16 May 1987
Resplendent in an all-white kit, Spurs lost a classic FA Cup Final in 1987 to unfancied Coventry City and Keith Houchen’s diving header. Johnny Logan, also top to toe in white, won the Eurovision Song Contest for Ireland a week earlier in equally dramatic circumstances. For years I misremembered both as being on the same day; maybe my small child brain just conflated both sets of all-white kit. I definitely remember being aware of a more positive vibe about Ireland in 1987: U2 were conquering America, Stephen Roche won the Tour de France, the Irish men’s football team finally qualified for a major tournament, and Johnny Logan’s ‘comeback’ Eurovision win did just as much to boost the public mood.
Putting aside its status as Great National Song Of People’s Glorious Eternal Victory and engaging my critical faculties, I like ‘Hold Me Now’ and much prefer it to ‘What’s Another Year’. Okay, it’s a power ballad and therefore uncool, and I don’t quite get what melodramatic scenario is envisaged by “from now on you’ll be with someone else instead of me”. But all that is just the delivery mechanism for a huge chorus and even more dramatic middle section, the latter of which is impossible to hear without the mental image of Johnny almost down on one knee, whole body tensed like a spring, giving it absolute socks for his country.
The definitive performance of ‘Hold Me Now’ is the winning reprise in the video below: Johnny leaning into the triumphant lyrics; Johnny celebrating mid-song with the three backing singers; Johnny losing his voice at the end; but especially at the start when Johnny tells us “I still love you, Ireland!” I’ll have to be a killjoy and rate the single in isolation, but in truth I can’t separate it from this performance, a cup-final diving header made song.
