's good mates with one of my best pals from Newmilns so our paths occasionally cross - i remember doing a 10 against him back in the early 90's (before his hour record) and he was a **** absolute machine on the bike - i've never encountered anyone who could put themselves through so much pain and suffering such as he did but with all that we now know about his bi-polar disorder and personal demons that plagued him it comes as no surprise that he broke the hour record in his own inimitable style.
Needless to say i have the original painting done by a local artist (Joe Scherrer - ex continental pro) of his hour record bid and the one that graeme has for his promo signed prints at events, i got graeme to sign the original but even then he was reticent as he didn't wish to spoil it - he genuinely is an unassuming sporting legend in my eyes. Every time i hear/read about a so called footballer who is held up to be a sporting hero in the popular press and earns £xxxxxx a week i just feel the corners of my mouth rise in an sneer of disgust…but that's just me - never watched a football game in my life.
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Soma, it's not Graeme I feel for, it's the folks around who should really have known that a proper, top class athlete, a true hero, is living amongst them.
Smashing fella, any time I've spoken to him.
Daley Thompson, Chris Woods, Robert Millar and Roy of the Rovers.
Ali (from my dad's old films), Tyson (pre Don King), Diego Maradonna. Recently retired Paul O'Connell.
Alan Knott.
Jack Russell (although not as a kid any longer)
Pat Jennings
Big Nev the dustman.
Ahh... i see your point - very well expressed. It's folk like graeme who drive on throughout their life without the desire for fame and attention who are the genuine heroes.
Dougal Haston
Ingemar Stenmark/Franz Klammer
Peter Osgood
Dennis Amiss
Peter Wheeler/JPR Williams
What, no Evel Knievel mentioned? 😀
I don't think I had any heroes as a kid though. Big names I followed though like Daley Thompson (mainly because of the above game 😉 ), Botham, Dalgleish.
Graham Noyce
Andy Irvine
Er, Roy Matthews (who I had the pleasure of shooting with on the day I got my 1100 Star)
Daley Thompson, need we say more?
Alex Stepney, Man U goalie, first match I went to see as a nipper was his testamonial, cemented him in my memory.
Sammy Mcilroy
Barry Sheen
James Hunt
Seb Coe
Roger Black
Alf Tupper 😉
Peter Lorimer
Steve Coppell
Jo Jordan
Lou Macari
Pat Jennings
Kevin Keegan
Barry Sheene
James Hunt
Ian Botham
Daley Thompson
Coe and Ovett
Big Daddy, Giant Haystacks and the Dynamite Kid.
Supersub
Ali
Brian Jacks,
Neil Adams.
Actually got on the Mat with both of them at training events and was very impressed.
Seb Coe
Malcolm Macdonald
Jimmy Connors
Greg Norman
Only ever one. Jim Clark. I never had another hero after he died.
Nigel Spink. I was a goalkeeper and he was the keeper at Villa at the time.
David Platt and Tony Daley.
Jason McRoy as I got into bikes.
Lance. Although I was less a kid, more an adolescent at that time.
Carl Lewis.
Greg Lemond, Robert Millar, abdoujaparov, boardman and obree, that's about it really, I never really went for heroes per se and cycling was the only sport that grabbed me
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Sebastian Coe and Tom Mckean
Jet from gladiators
Wolf from Gladiators.
Hang on a minute...
Gavin Hastings- a fine player and generally good guy.
Caroline Bradley
Barry John. He's a distant cousin.
Redgrave, Coe and Ovett.
Barry Sheene, Evel Knievel but he's not really a sportsman and Nigel Benn.
Daley Thompson And Ali of course.
PS I'm there love child
Derek Redmond, John Regis, Kriss Akabusi & Roger Black.
Rob Hooper
Heikki Mikkola
Dave Thorpe
John Reynolds
Neil Hudson
Sheene
Jim Clark
Indurain
Steve Davis
Foggy
Tomac
Mick Doohan
Bill Beaumont
Barry Sheene
Daley Thompson
Steve Ovett
Steve Ovett
One of the greatest athletes ever. If you dont believe me watch this. If your attention span is too short skip 2 3 mins in.
[url=
World cup[/url]
His nemesis Coe called it the greatest race he has ever seen. Hairs on the back of my neck still go up! These were the days when the greatest raced each other. The then world record holder Walker stepped off the track with 150m to go and later said he had never seen acceleration like it, at that point he knew his time was up. It was the beginning of British dominance of middle distance running for years.
- Barry Sheene here as well
- Daley again
- Seb Coe (In my defence, I didn't know how he would turn out) & Steve Ovett
- Niki Lauda
- Alan Wells (yet again...)
- Gary Lineker, Terry Butcher and Peter Beardsley
- Ari Vattinan
Probably a few more, but I'm knackered and can't see clearly enough to type well!
lunge - Member
Nigel Spink. I was a goalkeeper and he was the keeper at Villa at the time.
David Platt and Tony Daley.
North Birmingham lad?
Wolf shopped in our local Tescos (New Oscott). I also met a few of the Gladiators at the time. Was a bit of a waste as I wasn't a fan of the show - but my gf of the time was a cousins of one of the female ones.
King Kenny Dalglsish , Alan Hansen & Sir Ian Botham .
Kenny opened a co-op in my hometown when I was about 10 ,I nearly wet myself when I saw him.
My dad took me to Anfield,just to see it, and we met Alan in the car park ,he chatted and signed autographs .
Sir Ian reopened the local cricket club after 2009 floods, I went home just to see him..ha.
Lester Piggott. Rode his first winner at the age of 12. Won the Derby at 18. Then aged 54 he came out of retirement and within 10 days won the richest mile race in the world with a breath taking display of timing.
As a teenager when I first got into Whitewater kayaking, Shaun Baker. Particularly liked ID 1 and 2 videos. Then I realised that I'd probably die trying most of it (as he nearly did in Iceland).
Did manage to replicate one scene from the movies though. Still one of my kayaking highlights.
Ken Dryden, the goalie for the Montreal Canadiens, and the goalie for the Canadian national team that beat the Soviets in 1972.
A very intelligent man, who finished his law degree at McGill University (Canada's Oxford or Cambridge) while playing professionally.
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Kevin Keegan. I got my mum to sew a number 7 on the back of my football shirt.
Also Barry Sheene, cigarette card clothes-pegged in place for that authentic two stroke sound from the spokes.
Bob Haro
Eddie Fiola
And most of all Robert Millar, got me on a road bike.
Daley Thompson
Barry McGuigan
Zola Budd
Good call AA. Grew up a few hundred yards from Aintree racecourse (I was more interested in running around it) and my dad was a professional bookie, He met Lester many times. I dont think he was the cheeriest of characters but a fantastic jockey.
never really liked Senna, something about him just struck me as weird, couldn't put my finger on it, but same with Schumacher. You could admire them for their achievements but it seemed too easy. I'm sure they were lovely blokes, but... Prefered the suffering of Prost and Nikki Lauda.
It always seemed more personal to Ovett rather than Coe.
Was amazed by Alan Wells, but then you reflect on all those East Germans being on the juice, and along comes this guy from Scotland....hmmmm. I'm getting too cynical for heroes in Athletics
Seb Coe then when I started mtb John Tomac. So stylish but more influential were the guys marketing him in the background
Pretty much the same as YoKaiser
Bob Haro being the no 1, but any of the old school bmx team.
Got to meet most of them at a kellogs bmx tour when I was about 14.