The hand of a God, goal of the century, grudge of a lifetime
Steve Hodge kept the shirt for 35 years. He hadn’t meant to be part of any of it. In the 51st minute of a World Cup quarter-final in Mexico City, he had tried to clear a ball, got it badly wrong, and looped it back towards his own goalkeeper. What followed – in less than a second, in the space that mistake created – would follow him for the rest of his life. After the final whistle he found Maradona in the tunnel and asked to swap shirts. He kept it for twenty years, loaned it to a museum, then held on a little longer. In 2022, he sold it at Sotheby’s for £7.1 million. World record for sports memorabilia. That is what one second of football made of itself. *** June 22, 1986. The Azteca Stadium, Mexico City. 114,000 people inside. Four years since the Falklands War ended with Argentina humiliated, 600 soldiers dead, Las Malvinas still British. Maradona had told the press beforehand it was only about football. He knew that wasn’t true. …
