Particle accelerators with energies necessary to observe neutral current interactions and to measure the mass of boson weren't available until 1983.
2.
The discovery of the W and Z bosons was considered a major success for CERN . First, in 1973, came the observation of neutral current interactions as predicted by electroweak theory.
3.
Interestingly, the "'V " A "'theory was developed before the discovery of the Z boson, so it did not include the right-handed fields that enter in the neutral current interaction.
4.
At these energies, neutral current interactions appear as a shower of hadronic debris and charged current interactions are identified by the presence of the charged lepton's track ( possibly alongside some form of hadronic debris . ) A muon produced in a charged current interaction leaves a long penetrating track and is easy to spot.