Sportstar - My Personal Collection

This Hindu publication is the only surviving sports magazine in India today...

My earliest memories go back to 1986-87, when I first set sight on this magazine and started understanding the pictures in this magazine. I used to collect the centre-spreads and one-page posters. Our house used to have a huge pile of sportstar mags and I somehow managed to collect it and keep in a corner. I lost out on the old 1980's Reader's Digets though.

To just add on to the collection, I decided to buy the issues of Sportstar when there was a special occasion, say like the cricket world cup or the FIFA WC or the Olympics.

My prized collection includes,
the 1983 issue, where Kapil's Devils won the Prudential cup
1986 FIFA WC starring Maradona
1987 Reliance World Cup
1990 Italia FIFA WC
1992 Benson & Hedges Cup
1994 US FIFA WC
1996 Wills Cup
1998 Zidane WC
1999 South Africa
2002 Japan Korea WC
2003 India Whitewash in finals

I do not remember which all Olympics I have got covered. And to complement this I have this huge collection of posters, right from the footballing legends to the F1 legends (I did not understand this sport then), to the cricketing greats to some exquisitive tennis stars. All these magazines are neatly bound and will adorn my bookshelves once I have a bookshelf in my new home.

I started appreciating R Mohan, Vijay Lokapally and Rohit Brijnath over the years. Mohan quit the magazine and newspaper following the cricket betting controversy and only the other two remain. Also I rememeber another magazine coming up in the 90's called Sportsworld, which was more colourful and trendy. But somehow, I stuck to Sportstar. The latest avatar of Sportstar is of the tabloid size (la Mid-day) and is 8 bucks and not 10! It has a 2-page centre-spread and looks great and is a good read. Unfortunately, the cover story is of how they expect Rooney to do what Gazza couldnt do for England - win a World Cup!!! Well that looks unlikely following his injury .

The World Cup special issues of Sportstar are from next week and I hope to collect them!!!