When a late snap from Gary Buckenara put Western Australia ahead of Victoria in the 1986 State of Origin game, I feared the stands at Subiaco Oval were about to collapse under the weight of the thunderous thumping of rapturous fans.

Almost 40,000 supporters squeezed into the ageing Soviet-style concrete stadium on a Tuesday afternoon in July to watch the Sandgropers take on the Big V in what is widely regarded as one of the greatest interstate football matches.

Maybe it was because the ground was bulging at the seams with thousands of jittery, sugar-fuelled school kids and slightly sloshed Sandgropers, whose bosses had turned a blind eye to their midweek sickies – but I’ve never experienced an atmosphere like it.

There was a chaotic, Colosseum-like frenzy to the noise, without the gladiators or the lions. (If you think I’m dishing up a decent serving of hyperbolic hogwash, watch the last quarter to see why the game remains timeless.)

I’ve witnessed some incredibly dramatic, heroic and intoxicating sporting events, but the Victoria and WA clash left such a deep imprint on me.

I have curled up in the foetal position as 50,000-odd Celtic supporters threatened to beat the living bejesus out of Irish goalkeeper Paddy Bonner after he fumbled a ball against Rangers in an Old Firm derby. After loudly telling a Hoops fan that Bonner was doing an OK job, I sensed I was about to be eaten alive.

I have attended countless nail-biting AFL finals and braved the buffoonery of Bay 13 at the MCG during a Boxing Day Test with 70,000 fans, yet nothing compares to the spectacle of the 1986 Origin game.

Perhaps, with West Coast joining the expanded VFL competition the following year, both state teams sensed this would be their Rumble in the Jungle moment. As the WAFL become a second-grade competition because all the talented players were heading to Victoria, fans were also getting a glimpse of the AFL’s future.

Whatever the reason, and apologies to Hunter S Thompson, the game reached a “kind of peak that never comes again”.

A screenshot from an AFL highlights video as Tom Alvin and Dermott Brereton were among the goalkickers for the Big V against WA in 1986. Photograph: AFL

At the start of the match, Western Australia coach Ron Alexander took a gamble by playing bustling midfielder Brian Peake at full forward. Peake – who famously arrived at Kardinia Park by helicopter, where 3,000 fans awaited him after the Cats signed him in 1981 – had been in woeful form back in the WAFL.

Victoria coach Kevin Sheedy appeared to ignore Alexander’s obvious sleight of hand by refusing to play his best defenders, Gary Pert and Terry Daniher, against Peake.

The 1977 Sandover medallist finished the game with seven goals. Peake’s dominance was overshadowed by a blistering final quarter featuring seven lead changes and 14 goals. (Not to mention an absolute screamer from WA’s Andrew MacNish.)

The Big V looked to have the game won when Andrew Bews put them nine points up in the dying stages of the match. A sudden sombreness descended on the ground.

A minute later, MacNish received a dubious free kick in the goal square, bringing WA within a kick. Then came Buckenara’s brilliant snap over his shoulder, putting the Sandgropers three points ahead.

When the siren sounded moments later, the eruption of joy from the crowd shook the foundations of Subiaco Oval.

A game of this magnitude is often remembered for a defining moment. Wayne Blackwell, hurling his body on to the boot of Victoria’s Brian Royal to deny his shot on goal as the clock edged towards 33 minutes in the last quarter, provided a fitting end to an epic contest. Sheedy drily confessed the Big V was “beaten by a smother”.

WA champion Ross Glendinning said at the time: “I don’t know what a perfect game of footy is, but that was pretty close.”

A screenshot from an AFL highlights video as WA players and fans celebrate Gary Buckenara’s match-winning goal in the 1986 State of Origin clash with Victoria. Photograph: AFL

We didn’t know it then, but that was the high-water mark for Origin footy. The series dragged on haplessly for a few more years before dying in the 90s.

But this weekend, the Origin concept will be rebooted, with Victoria to face WA in Perth for the first time since 1992. Despite former players mocking the contest as nothing more than a bruise-free exhibition, the game has sold out.

Ignoring the marketing malarkey and the manufactured media soundbites designed to stoke an imaginary rivalry between the two states, the match will showcase all the theatrical trickery of the WWE.

There will be the ubiquitous jumper punches before the ball bounces and a few clumsy John Cena-type five-knuckle shuffles, but it will all be for show. Given the talent running around, there are bound to be some dazzling individual moments.

But the reality is AFL clubs treat their prized players like Kyawthuite, the rarest mineral on Earth, so they will be sternly instructed to go easy.

With the game selling out in January, the league’s leaders will be strutting around, patting themselves on the back. But these modern-day friendlies will never match the explosive energy and entertainment of the 1986 State of Origin clash. That peak will never come again.