The start of the Mexican Wave

Available for over a year

On 15 October 1981, at a baseball game between the Oakland Athletics and the New York Yankees in the USA, American cheerleader Krazy George Henderson got fans to stand up and sit down in sections around the stadium. Over the next few years, the cheer spread to supporters of other sports around the country. When crowds at the 1986 FIFA World Cup in Mexico joined in, it went global, earning the nickname the Mexican Wave. Rachel Naylor speaks to Krazy George about why he’d prefer we call it the Krazy Wave. Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive and testimony. Sporting Witness is for those fascinated by sporting history. We take you to the events that have shaped the sports world through the eyes of the people who were there. For nine minutes, you become a fan in the stands as we take you back in time to examine memorable victories and agonising defeats from all over the world. You’ll hear from people who have achieved sporting immortality, or those who were there as incredible sporting moments unfolded. Recent episodes explore the forgotten football Women’s World Cup, the plasterer who fought a boxing legend, international football’s biggest ever beating and the man who swam the Amazon river. We look at the lives of some of the most famous F1 drivers, tennis players and athletes as well as people who’ve had ground-breaking impact in their chosen sporting field, including: the most decorated Paralympian, the woman who was the number 1 squash player in the world for nine years, and the first figure skater to wear a hijab. You can learn all about fascinating and surprising stories, such as the tennis player who escaped the Nazis, how a man finally beat a horse in a race, and how the FIFA computer game was created. (Photo: Cheerleader Krazy George Henderson at an Oakland A's baseball game in 1982 at the Oakland Coliseum in California. Credit: David Madison / Getty Images)