Here is a brief, niche, post, which is actually what it appears to be. It is more interesting to me than to anyone else.
I just think there's something in who from the crossover, somewhat terrestrial but somewhat satellite, distant yet tangible, era of the 90s is still completely in the national conscious and who is, relatively speaking, somewhat forgotten.
The criteria would be that they would have to have been very very good at what they did, and, for a while, a regular part of British life, so not just people who were very good but not too well known at the time (eg. say, squash player Peter Nicol), and not people who were not that great but briefly flashed across our screens (eg Nil Lamptey).
1. Rory Underwood - I mean, like i say, "forgotten" is relative, but compared to other rugby players like Guscott, Dallaglio, Brian Moore etc ... Rory Underwood has done very little media, has a very small wikipedia entry, and he was probably one of Britain's greatest ever sportspeople, a try-scoring record holder by a vast margin and entirely central to a consistent, long period of success in English rugby. I noticed that, after his first two matches, England won every five-nations match in which he scored ...
2. Sally Gunnell - three times in the Top 3 of Sports Personality of the Year, an Olympic champion, a world champion, a world record holder, but, I'd say, not that highly remembered these days.
3. Robin Smith - was, alongside Graham Gooch, England's best batsman for half a decade, and incredibly entertaining, then it all came to an end pretty quickly.
4. Monica Seles - won three Grand Slams in a year, two years in a row. Perhaps she is not forgotten, as people remember the terrible thing that happened to her (being stabbed on court in her prime, putting her out of the game for two years) but I'm not sure it's remembered how dominant she'd become when that happened.
5. Andy Townsend (and to a lesser extent, Gary McAllister) - again, it's not so much that people wouldn't know who Andy Townsend is, as he's done lots of punditry, but I think, because his prime straddles the Football League and Premier League eras, because he's not English, people forget how good he was. He was one of the very best footballers in Britain for a decent chunk of time. This is also true of McAllister, but that's probably fairly well remembered in his case.
6. Simon Geoghegan - this is my main one, who I've banged on about before. Just missed the era of high-profile professionalism, had his career ended by injury, was bafflingly not picked for the Lions. Was utterly electrifying, if it had happened a few years later, would have been a massive star of rugby.
7. Tony Jarrett - because Colin Jackson was usually a bit better and has had a full media career, I think a top athlete like Tony Jarrett, who won two World Championship silvers and ran 13.00, has been pretty much forgotten. This could apply to quite a lot of very good athletes of that era, but I think he's the most consistently successful one.
8. Garry Schofield - I used to love the rugby league, and they'd show it all the time on the BBC, and while some of those stars, like Offiah and Shaun Edwards, are still pretty well known, Garry Schofield, who is the record appearance holder for Great Britain, is a name I haven't heard in a couple of decades.
9. Alton Byrd - they also used to show basketball lot, and this was a little American guy who played for Great Britain and for Kingston who seemed to dominate every game.
I thought of a few more, but it's a long way from a full list ...
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