The Joy of Six: sporting rivalries

Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova

Now we can argue about this or you can just submit to the facts: there has been no finer rivalry in tennis or any other sport. Between 1973 and 1988 Evert and Navratilova played one another 80 – eighty – times, 60 of them finals, 14 of them Grand Slam finals; they did not meet earlier than the semi-final at any tournament after 1975. After winning the 1985 Australian Open title, Navratilova told the crowd: "If somebody had told me in 1973 that Chris and I would play each other 67 times, I think I would have quit right then." It was typical of the respect that they showed for each other (the winner of their matches was always the first to console the loser), but also a whopping great big fib.

Together they defined women's tennis, and for a long time they defined one another, each pushing the other to do better. "She brought athleticism to a whole new level with her training," Evert said. "She had everything down to a science, including her diet, and that was an inspiration to me." She's referring to the 1980s Navratilova, who had stepped up her training and started demolishing the 20-5 lead that Evert had established in the 1970s. Back in 1973, a stocky Navratilova – "I remember that she was fat," said Evert – had already determined to follow in the footsteps of Evert, whose posters decorated the local tennis club in Revnice. "She stood for everything I admired about this country: poise, ability, sportsmanship, money, style."

Navratilova was a totally different player to Evert – edgy and prone to moaning where Evert was so composed; aggressive and swaggering to Evert's counter-punching game; a committed serve-volleyer up against Evert's baseline strength. "We were night and day," said Evert, who usually enjoyed the better of the crowd's affections – especially when Navratilova, who won only two of their first 16 matches, began to make life more difficult for Evert.

"I was always the visiting team," Navratilova recalls, in the superb 2010 documentary Unmatched. At first the young Czech was treated to the same suspicion as any strong eastern European athlete of the time. "[Evert was] the American girl-next-door and here I am, this big muscular lesbian from a communist country. I came up against the Osmonds of tennis." Navratilova was always the more emotional of the two, but fans would say to Evert: "You know, I never liked that Martina. She's so tough." They wouldn't hear it when their American gal told them different: "You're so frail and feminine."

Their 15-year rivalry was like a tug-of-war, Evert holding all the rope at the start, Navratilova ending up with it – but only after that fantastically taut and even spell in the middle, that began with Navratilova's first Wimbledon win in 1978 and ended somewhere around the 1981 Australian Open final. From 1981 to 1987 they met exclusively in finals, contesting six of the eight Grand Slam finals in 1984 and 1985, and if you have a few hours spare, you could do a lot worse than to use them to watch the 1985 French Open final.

This was the first major that Evert took from Navratilova in three years, the final a compelling three-setter that had both players grimacing at their missed shots as the tension snuffed the air from the stadium. They had played for nearly three hours when Evert, the better player on clay, recovered from 0-40 down at 5-5 in the last set and somehow found the legs to run Navratilova out of points on her own serve. She closed it out with a trademark passing shot having drawn Navratilova in with a shot that itself barely cleared the net.

Navratilova was quickly round the post to embrace the relieved Evert, holding her hand as they approached the umpire's chair. Perhaps the most beautiful thing about their rivalry was the way that they became and remained friends, even as they held one another back from total domination. Even at tournaments where they would inevitably meet in the final, they would watch each other play, cheering from the stands. They quickly found success as a doubles pairing, but separated when Evert realised she was giving too much of her game away on the doubles court.

Still there was little evidence of the resentment they might rightfully have cultured. At the end of their careers, Evert was gracious enough to admit that Navratilova on her day was better than she could manage on her best day. In return, Navratilova was gracious enough to refuse the comparison. "It's almost not right to say who's better," she insisted. It is difficult to improve on the description of their relationship written by Johnette Howard in her book, The Rivals (and try reading that without getting a lump in your throat, even before the introduction is finished): "They were two people who fervently wanted the same thing, found the other blocking the way, and ultimately forgave each other for it." GT

Bolton Wanderers and Tranmere Rovers

Arsenal and Tottenham, Barcelona and Real Madrid, Celtic and Rangers, Manchester United and Liverpool: what do they have in common? If your answer was that they are all football clubs, go and stand in the corner with your face against the wall. If it was that they are all rivalries which require no explanation, then give yourself a pat on the back and grumble about the Guardian not giving you a prize. Some rivalries are meant to exist, have existed since the dawning of time itself and will exist until the machines take over the world; others are more artificial and force you into a double-take. Them? Really?

Brighton and Crystal Palace, for instance. They loathe each other because ... well, how much time do you have? Or Reading and West Ham. They haven't had much time for each other since Alan Pardew swanned off to Upton Park 10 years ago. Chelsea and Liverpool rarely thought about each other until Roman Abramovich turned up at Stamford Bridge and used his billions to snap up some Class & History. And then there's Bolton and Tranmere, which might come as news to some people.

There is an understandable assumption that Bolton's rivals end with Blackburn, Burnley, Bury, Preston and Wigan, while Tranmere busy themselves with Everton and Liverpool. Yet the mutual distrust between the two clubs is there, even though they haven't played in the league since January 2001, four months before Bolton were promoted to the Premier League. Since then they have met in the third round of the FA Cup, Tranmere winning the replay 2-1 at the Reebok Stadium after extra-time, and Bolton winning 1-0 at Prenton Park in the League Cup in August 2009.

It seems that it all began with the Division Three play-off final at Wembley in 1991. Tranmere won 1-0 but Bolton were irked by the manner of their celebrations, which is something of a running theme. Six years later, with both sides in Division One, Bolton arrived at Prenton Park having secured their promotion and needing two goals and two points to end the season with 100 goals and 100 points. They achieved the former but not the latter, drawing 2-2, to Tranmere's considerable enjoyment.

The rivalry was flourishing now and grew even more bitter after their League Cup semi-final in 2000. After winning the first leg 1-0, Tranmere decided to make the most of their home advantage by moving the advertising hoardings back so their long-throw-specialist, Dave Challinor, could launch his missiles into the Bolton area. Tranmere won 3-0 and their manager, John Aldridge, celebrated by getting right up in the face of his Bolton counterpart, Sam Allardyce. It didn't go down well.

"If I'd been a lot younger I probably would have reacted differently – but not on the pitch, maybe in closed quarters after," Allardyce said in an interview with FourFourTwo in 2005. "Every dog has his day, but you don't ever forget. John Aldridge was way, way out of order jumping around like he did in front of us. They deserved to beat us over the two legs but there was no need for that. The year after that, we went back and turned Aldridge over then got promoted. Now I'm managing in the Premiership and he's doing Merseyside radio, so I think we know whose management style's the best." It is unknown whether Aldridge had to be taken to hospital after that particular burn.

Allardyce, who was called "a little peculiar" by Tranmere's chief executive, Lorraine Rogers, would get his revenge in appropriately petty style though. The next time Bolton went to Tranmere, Allardyce decided that the facilities at Prenton Park were "a little lacking", so they arrived at the ground 35 minutes before kick-off, got off the bus ready to play, won the match 1-0 and then went straight home. It was then alleged that a section of Tranmere's fans sent razor blades to the Reebok in the post. Outstandingly childish stuff from all concerned. JS

Tony Zale and Rocky Graziano

As difficult as it may be to comprehend, it is possible for two boxers to serve up a classic without first immersing themselves in a swirl of trash talk and promotion hype. You tend to have to go back in history to find such examples, however, and in this case as far back as the mid-1940s, when the pictures were fuzzy, the commentary crackled and the men involved had nicknames as simple as the eras they grew up in.

Tony 'Man of Steel' Zale and Rocky 'The Rock' Graziano did not hate each other. Indeed both admitted on several occasions, before and after retirement, to respecting each other's talents inside the ring. Instead their rivalry was shaped by context and brutality, with Zale and Graziano providing boxing with the first of its great trilogies due to their willingness across three fights in 21 months to hand out, and to take, an almighty beating.

That was no more the case than in the first of their bouts for the world middleweight title, which took place at New York's Yankee Stadium on 27 September 1946 and proved so epic that Ring magazine named it that year's fight of the year. "He hit so hard he clogged my ears" said Graziano after his sixth-round knockout, with his sense of despair compounded by the awareness that he should have won the fight having pounded Zale into the canvas with a flurry of right-hand blows during the third round.

Zale was not known as 'Man of Steel' for nothing, however, and having floored Graziano in the opening stages with a left-hook, used the same shot to chin his opponent in the sixth. "That jolt shot from my head to my feet," said Graziano. "I went whang on the canvas like I didn't have any feet at all."

Zale retained his title but he knew there was more to come. Appetites had been whetted, and not just because of the full-on manner in which the two men had fought. What was also of interest was the contrasting nature of the competitors, with Zale the low-key World War II navy veteran from Gary, Indiana, and Graziano the self-proclaimed bad boy from Brooklyn who had gone Awol from the army after decking a superior officer and subsequently changed his surname from Barbella to Graziano to avoid detection by those trying to hunt him down. He fought eight times before getting caught and being forced to serve 10 months in prison.

Graziano was then also stripped of his licence by the New York State Athletic Commission in February 1947 after failing to report a $100,000 bribe offer, meaning his rematch against Zale had to take place in Chicago. The encounter on 16 July 1947 proved another explosive affair, with the challenger this time victorious thanks to a sixth-round KO. Yet again Graziano recovered from an early onslaught to pound Zale into the canvas, except this time the champion, older by eight years, could not recover. "Hey ma, your bad boy done it!" exclaimed Graziano into a TV microphone moments after Zale had been counted out. "I told you somebody up there likes me."

The final battle, which took place in New Jersey on 10 June 1948, lacked the thrills of the first two but it still proved to be another display of total attack from both men and ultimately it was Zale who prevailed, with that booming left of his dropping Graziano in the third and making him the first man since Stanley Ketchel to retain the world middleweight title.

Zale went on to fight just one more time while Graziano's career stretched to another 23 bouts across three years. But both men were destined to always be remembered for the frantic, brutal nature of their three battles.

"The ebb and flow of those three fights lit up the boxing skies after the war," said the writer and historian Burt Sugar. "They set the standard for the great fights, and the great trilogies, that followed." SN

Jimmy Connors and John McEnroe

For all the startling brilliance tennis's Big Four have dragged out of each other over the past few years, spoiling us beyond all recognition along the way, there are still people who complain that there are no more characters left in the sport, that the lack of animosity is a chore. Ernests Gulbis agrees, recently dismissing Novak Djokovic, Roger Federer, Andy Murray and Rafael Nadal as boring despite the quartet propelling the sport to levels it has never seen before and may never experience again. "For me, all four of them are boring players," Gublis said during the French Open. "Their interviews are boring. It is a joke."

Whether or not the experience of watching Djokovic and Murray go at it for five hours would be enhanced by the pair of them bickering in the press is debatable. It would all be contrived drama anyway. Djokovic and Murray have known and liked each other since they were boys and their rivalry is professional, never personal.

All four have too much respect for each other to contrive some controversy merely to sate our appetite for drama; if there are ever any tears at the end of their matches, as there were when Federer lost to Nadal in the Australian Open in 2009 or Murray was beaten in last year's Wimbledon final, they are merely the unfortunate by-product of rivalries that demand every last drop of sweat. No one takes much pleasure from it, even in victory.

However some people need a helping of hate to go with the forehand passes, the thumping backhands and the artful drop-shots and some people need to hate. Boris Becker recently said that it helped his performance level if he hated the other guy's guts. Spite and schadenfreude are powerful motivators.

John McEnroe and Jimmy Connors, both of whom remain firm advocates of racquet-smashing and temper tantrums, know that better than most. Between 1977 and 1991, their rivalry was so visceral that it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to imagine that both players' training mostly consisted of chucking darts at a picture of the other. Consider the following from Connors: "Mac is the one player I can watch limping around the court and feel good about saying 'Fuck that guy'." Connors charmed.

They were not exclusively defined by each other. McEnroe will always be remembered for that tie-break in the 1980 Wimbledon final against Bjorn Borg. Yet his relationship with the Swede was never fractious, largely because they were so different – yin and yang, as McEnroe put it, whereas it was more yin and yin with Connors.

It seemed their relationship was doomed from the start. By the time McEnroe arrived on the scene, Connors, six years older than the Super Brat, had already won four grand slam titles and when they met for the first time, McEnroe was given the cold shoulder by his fellow American before their Wimbledon semi-final in 1977. "I grabbed my bag and rackets and walked past – no smile, no hello, no handshake, no acknowledgement of his existence." Connors won in four sets but soon he would know all about McEnroe.

The feisty Connors, 5ft 9in but scrappier than Scrappy Doo himself, did not have too many friends on the circuit but few opponents got to him as much as the younger, brasher McEnroe. They clashed because they were so similar and they clashed because they were so talented. "This was two alpha-males just going totally crazy," McEnroe said. Connors concurred: "I think we both have the same attitudes. He's aggressive, I'm aggressive." At least they could find some common ground there.

They brought the best out of each other and in grand slams, they never met before the semi-finals. When McEnroe won the US Open in 1979 and 1980, he reached the final after beating Connors. In 1982 Connors, seemingly on the wane, roused himself to beat McEnroe, who was the defending champion, in five sets at Wimbledon.

Two years later McEnroe, emphatically the best player in the world, trounced Connors in the final at SW19, the semi-final at Roland Garros and then needed five sets to get past the stubborn git in their semi-final at Flushing Meadows. Overall McEnroe's youth meant that he tended to have the upper hand in their duels and after their final match at an ATP event in Basel, he led their head-to-head record 20-14. Connors, though, won 109 titles to McEnroe's 77.

However nothing sums up their enmity better than an infamous incident in at the Michelob Light Challenge in Chicago in 1982. Connors won it in five sets but the match was made memorable by a row at the start of the fifth set when Connors, enraged by what he perceived to be time-wasting tactics from McEnroe, leapt over the net, walked purposefully over to his opponent and began wagging his finger in his face while giving him a piece of his mind. McEnroe mostly stayed impassive but from the way Connors was going on, you could have been mistaken for thinking it was championship point in the Wimbledon final. It definitely wasn't. It was an exhibition match. JS

Nigel Mansell and Nelson Piquet

Most people who start a new job are terrified that it's going to be like the first day of school, everyone will ignore them and no one will ever like them. Not Nelson Piquet, though. He simply went in with his studs off the ground and his fists in the air, labelling his new team-mate and long-time enemy, Nigel Mansell, an "uneducated blockhead" upon joining the Williams team in 1986. Nice to meet you, Mr Piquet, and here are the keys to your company car!

Placing Piquet and Mansell in such close proximity was an interesting move by Williams. The two men hated each other and both assumed that they would be the No1 driver – both were certainly talented enough for the coveted role – and Piquet even went as far to say he had been promised the lead slot, instantly throwing Mansell off course. Mansell had other ideas though and the pair of them fought each other so intensely that they ultimately allowed McLaren's Alain Prost to win the championship, in the style of two warring eejits failing to notice the woman they're fighting over walking out of the bar. JS

Merv Hughes v Michael Atherton

Everyone knows that when it comes to Australians there are none who stalk Michael Atherton's nightmares quite like Glenn McGrath. On 19 separate occasions it was McGrath who sent Athers packing, each one further firming the bond between the batsman and his bogeyman.

Yet if it was McGrath who most made Atherton question his abilities at the crease, then surely it was Merv Hughes who most made him question his desire to put on a pair of pads in the first place. The man known as Fruitfly took to Atherton in the way drunks take to kebabs; a full-on, ravenous assault that at times made the onlooker feel queasy.

"I'll bowl you a fucking piano you Pommie poof, let's see if you can play that," was the most famous sledge Hughes sent Atherton's way, during the 1989 Ashes series when the fast bowler with the famous 'tache specifically targeted a man taking his first steps in international cricket.

There was more of the same during the 1990-91 series and then again in 1993, when Hughes was at the peak of his powers and decided that as well as hurling abuse at Atherton, he was going to launch the ball at him as well.

You could call it bullying but there was something fundamentally hilarious about seeing a bear-sized Aussie with a love of lager and swear words take on a mild mannered, softly-spoken Englishman from Failsworth. What also made Hughes and Atherton's rivalry so memorable was the warmth that ultimately underpinned it. Having spat fury and f-words at Atherton over the course of three Ashes series and dismissed him on four occasions, Hughes admitted to having great admiration for his opponent, describing him as "a really good player" and the toughest batsman he had ever bowled to, alongside Sachin Tendulkar and Brian Lara.

For his part, Atherton never took the abuse too seriously and in his autobiography, Opening Up, described how he found Hughes to be "extremely affable in a cuddly toy sort of way", having befriended him during the 1989 series. "Afterwards," Atherton added, "I was able to laugh off his sledging." SN