The 1990s Sports Blog

Hello and welcome back to the 1990s Sports Blog. This week sees the Super League teams enter the Challenge Cup so for this post we're going back to 1998 and the time Sheffield Eagles stunned the mighty Wigan to take the trophy in Rugby League's biggest underdog story.  When you think of Rugby League, there's a good chance you think of Wigan and the Challenge Cup. The exploits of the Central Park club became staple viewing on the BBC's flagship sports programme Grandstand with the likes of Martin Offiah, Ellery Hanley, Shaun Edwards, Brett Kenny and Jason Robinson lit up television screens across the country as they swept all before them to win an unprecedented eight Challenge Cup finals in a row between 1988 and 1995.  After a barren couple of years since the beginning of the Super League era, by the time of the 1998 final Wigan were on course for the double as they led the way in the league and defeated Keighley, Dewsbury and arch-rivals St. Helens before booking their...

Welcome back to the 1990s sports blog. In this piece we're going to take a look back at Graeme Souness' short time in charge of Portuguese giants Benfica and the band of British players he took with him to the Estadio da Luz.  It might have come as a surprise to many in the football fraternity in the late autumn of 1997 when Graeme Souness was unveiled as manager of Benfica. While he had won almost every honour possible during his stellar playing career with Liverpool and Rangers, his CV in management left a little bit to be desired. Despite being at the beginning of the David Murray-bankrolled era and re-establishing Rangers as a force to be reckoned with in Scotland, his spell as Liverpool manager ended in disaster while a short reign at Galatasaray is probably best remembered for his flag-planting antics that almost sparked a riot while the less said about his time at Southampton and Ali Dia the better.  Despite his legendary status as a Liverpool player, Graeme Souness was...

In this piece, we travel back to 1995 and take a look at the inaugural season of Rugby Union's European Cup, now known as the European Champions Cup.  In the late 1890s, as the bitter civil war regarding the game of Rugby was at it's height and the wheels were in motion for the northern clubs to break away and form their own game, the staunchly amateur southern clubs and ultimately the union shied away from establishing cross-country competitions in fears that it would lead to professionalism.  Fast forward 100 years and times and attitudes have changed immeasurably. Rugby Union was now professional with Francois Pienaar holding aloft the World Cup in South Africa not just being a poignant moment in the country's post-apartheid reaccepting to the rest of the sporting world but also a signifier of the end of Rugby's amateur era.  By this point, the Five Nations committee had begun exploring avenues for a club competition similar to the annual international tournament and...