IN 1987, Hampshire football team Aldershot become the first club to win promotion through the new Football League playoffs.

Coventry City won the FA Cup for the first time after beating Tottenham Hotspur 3-2 in the final, and Arsenal won the Football League Cup with a 2-1 win over Liverpool, earning them their first major trophy in eight years.

Peter Beardsley became the most expensive player transferred between British clubs when he completed a £1.9 million move from Newcastle to Liverpool.

It was the same year as a plethora of disasters struck, including the sinking of the ferry MS Herald of Free Enterprise, the Hungerford massacre, the Great Storm, the Remembrance Day Bombing and the King’s Cross fire.

In January most of Britain was caught in the icy grip of sub zero temperatures. Heavy snowfall left many houses and towns stranded and blocked.

Terry Waite, the special envoy of the Archbishop of Canterbury in Lebanon, disappeared in Beirut while negotiating the release of hostages. He was released four years later in 1991.

The Channel Tunnel was given the go-ahead on July 29, after Margaret Thatcher and Francois Mitterrand ratified the Treaty of Canterbury. The Chunnel was opened in 1994.