Jonny McCambridge: Thank you very much Mr Eastwood for 1985

Over the course of 52 dizzying days in 1985 the way that a young boy viewed the world was forever altered.

I was a shy 10-year-old who had never known a version of reality which did not include The Troubles and who possessed an instinct that nothing much good could ever come from the place where I had been reared.

And then in late April of that distant year the world snooker final reached an impossibly dramatic climax at The Crucible in Sheffield. I was one of the eighteen and a half million people watching on TV after midnight as Dennis Taylor from Coalisland recovered from a seemingly impossible deficit to beat the machine-like Steve Davis on the final black.

Less than three weeks later Manchester United faced Everton in football’s FA Cup final on a sunny Saturday at Wembley. Everton were the strong favourites having easily won the league title that season.

The odds against United were stacked even steeper when defender Kevin Moran became the first player ever to be sent off in the cup final.

The match was goalless in extra time when Norman Whiteside from the Shankill Road went on a solo run before curling a low shot past Everton keeper Neville Southall to win the fabled trophy for United.

Three weeks after that Barry McGuigan, from the border village of Clones, was challenging the legendary Eusebio Pedroza for the featherweight boxing world title at Loftus Road in London.

My da and uncle attended the fight. For a young boy from north Antrim who had never been off this island, their expedition could not have been any more exotic than if my da had told me they were going on safari to Saturn’s rings and were stopping off for some sightseeing at the Great Red Spot of Jupiter on the way home.

While my da experienced the fevered atmosphere in the ground, I watched on television on a stirring night as the seemingly inexhaustible McGuigan battered the grand old champion around the ring for 15 rounds to rip the world title from his grasp.

In his corner that night was Barney Eastwood. At the time I knew Eastwood only as McGuigan’s manager and the man whose bald head was always protruding into the corner of the camera shot while Barry was being interviewed in the ring after his fights.

Now I have a better understanding of how boxing is as much a business as a sport and an appreciation of the scale of Eastwood’s achievement in establishing Belfast as a base for the trade, and also for how he tempted the wily Pedroza to London to risk defending his title on alien soil in front of a raucously partisan crowd.

I was planning to write that these memories were rekindled in my memory following the death of the veteran businessman and promoter last week; but that’s not quite accurate. The truth is that Barry’s glory night, just like Whiteside’s goal and Taylor’s triumph are never very far from my mind and require no prompt.

More than that, the images and emotions are seared into my consciousness, photographs that will never fade or turn sepia.

Dennis Taylor shaking his cue and wagging his finger in delight after stunning Davis. Norman Whiteside, with the number 4 on the back of his stained jersey, running with his arms aloft to salute the crowd after his wonder goal. I still know the words from United’s 1985 FA Cup final song.

And the fight. Pedroza’s imposing moustache and sideburns. Barry’s father singing ‘Danny Boy’ in the ring. Commentator Harry Carpenter in the seventh bemoaning the fact that ‘McGuigan’s work has been less effective in this round’ just one second before the Clones Cyclone exploded a devastating straight right which felled the Panamanian champion.

The older I get the more trouble I have retaining information, but the paint will always remain wet and brilliant on those great canvases.

The common thread is obvious, three tales of local boys who overcame the odds to become masters on the international stage. Proving a point to an awed 10-year-old that where you come from does not have to be a barrier to what you can achieve, that the destination is more important than the starting point.

But the real point is, I think, deeper, more profound. It’s the capturing and crystallisation of a precious stage of development of a child. Old enough to understand, but still young enough to have a sense of wonder.

There was the guilty excitement of being able to sit up late to watch the snooker even though I had school the next morning. The bragging rights in the playground that my team had won the cup.

The countless hours trying to recreate the goal in the field behind our house or potting balls on our miniature snooker table.

And the fight. That Christmas I asked Santa to bring me boxing gloves and a punchbag. I wore those little red gloves out trying to convince myself that I could be like Barry McGuigan.

Those three occasions have never left me, and few things have marked me in the same way since.

Of course, local people had succeeded at world level before 1985, and have continued to do so afterwards. But nothing ever seems as important as it did when you are 10. The world never again stopped like it did then.

The years have wound on. Sometimes though, I’m still able to think like a child. It comes most often late at night when my brain is tired and unable to process coherent thoughts. Then, with my eyes closed in the dark the images of Taylor’s black ball finish or Whiteside’s goal are there.

And the fight. The plan devised by Barney and executed by Barry. Sometimes the noise of the crowd is the last thing in my mind before I sleep, with my da somewhere in that throng, singing ‘Here we go! Here we go! Here we go!’