Ferdinand Alexander Porsche

Ferdinand Alexander Porsche, who has died aged 76, created the Porsche 911, the vehicle of choice for many sports car enthusiasts and macho, upwardly mobile young plutocrats.

Ferdinand Alexander Porsche standing next to a 911 Carrera 2 3.6 Coupe from 1992. 

The car was first introduced in 1963, when “FA” (as Ferdinand Alexander was known) was in charge of the company’s design studio. It was conceived as a replacement for the Porsche 356, and was notable for his long bonnet, sloping teardrop roof line and potent rear engine; whereas the 356 had a four-cylinder engine, the new model was six-cylinder. The 911 (which is now in its seventh version) was originally designated 901, but the number had to be changed, as Peugeot claimed a patent on names with a zero in the middle.

Ferdinand Alexander Porsche was born in Stuttgart on December 11 1935, the grandson of Ferdinand Porsche (1875-1951), who founded the eponymous firm in 1931, created the Volkswagen Beetle and contributed to the development of Germany’s wartime tanks and the V-1 flying bomb. His son Ferry (FA’s father) became chairman of the company.

After attending school in Stuttgart, FA studied at the Ulm School of Design and joined the family business in 1958 as an apprentice in the technical design department, where he immersed himself in the principles of aerodynamics, engine-building and styling. The Porsche 356, meanwhile, had been in production since 1950, and Ferry was contemplating a replacement. This was FA’s chance, and he came up with the new model, which was introduced at a motor show in 1963, by which time he was head of design.

Not only was the 911 more powerful than its predecessor, it also had more room in front and in the back (it was introduced as a four-seater), and bigger doors. Also, the body of the car had a simpler, sleeker look. FA always considered himself more of a designer than an engineer, and insisted: “Design must be functional, and functionality must be translated into visual aesthetics, without any reliance on gimmicks that have to be explained.”

So successful was the 911 that the company has continued to produce evolved versions of it ever since. The most recent model was unveiled at the Frankfurt motor show last September.

From the beginning the car was a successful competitor in major sports car events, such as the Daytona and Targa Florio. In 1979, the 935 turbo took the Grand Prix d’Endurance at Le Mans, with Porsches filling seven of the first 10 places.

In 1972 FA established his own business, Porsche Design Studio, making watches, sunglasses, luggage and pens.

He served as chairman of Porsche AG from 1990 to 1993, helping to steady the firm as sales dipped in the late 1980s under pressure from global competition .

Ferdinand Alexander Porsche, born December 11 1935, died April 5 2012

Jocky Wilson

Jocky Wilson , who has died aged 62, was the world darts champion in 1982 and 1989, and one of the game’s most engaging and popular characters.

Jocky Wilson: 1950 - 2012 

He looked the part, being short, stout and pasty. Sweets had rotted away his teeth by the time he was 28 (“But I can manage just about anything with my gums”), and his championship wins, which took place before the authorities attempted to sanitise the game by banning the on-stage consumption of alcohol, were fuelled by buckets of lager, chased down by vodka-and-coke. This intake only served to emphasise his phenomenal skill and hand-eye co-ordination.

Above all he will be remembered for his rivalry with Eric “The Crafty Cockney” Bristow, against whom Wilson secured his second World Championship title in dramatic fashion. Having raced to a 5-0 lead (needing six sets to win), Wilson appeared in total control, only for his confidence visibly to falter as Bristow, with nothing to lose, mounted a comeback. On several occasions Wilson was within a dart or two of clinching victory, only to miss and allow Bristow to claw his way closer. Bristow was himself within a whisker of tying the match at 5-5 when Wilson finally hit the double 10 he needed, and sank to his knees in relief.

Wilson’s first championship victory, 5-3 against the number two seed, John “Stone Face” Lowe, had come seven years earlier, on January 16 1982. “I sunk double 16 to win, and I was champ. I was drained of effort and just about in tears,” Wilson recalled. He gave his winning darts to a friend and the bars of his homeland echoed to a new ditty: “He’s 16 stone of fat and pain, / When he steps up the oche. / When he throws the spears you can hear the cheers / For Fife’s wee hero Jocky”.

John Thomas Wilson, known to all as Jocky, was born at Kirkcaldy, Fife, on March 22 1950. Educated locally, he took what jobs he could while developing his darting skills, mainly at the Lister Bar in the Lang Toun. When not there he worked in a fish processing plant and as a miner at the Seafield Colliery.

He was jobless when, in 1979, he won his first substantial prize in darts, the Butlin’s Grand Masters, which earned him £500. The sum rendered him ineligible for unemployment benefit, and his course was set. By the end of that year he was ranked in the top eight in the world.

His World Championship title in 1982 (when he also won the British Open Championship) came at a time when darts was arguably at its most popular. Millions watched on television and Bristow was fast becoming the game’s first celebrity – largely because of his cocksure determination to wind up his opponents and their fans. Above all he liked to wind up the Scots, making for a friendly rivalry with Wilson that last throughout the 1980s.

Wilson was the first Scot to win the world title, and reached the semi-finals in the following two years, and again in 1987, and the quarter-finals in 1985. 1986 and 1988.

In March 1987, against the American Bud Trumbower, he polished off a 1001-point leg in a remarkable 24-darts. In doing so, he scored 600 points with his first 12 arrows and finished with 60-20-40 to average 41.7 points per dart. Only occasionally did the booze obviously effect his game. In 1984 he was well in control of his World Championship semi-final against Dave Whitcombe, only to lose narrowly after sinking a prodigious number of pints. As Whitcombe walked backed from the dartboard to shake his opponent’s hand, Wilson was nowhere to be seen. He had fallen off the stage.

It was not too long before such antics began to attract the wrong kind of publicity, with broadcasters objecting to the game’s beer-swilling, working men’s club image. Old-school darts, and particularly players like Wilson, looked out of touch. His response was to observe: “If darts come off TV for good than I’m off to Japan to take up Sumo Wrestling.” Instead he joined several other players in a breakaway from the ruling British Darts Organisation, to form the World Darts Council. But this only led to a painful schism in British darts, with legal action that rumbled through the 1990s. Many players suffered bans, including Wilson.

This effectively ended his career. Legal costs bankrupted him and the pressure doubtless contributed to the high blood pressure, diabetes and depression from which he suffered. He was teetotal from 1993, and though a new slimline Jocky Wilson briefly emerged, he was fast retreating into his shell. His last match came in 1995 at a Butlin’s holiday camp in Ayr.

Though many tried to tempt him back to the oche, at least for well-paid exhibition matches, if not competitions, he chose to stay in his one-bedroom Kirkcaldy council flat, living on £67.50 incapacity benefit, and hardly going out.

In 1996 Wilson was elected to the Darts Hall of Fame. But he was only tracked down and presented with his plaque two years later, when he was mentioned on a website that listed Kirkcaldy’s favourite sons. His name was associated with merchandise including sets of darts and computer games, but Wilson himself remained doggedly out of sight, though he claimed, when asked, to be contented. His absence was mourned not least by his old foe, Eric Bristow: “I miss him. He was good for the game”.

Jocky Wilson is survived by his wife, Malvina, with whom he had two sons and a daughter.

Jocky Wilson, born March 22 1950, died March 24 2012

Giorgio Chinaglia

Giorgio Chinaglia, who has died aged 65, began his footballing career as a boy in inner-city Cardiff but ended it playing alongside Pele and Franz Beckenbauer; in the meantime he became one of the greatest stars in the history of the Italian club Lazio.

Georgio Chinaglia 

Adored by the Lazio fans, Chinaglia was a volatile figure whose antics frequently got him into trouble. Once, when he visited a cinema, he was recognised by a fan of Lazio’s great rivals Roma. The fan mouthed an insult at Chinaglia, who did not react until the lights were dimmed; then he punched the man in the face.

When he was substituted while playing for Italy against Haiti in a World Cup group match in 1974, Chinaglia stormed down the tunnel, broke down the dressing room door and smashed eight mineral water bottles against the wall. It was the end of his international career.

Giorgio Chinaglia was born in Carrara, Tuscany, on January 24 1947, but when he was eight his family emigrated to Wales, his father later opening an Italian restaurant in Cardiff. Giorgio was educated at St Mary’s Catholic School in the Canton district of the city, and as a teenager was taken on by Swansea Town, where he soon exhibited his unpredictable temperament: when the club’s handyman asked him to help with a painting job, the young player picked up the paint tin and flung its contents against the wall of the stand.

In 1966 he returned to his native country, playing first for Massese before being talent-spotted in 1969 by Lazio. The turning point of his career came in 1971 when the club, relegated to Serie B, appointed Tommaso Maestrelli manager. Under Maestrelli, Chinaglia prospered, scoring 21 times as the team won promotion to Serie A.

In the 1973-74 season Chinaglia scored 24 goals, helping Lazio to secure their first ever Scudetto (Serie A championship). In 209 appearances for Lazio between 1969 and 1976, he scored 98 times, and has since been voted the club’s favourite player by Lazio’s fans.

In his 14 appearances for Italy, he was on the scoresheet on four occasions, but is perhaps best remembered in Britain for setting up the winning goal for Fabio Capello when the Azzurri beat England 1-0 in a friendly at Wembley in November 1973.

In 1976 Chinaglia moved to America to play for the New York Cosmos, where he turned out alongside a host of ageing stars including Pele, Beckenbauer, the Dutchman Johan Neeskens, Brazil’s Carlos Alberto and the Belgian Francois van der Elst.

There is a famous story that Chinaglia once complained that his team-mates were failing to provide him with adequate service on the pitch. When Pele replied that the striker was shooting from impossible angles, Chinaglia shouted: “I am Chinaglia. If I shoot from a place, it’s because Chinaglia can score from there.” It is claimed that Pele left the dressing room in tears.

Poor service or not, Chinaglia scored a remarkable 242 goals in 254 matches for the Cosmos, making him the North American Soccer League’s all-time leading scorer; he won four NASL titles with the team. In 2000 he was admitted to the US Soccer Hall of Fame.

After retiring as a player, Chinaglia served as president of Lazio from 1983 to 1985.

Chinaglia became an American citizen in 1979 and lived there following allegations that an organised crime ring tried to buy Lazio in 2006; at the time he was one of nine people for whom Italian authorities issued arrest warrants on charges of extortion and insider trading, but in the event he was never detained.

Latterly he worked as a radio show host. He died in Florida after suffering a heart attack.

Giorgio Chinaglia is survived by his wife, Angela, and five children, three of them from his first marriage.

Giorgio Chinaglia, born January 24 1947, died April 1 2012