2 England’s 1966 team
How times have changed. After England’s football World Cup win, the authorities laid on a victory reception for the team: help yourself, lads, take as many Twiglets as you like. No wives were invited, and certainly no girlfriends (although Jack Charlton, as a treat, was allowed to bring along his kid brother, Bobby). The other-halves had to watch proceedings on closed-circuit television in an adjoining room. Today, everybody wants to meet England’s rugby stars, but it was different then. When Nobby Stiles, Alan Ball, John Connelly and their partners tried to get into the Playboy Club, they were told to stand behind a rope while somebody found a photographer. Nobby’s response? The second word was “off”. The players received £1,000 a man for their efforts (the West Germans got 10 times that). And as for an MBE, Nobby had to wait until 1999, along with Ball, Roger Hunt, Ray Wilson and George Cohen

3 America’s Cup
No nation enjoys winning trophies as much as Australia. So imagine how it felt in 1983, when they lifted sailing’s grandest prize, held by the Americans since 1851. Tycoon Alan Bond had decided to spend whatever it took to win, and the result was Australia II, with its revolutionary winged keel. After falling 3-1 behind, Australia II stormed to a 4-3 win. The boat was declared a national treasure, but not Bond. He went bankrupt in 1992 and was jailed for fraud

4 Muhammad Ali
It was obvious when a young boxer called Cassius Clay won gold at the 1960 Olympics that he was a future heavyweight world champion. We knew because he told us. A lot. With all his talent, Clay expected doors to open for him, but racial prejudice still cut deep then in America. At his local diner he was told, “Sorry, we don’t serve blacks.” The future Muhammad Ali was wearing his medal at the time. He walked straight out of the diner and tossed the medal in the river

5 Andres Escobar
After scoring the own goal that put Colombia out of the 1994 World Cup in the US, defender Andres Escobar did not expect cheering crowds when he returned home. But nobody could have foreseen the horror that lay in wait. Ten days after deflecting a cross into his own net, Escobar was sitting in his car in Medellin when a man pushed a gun through the window and shot him 12 times. According to one report, the killer sneered, “Thanks for the goal.” A gambler who lost heavily on the match is said to have hired Escobar’s assassin

6 Steve Redgrave
Rowing used to be something people watched from a Pimm’s tent. Steve Redgrave’s first three Olympic gold medals were greeted with polite indifference. After the fourth, we raised an eyebrow in admiration. “If you ever see me getting into a boat again,” said Redgrave, “you have my permission to shoot me.” Luckily, our small-bore rifle shooters weren’t up to the job, so Redgrave was able to fly to Sydney and win his fifth gold. Crowds lined the streets, even though they probably didn’t know their rowlocks from their coxless pairs, and Sir Steve, as he became, was presented with a new Jaguar by his wife

7 New York Yankees
They were hanging from the windows, clinging to lampposts, perched on trees and lining the streets of New York in their thousands for the ticker-tape parade to end them all when the Yankees celebrated their 2000 World Series victory. Mayor Rudolph Giuliani gave each player a key to the city, and it’s estimated that two tonnes of paper rained down on manager Joe Torre and his team. But spare a thought for one of the policemen on duty: an over-enthusiastic fan threw a New York phone book out of an office window, breaking the unfortunate officer’s nose

8 Celtic
The sound of Celtic’s success in 1967 can still be heard on the streets of Lisbon in the form of a distinct Glaswegian lilt. Legend has it that the party after the 2-1 European Cup final win against Internazionale was so good that some Celtic supporters never made it home. There was plenty to celebrate as the green-and-whites became the first British team to win Europe’s top prize. According to the pundits, Jock Stein’s boys weren’t even supposed to reach the final, let alone stand a chance of bringing back the trophy, which was lifted by Billy McNeill. When they returned in triumph from Lisbon, Glasgow went wild. Well, half of Glasgow went wild. Celtic’s greatest day was pure agony for supporters of Rangers, who a few days later saw their team defeated in the Cup-Winners’ Cup final

9 Italy
Not every homecoming team wants to find a crowd at the airport. Italy’s 1966 squad were among the favourites to win the World Cup, but were knocked out of the competition by North Korea in front of 18,000 fans at Ayresome Park. The Koreans had previously lost to the Soviet Union and drawn against Chile, but scored through Pak Doo Ik in the first half and, incredibly, held on for a 1-0 victory. They went on to lead Portugal 3-0 in the quarter-final before Eusebio turned things around and inspired a remarkable fightback. The Portuguese eventually won 5-3. The star-studded Italy team, meanwhile, flew home in disgrace and was pelted with tomatoes by irate fans at the airport. Still, given Italian tempers, it could have been a lot worse. At least the tomatoes weren’t tinned

10 Haile Gebrselassie
The Olympic distance runner is a hero in his homeland. Imagine a combination of David Beckham, Jonny Wilkinson and Harry Potter, and you’ll get somewhere close to working out how popular he is in Ethiopia. After winning 10,000m gold at the 1996 Olympics, he was feted not just in the capital, Addis Ababa, but throughout the country. And following his spectacular victory at the Games in Sydney four years later, his plane home was escorted into Ethiopian airspace by MiG fighters.

Gebrselassie says he wants to enter politics when his athletics career is over. Alas, runners rarely make good politicians. Tell us, Haile, have you ever heard of a chap called Jeffrey Archer?