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B1 DAILY STORY

World 22 Jun 2026

'I witnessed Maradona's Hand of God' - a goal still talked about 40 years on

One BBC journalist's first football game had one of the sport's most controversial moments and also one of the most celebrated.

Image: Daily English Reader / Local generated SVG (Project-owned local asset)

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One BBC journalist's first football game had one of the sport's most controversial moments and also one of the most celebrated. I was 17, I had never been to a football match and I wasn't interested in the sport. But that afternoon, walking into the Azteca Stadium in Mexico City, I was about to watch Argentina play England in a World Cup quarter-final. And to witness something I would only fully understand many years later. My father wasn't sure about his "princesses" going. This was less than five years since the end of the Falklands War and he was worried that tensions between Argentinian. And English fans would spill over my mother didn't hesitate. This was the World Cup, after all. A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and she wasn't going to let her daughter miss out.

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'I witnessed Maradona's Hand of God' - a goal still talked about 40 years on

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