There was no inkling of the monster it was going to grow into
Sportsmail rewinds 30 years to the first Premier League season – a riotous tale of fireworks, football, glitz and gimmicks
IT WAS billed as a whole new ball game, not that many of those involved in the Premier League’s first season 30 years ago fully grasped the scale of change coming to English football at the outset. ‘Most of us thought when it started, if we’re being brutally honest, that it was just the First Division with some fancy wrapping and a bit of rebranding. It was just football by another name,’ commentator Ian Darke remembers.
Many players echoed Darke’s sentiments, including Sportsmail’s Chris Sutton, then an emerging youngster at Norwich.
‘It was just top-flight football, and that was always the big deal for me. I didn’t really think about it being the Premier League,’ he says.
Former Blackburn goalkeeper Bobby Mimms adds: ‘ There was no inkling of what it was or the monster it was going to grow into.’
The Premier League’s status now as the biggest league in the world means those who plotted to form it, controversially at the time, can feel fully vindicated.
The concept was the brainchild of ‘ the big five’ back then: Manchester United, Liverpool, Everton, Arsenal and Tottenham, who wanted to make the old First Division’s 22 clubs separate from the 92-club Football League structure, form a new top division and claim a greater share of the game’s cash, which they felt English football’s biggest draws were entitled to.
It was a breakaway super league that had long-been threatened, and nobody could ultimately stop, though that is not to say there was no opposition and resentment.
AFTEr the declining interest and attendances sparked by the violence and hooliganism that marred English football in the 1980s, the post-1990 World Cup positivity provided a platform to build on.
Meanwhile, the league’s founders were searching for broadcast partners at the same time as Sky’s attempted satellite TV revolution was not going to plan.
Sky outbid ITV and shelled out £304million to show 60 games per season over the next five years, dwarfing the £44m ITV had paid in 1988 for the previous four-year deal. They badly needed their financial gamble to pay off.
Darke says: ‘Back then a kind of hard sell was needed to convert people because in plain, brutal commercial terms, they were trying to sell the satellite dishes.
‘If they hadn’t won the football rights I doubt Sky really would have been a sustainable operation. The whole empire depended on winning that deal.’
Not everyone was happy they did. ‘When they started Sky were regarded really as a bit of an outlier,’ Darke explains. ‘There was shock and revulsion now the game wasn’t going to be on terrestrial TV any more.
‘Everybody was outraged that this channel that they had hardly heard of, had come in and bought the rights for an astronomical sum of money. People and even maybe the players too, were pretty anti-Sky Sports and this change, particularly about having to play on Monday nights.
‘I remember a Southampton v Manchester United game, the second Monday Night Football. I went to the Manchester United hotel. In those days, Sir Alex Ferguson might perhaps have a coffee with you and give you the team. It didn’t happen every week but if he was in the right mood — and that happened for that game.
‘As I was walking out Neil Webb and a couple of the others said to me, “Why are we having to play Monday nights? What’s this about? We played on Saturday. It’s mad”. I had to explain to them, “Look, I wasn’t in charge of the scheduling. Apologies if there was any problem but the clubs have done this deal…”’
Darke remembers doubters having ‘daggers drawn’ but that ‘the quality of product, the introduction of the sort of coverage that is now a given, won plaudits and praise’, and soon dispelled fears.
NEEDING something drastic to make their plan work, inspired by American sport, Sky revolutionised coverage of English football.
David Hill, Sky’s head of sport and ‘an innovative, brusque but likeable Australian’, saw that showing games on Mondays — ‘a bit of a dead night on TV’ — had worked in the US.
Darke says: ‘The first Monday night game was Manchester City v QPr at Maine road. David Hill was in the tunnel before the game and he says, “Don’t f*** this up Darkey”. I thought, “No pressure then!”’
The Sunday offering was also overhauled and shown from the beginning of the season. Viewers were treated to significantly more in-depth, innovative coverage.
Meanwhile, a cheerleading team, the Sky Strikers, became part of the pre-match and half-time entertainment for televised matches.
Fireworks displays, bizarre battles between giant inflatables, match ball-delivering parachutists
‘At Arsenal they hired a band called The Shamen, but they were Spurs fans and got booed off stage!’
and band performances were among other gimmicks trialled.
‘It felt like we were trying to become a bit Americanised but it was good and exciting what they were trying to do to showcase the league,’ Sutton said. ‘Looking back it was great to be part of.’
Inevitably there were teething problems. Darke laughs: ‘One day at Arsenal they hired a band called The Shamen who were top of the charts with Ebeneezer Goode. What they hadn’t realised is all the kids knew they were Spurs fans so when they started to play, they were just booed off stage.
‘We had to sort of say, “Well, that worked well, didn’t it!” There were a few red faces and awkward questions in the Sky marketing department after that.’
The Sky Strikers were popular though. Darke says: ‘I remember being in the tunnel at Norwich
when the Sky Strikers were around. A couple of the Norwich players — I won’t mention their names — came up to me and said, “Do you know where those Sky Strikers are staying tonight? Are they staying in Norwich?”
‘We had a Sky Sports Football Christmas party in Norwich one night and all the Norwich players found out where it was somehow and turned up because they thought the Sky Strikers were going to be there!’
The promotional campaign showcased the new glitz and glamour. Along with a team photo featuring one player from each of the 22 founder clubs, the highlight was the unforgettable TV advert.
The likes of David Seaman, Tim Flowers, Bruce Grobbelaar, Darren Anderton, Vinnie Jones and Tim Sherwood all starred in the It’s a Whole New Ball Game
ad. Simple Minds’ Alive and Kicking was the soundtrack. While some of the acting might have been questionable, the end product is a part of Premier League history.
Former Aston Villa winger Tony Daley said: ‘I had to do a scene with John Wark of Ipswich in the so-called showers pumping iron, stuff like that, and it was hilarious. I got such a ribbing when the ad was played from my team-mates. They would say, “What are you doing with your little pigeon chest out, doing biceps curls and things like that? Are you sure? Look at the state of you”.
‘It’s quite ironic because I’m a fitness coach now!’
Former Palace winger John Salako, who also featured, says: ‘When you saw the finished product, I felt very proud to be part of that initial first advert. Every now and then people bring it up and they show it. It’s just a very special thing to be involved in.’
AFTEr years of planning and all the hype, the opening day arrived on August 15, 1992.
In contrast to today’s cosmopolitan league, only 14 of the 242 players who started in the first round of games were foreign, compared to 130 last season — while 16 of the managers were English and the remaining six Scottish.
On the pitch, the first weekend was a sign of things to come during the debut season — strikers were central to its story.
Four minutes and 36 seconds in, Sheffield United’s Brian Deane scored the first Premier League goal against Manchester United.
At Arsenal, Sutton remembers: ‘We were 2-0 down and 15 minutes into the second half Mike Walker made an inspired substitution — he took me off, put Mark robins on and Norwich end up winning 4-2. robins scored a brilliant chip and we were off and running.’
At Crystal Palace, £3.6m English record signing Alan Shearer was showing his Blackburn teammates what the fuss was about.
‘In pre- season he didn’t show any of the form that warranted that type of fee,’ Mimms smiles.
‘Alan will be first to admit he hated running. I’ve only beaten one person on the longer running because I’m no athlete and Alan is that man.
‘Then when the balls come out, God he can run. As soon as the season started — what a player. The first game, he smashed two in from outside the box and you’re thinking, “We’ve got a player here”.’
The next day Teddy Sheringham notched the first live televised Premier League goal, firing Nottingham Forest to a 1- 0 Ford Super Sunday win against Liverpool. It was his final Forest goal before a £ 2.1m move to Tottenham, where he scored 21 more to win the golden boot.
According to former team-mate roy Keane, the sale led to Forest’s demise and eventual relegation, confirmed on an emotional May day that doubled as legendary manager Brian Clough’s final home game in charge.
Buoyed by the opening day victory at Arsenal, Norwich were the surprise Premier League pace setters until the end of December.
In November, Manchester United signed Eric Cantona from defending champions Leeds, a shock £1.2m capture that transformed their season and beyond.
Former United right back Paul Parker said: ‘Steve Bruce and Gary Pallister said good things about him to the boss after going up against him at Leeds — and the boss listened. Good managers, top managers, listen.
‘Manchester United’s first title was predominantly about Eric Cantona. He raised everyone, got the fans really believing that it was going to be that season. No other player in that era could have walked into a football club and did what he did.’
Eighth when Cantona joined, United went top for the first time in early January after the Frenchman inspired them to a swashbuckling 4-1 win over Spurs.
‘Sir Alex wasn’t keen on London teams,’ Parker, who scored his only United league goal that day, chuckles. ‘I don’t know why he just kept wanting to tell me and Paul Ince how he hated them and losing to them.
‘ He would have been really smiling because to beat Spurs and go top of the league as well would have made his weekend.’
Shortly before that on Boxing Day, Shearer suffered the seasonending knee injury against Leeds which robbed then second-placed Blackburn of their best hope of remaining challengers.
‘That injury put us on the back foot,’ Mimms recalls of the setback for 16- goal Shearer. ‘ You lose Alan’s goals out of the team and it is difficult to replace.’
Hard as it is to imagine now, it was not until February that the Premier League’s first sacking came when the late Ian Porterfield was replaced as Chelsea manager by David Webb in what, equally incredibly, was the only managerial change during the season.
‘The first time I’ve ever heard of that is when you just said that,’ a stunned Webb said. ‘I’ve got a badge now. I scored a winning goal in the 1970 FA Cup final and was the first manager to replace a sacked manager!’
Without Shearer, Blackburn’s form suffered while United, Norwich and Aston Villa took turns to occupy top spot until a defining week in April.
In a Monday night fixture United travelled to Norwich and all but ended the Canaries’ title hopes. Sutton said of the eventual 3-1 loss: ‘They wiped the floor with us. It was 3-0 at half-time, I was centre half and watching back I made some terrible decisions.’
Though having nearly been relegated the previous year, losing every pre- season game and starting among the relegation favourites Norwich’s third-placed finish — the highest for a team with a negative goal difference — was a remarkable story.
Sutton says: ‘Looking back you think, “Blimey it would have been lovely to take that next step”. We were a good team though maybe we never had that necessary mentality and belief within, but there was a nice freedom about the club and the way we played.’
United followed their Norwich win with their most dramatic
victory of the season against Sheffield Wednesday thanks to two late Steve Bruce headers, including a 96th-minute winner.
Parker said: ‘It was a huge day. The boss might have made one of his best ever managerial decisions in that game — he took me off to bring an extra forward on and all of a sudden it all changed.
‘It was one of those games when you know something was meant to be. If it didn’t happen against Sheffield Wednesday all the bad memories of Easter the previous season (United won just one point from four games in eight days) and Leeds won the Championship we would have been revisited. A defeat would have been a nightmare mentally.’
Instead United staged the comeback that helped create the legend of Fergie Time.
Parker added: ‘There are always little margins that make a difference, maybe in a lifetime, and that Sheffield Wednesday game added to Manchester United’s already great history. Those two Steve Bruce goals, if that didn’t happen, so much after could have all gone completely wrong.’
United did not look back, remaining top and were handed the title after nearest challengers Villa lost at home against Oldham to spoil the hoped-for script of the first title being sealed on Monday Night Football.
Darke says. ‘I was commentating on the Sunday and Martin Tyler was going to do the Monday one instead as the No 1 commentator to do United’s big crowning moment but it was something of an anti-climax.’
Bruce, it turns out, also was not overly- impressed with the commemorative mini- Premier League trophies United were given instead of medals for winning the first title, which were made by respected jewellers Asprey and cost about £1,400 each.
‘He said, “It looks like an effing darts trophy”,’ Parker laughs. ‘But once you put them inside the blue box it looks proper. It’s a bit different to a normal medal and that’s what makes it stand out.’
United’s joy at ending their 26-year title wait was in stark contrast to Crystal Palace’s pain as they were relegated at Arsenal on the final day despite finishing on 49 points, joining Middlesbrough and Forest in going down as Oldham produced an inspired run of final-week form to pull off a miraculous escape and survive on goal difference.
Salako recalls: ‘We won our last home game and did a parade on the pitch, convinced we had done enough but by the end of the next week (after Oldham won their last three games) it was heartbreak. So devastating to go down from the Premier League because it is the magic circle, the cream and where everyone wants to play.’
And 30 years on that definitely has not changed.