THE MAGAZINE ARCHIVE

LATEST NEWS

iPad Mock Up 1

THE HESKETH OF CHAMPIONS

Iconic is a word that gets bandied about all too easily these days, but if you want to find a truly iconic British racing combo, look no further than the front cover of Autosport on 17 July 1975.   The special issue ahead of the British Grand Prix at Silverstone,...

50 UP!

September 2005 saw TV Times celebrating its 50th anniversary and to celebrate, the cover was given over to Ant & Dec, who were probably there right at the start. It feels like it, anyway.   It was, of course, the 50th anniversary of ITV too and to celebrate,...

I WAS THERE!

The annual Wales v England international is never one to be taken lightly, but Rugby World’s cover from March 1977, suggesting that comedian Max Boyce would be buried at sea if England triumphed was perhaps taking things a bit far.   Ahead of the game, Boyce...

AND THAT AIN’T HAY

All the drama of the turf was captured in an outstanding front cover image used by Horse & Hound in July 1958. Master of Boyden, ridden by apprentice jockey D. Cullen, was away to win the Brighton Mile, chased down by a competitive field. You ca look at it in...

THE ANGEL GABRIEL

The Premier League might be the world’s favourite league, but it hasn’t managed to get all of the greats here over its existence. Lionel Messi is perhaps the most famous one who got away, but perhaps the biggest miss of them all was Gabriel Batistuta.  ...

FORE! FORE! FORE!

Golf Monthly had a pretty arresting cover shot for the September 1973 issue, three golfers lined up and ready to tee off. Tony Jacklin looked to be in Position A, but the chances of Bert Yancey and Tom Weiskopf surviving without having some substantial dental bills to...

CRISIS? WHAT CRISIS?

At the beginning of November 1992, F1 was not in the rudest of health, with Autosport’s front cover proclaiming that the sport was in crisis and detailing an ‘emergency summit to save Grand Prix racing.’ Spoiler alert: it survived.   Nonetheless, Autosport...

THE REST OF YOU, JUST RATTLE YER JEWELLERY

November 10 1963 and it was time for the Royal Variety Performance to be screened by ITV, although the event actually took place six days earlier.   Amid trad Royal Variety fare such as Charlie Drake, Flanders & Swann, Eric Sykes, Steptoe & Son and Pinky...

HOW TO HAKA

Never short of a word, England’s Joe Marler ruffled a few feathers ahead of the meeting with New Zealand this week with his dismissal of the All Blacks’ haka as ‘ridiculous’. A backlash followed and cue the kind of back pedalling you never see from Marler on the...

TOO MUCH OF A GOOD THING?

June 1994 saw the end of another National Hunt season, Horse & Hound commending Richard Dunwoody on his success as champion jockey and winning the Grand National.   But an editorial in the magazine was exercised by talk of an introduction of summer racing...

I’M SPARTACUS – AND SO’S MY WIFE

I’M SPARTACUS – AND SO’S MY WIFE

August 1976 and ITV’s big summer movie was ‘Spartacus’, featuring Kirk Douglas who told TV Times readers, “I’m impressed every time I see ‘Spartacus’. It really stands the test of time. It was a helluva gamble, the most expensive film made in Hollywood up to that...

THE WORD ACCORDING TO HOD

Back in February 1995, Glenn Hoddle was making his way in the world as a manager after a playing career that saw him lauded as a genius by some and an unaffordable luxury by others.   Had we but known it, the England job was just around the corner, following...

THE BATTLE OF THE SEXES

The November 1938 edition of Golf Monthly featured a fascinating tale of a highly unusual match played at Maylands Essex, where the mighty Henry Cotton took on three highly acclaimed female golfers, Lady Heathcote-Amory, Enid Wilson and Reve Lacoste, playing the best...

WITH YOU IN A JIFFY

Rugby’s Autumn Internationals are almost upon us and that will give us the opportunity to enjoy the dulcet tones of regret Jonathan Davies on commentary once again.   If you can’t wait, then Rugby World’s February 1987 edition had an interview with the ‘Welsh...

CLARK OF THE COURSE

F1 was in Mexico City for the Grand Prix this weekend, some 61 years after the first one that counted towards the championship was held in 1963 – the inaugural race was a year earlier but was not a championship race.   As part of his golden year, Jim Clark took...

I BLAME THE BEATLES

Mrs. SJ Opray took to the letters page of Horse & Hounds on May 2nd 1964 to complain about falling standards in the equestrian field. Her letter, headed ‘Scruffy turn-out of horses’, made it clear that the modern world was going to hell in a handcart.  ...

PENALTY PRIZE

FourFourTwo’s correspondence from May 2012 saw Wilko Wilkes getting on the penalty soapbox – only he’d moved it six yards back.   “In my opinion there is a problem that needs solving more than any other, which never gets questioned: penalties are far too easy to...

SLAM DUNK?

In 2001, by winning the US Masters, Tiger Woods completed the remarkable run of winning four consecutive Majors, but the fact that he had done it across two different calendar years had the Golf Monthly letters page asking whether or not it counted as the Grand Slam....

DRIVE TO SURVIVE?

The eternal dilemma of Formula 1 was splashed across the letters page of Autosport on 2 April 1998 – is it a sport, or is it entertainment?   Sean Hannam was in the former camp: “I am bored of hearing about F1’s ‘shortcomings’ as a mass-media show. It is...

MOZART 1 SMITHFIELD 0

June 1968 and if the readers’ letters in TV Times are anything to go by, the psychedelic intoxicants so beloved of the age had reached the makers of children’s TV. No, not ‘The Magic Roundabout’, something else, as you can see in detail here.   “As an admirer of...