Even now it remains a thing of wonder — a 70-yard thing of wonder that immediately shot into the chart of scarcely believable sporting feats.
Rugby’s answer to Bob Beamon’s prodigious gold medal-winning long jump at the 1968 Olympics, perhaps.
Such was the magnitude of Paul Thorburn’s fourth successful penalty kick for Wales against Scotland in 1986.
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The Welsh Rugby Union have since estimated that at its peak the strike sailed higher than four double-decker buses and travelled further than the length of the Cutty Sark’s hull.
Yet no drama had seemed on the agenda when Scotland were penalised for obstruction during the second period all those years ago. Wales were awarded a penalty around 10 metres inside their half not far from the left touchline. Nothing much looked on. The hosts were ahead 16-15 and the expectation was that the ball would be propelled into touch.
But Thorburn had other ideas.
In his book, Kicked Into Touch, he wrote: “To this day I don’t really know why I attempted that one. I just fancied it.
“I asked David Pickering, the Welsh captain, for the ball and I think that most of the players, let alone the crowd, thought I was going to punt for the corner.
“David muttered: ‘But it’s 70 yards.’”
But the distance didn’t faze the Wales No. 15. “I knew I was capable, since I’d kicked a few long ones for Ebbw Vale and Neath. When you feel right, you know it, and on that day everything was OK,” he said.
“‘You must be joking’,” I heard one of the players mutter behind me as I placed the ball some 10 metres inside the Welsh half as the Scots players, probably just as incredulous as my own team, lined up.”
"You won't believe this, but Paul Thorburn is going to attempt a goal,” Bill McLaren said from the TV commentary box. “It's miles to those goalposts.
“He is of course a big kicker. He scored 438 points last season for Neath, but this would be a monster.
“Thorburn, then - woooof. What a belt he's given it.”
Time seemed to stand still as the ball headed for the posts, appearing to travel through countless postcodes and veering close to the left-hand upright before making it over the bar. "That is amazing,” enthused McLaren, a Scot through and through yet scrupulously impartial. “I've seen all the great goalkickers in the world over the last decade, but I've never seen anything like this."
Thorburn raised both arms in the air in a triumphant salute to his father and brother in the crowd.
The kick was later measured as 70 yards eight and a half inches or 64.2 metres. Rugby balls were heavier in those days, making goal-kicking immeasurably more difficult, but Thorburn’s kick is still often put up as the longest in Test history. You can see the list of the longest kicks in rugby here.
How is this for a claim, though? The flame-haired full-back later queried whether it was actually his most prodigious effort in that game. “I don’t believe it was the longest of the day,” he said in Kicked Into Touch.
He promised to head for the Arms Park “some day” and measure the second distance penalty which went over, noting that “the ball was still very high as it went over the bar”.
Whatever, it’s the first kick that everyone celebrated.
It was a factor behind Thorburn almost securing a career in gridiron football ( you can read about that here ), with the Los Angeles Rams signing him as a trialist and Thorburn, after checking that his amateur status in rugby union wasn’t in danger of being compromised, featuring in a promotional game at Wembley against Denver Broncos.
A move into NFL would have been life-changing — of course it would. “The contracts those guys were on were incredible," explained Thorburn to WalesOnline later.
"I was only allowed to take part under the permission of the WRU because it was professional.
"I had approval but subject to me only receiving the standard travel expense allowance which was 14p a mile back then.
"And there was me sharing rooms with guys on multi-million contracts! It was a completely different world."
Anyway, the venture into such a strange new world via a one-game deal didn’t work out.
Thorburn was restricted to just one kick-off at Wembley as the Rams declined to switch things around in a tight game they eventually won 28-27.
The following year he was headline news back in rugby again, though, when he kept his nerve to seal a Triple Crown with a wonderful pressure kick against Ireland in Dublin.
By then he had a reputation for stepping forward when the heat was on, with memories still fresh of his clever offload to set up a late try for Adrian Hadley in the third-place encounter at the first World Cup and the touchline conversion that followed that won the game at 22-21.
Cometh the hour, cometh one of Welsh rugby’s most controversial figures.
Yet it’s for the events of February 1, 1986, that he’s most remembered.
In his book, he lamented having a reputation for being successful with long kicks, saying: “There are so many variables in long-distance attempts, but people have expected them to sail over without any problem at all.
“I suppose I brought it upon myself with that one long kick against Scotland in 1986.
“Believe me, there are times when I wished it had missed.
“Every kick now has its burden.”
Thirty-six years on, he can look back with pride on what happened that day.
He was always much more than a kicker with his steely nerve, great resolve and penchant for entering the line.
But great deeds deserve to be remembered, and no-one at the National Stadium that afternoon in the mid-1980s will ever forget Thorburn’s feat.
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