Imran Sherwani, who has died aged 63 of Alzheimer’s disease, was a star of the Great Britain hockey team that won Olympic gold in 1988 with a 3-1 win against West Germany in the final, a match in which he scored twice.
Sherwani’s second goal, which put the game beyond the opposition, came as he ran in behind the defence to knock in a cross from Stephen Batchelor – a breathless passage of play that led to a much-replayed piece of TV commentary from the BBC’s Barry Davies. Referring to the lack of marking on Sherwani, Davies asked: “Where were the Germans?” before abandoning any pretence of impartiality to add: “But frankly, who cares?”
Davies’s brief departure from objectivity was understandable, given that Sherwani’s decisive goal led Great Britain’s men to their first Olympic hockey gold since 1920. In nine Olympic Games subsequently, they have come nowhere near repeating that feat, with a best position of fourth.
At Seoul, where Sherwani played in all seven matches, Great Britain struggled in the early stages before pulling themselves together under the leadership of their forceful coach, Roger Self, a man who insisted on new levels of professionalism in his amateur charges and who was able to instil great self-belief in the squad.
In the final Sherwani scored the first goal of the game after rounding the keeper to put the ball past a defender on the line. His second came after a lung-busting run from the halfway line to get on the end of Batchelor’s superb cross from the byline, which had left the German goalkeeper in no man’s land and Sherwani with an open goal – although he still needed to keep his wits about him as a defender snapped at his heels.
The win, watched by millions of British TV viewers at breakfast time, briefly brought hockey to the forefront of the nation’s attention, with Sherwani and his fellow forward and goal scorer Sean Kerly, at the centre of the spotlight. Met by cheering fans at Heathrow on their return, they were given an audience with Queen Elizabeth II and Sherwani appeared on A Question of Sport, where Ian Botham asked for his autograph.
He brushed off his part in the drama with typical modesty. “The fact that I scored two in the final and had the famous commentary puts me to the fore, but it was very much a team effort,” he said.
Born in Stoke-on-Trent, he was the son of Asrar, who had moved to the UK from Pakistan at the age of 19, and his English wife, June (nee Hassell). Asrar had played representative hockey in Pakistan and in Stoke became a top player at the North Stafford club, coaching young Imran on the concrete back yard of the family property in Newcastle-under-Lyme.
At Marshlands high school in Wolstanton there was no hockey pitch, so Imran learned the game at home and at North Stafford, where he played his first competitive match as an 11-year-old. While studying in his late teens at City of Stoke-on-Trent sixth form college he progressed through county and national age-group sides until he won his first cap for the full England team at the age of 21 in 1983, by which time he had been picked up by a much bigger hockey club, Stourport in Worcestershire.
Scoring eight goals on the left wing in his first eight internationals, he quickly became an automatic selection for England, and in short order was included in the Great Britain squad for the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles. Having taken delivery of his team blazer and tracksuit, two weeks before the games he sustained a serious knee injury and was forced to pull out, although in his bitter disappointment he still flew out to the US to urge on his teammates as they secured a bronze medal.
After four separate knee operations Sherwani was back in action to play a key role for England as they finished runners-up in the 1986 World Cup and then the 1987 European Cup.
After the gold medal triumph at Seoul, Sherwani called time on his international career, having played 45 times for Great Britain and made 49 appearances for England, scoring 24 goals in all. Outside hockey he had initially worked as a police officer in Tamworth with the Staffordshire force, but in 1984 had moved into his father’s newsagents business in the Cobridge area of Stoke, and after the Olympics found that he needed to give more time to that venture.
He continued to play top-level club hockey at Stourport (with an interval at the Firebrands club in Bristol) until 1995, before moving down a level to join Leek as a player and coach, guiding them to promotion to the National League in 2003.
At his various clubs, which also included Stone (1984-87), Sherwani was always a popular team man, known for his warmth, selflessness and loyalty. Aside from his great talent at hockey he was an excellent cricketer, as well as an accomplished squash and tennis player. In 2012 he was chosen to carry the London Olympics torch as it passed through Stoke-on-Trent.
After quitting his newsagent business he spent more than a decade as an independent financial adviser before becoming a maths teacher and director of hockey at Denstone college, a school in Staffordshire. In 2019 he was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s disease.
Sherwani married Louise Nadine, whom he met while they were both working for Staffordshire police, in 1988, shortly after winning his gold medal. She survives him, as do their sons, Aaron, Zac and Joshua.
