HALL OF FAME
PLAN... JOHN WRAGG BLASTS THE PREMIER LEAGUE’S LATEST
John Wragg’s not impressed
HERE we go again, the Premier League getting too big for its new and expensive boots. They are starting a Hall of Fame, if you can be that famous inside 28 largely money-grabbing years.
The awful coronavirus slowed plans thought to be Alan Shearer and Thierry postponed.
Suppose it is too late for the Premier League to cancel their monument to self-glory altogether?
There is already a football Hall of Fame in this country. It’s been going a while. Football in this country has been going a while. There is no need for this infantile extra room full of recent memorabilia.
Whatever is placed in the Premier League Hall of Fame, it certainly won’t be antique.
Not like the 1872 shirt- more like a jersey, it’s so woollen and heavy - from against Scotland (a goalless draw in Glasgow in November that year) that’s in the current Hall of Fame together with a cap from that match.
FA Cup winning medals from era after era are in the museum in Manchester.
There’s the Airtex shirt Bobby Moore swapped with Pelé at the 1970 World Cup.
The vast collection of exhibits and memorabilia on display at the current Hall of Fame is world-class.
centre and the shirt referee Howard is there
This Hall of Fame moved at a cost of £8.5m from Preston North End’s Deepdale ground to increase visitors and accommodate more exhibits.
On show are 2,500 items out of 140,000 held in the museum archives.
child, free if you are from the city of Manchester. Compare that to what you have to pay now to watch Premier League games on the telly on what is often not a Super Sunday.
There is no need for another Hall of Fame.
Frank Lampard, Roy Keane, Ryan
Giggs (he should be in there for his FA expected to be early members.
“The Premier League has been home generations and provided us with compelling football season after season.
“A place in the Premier League Hall of Fame is reserved for the very best,” says Premier League chief executive Richard Masters.
I wonder what the old secretary of the Football League, Alan Hardaker, would have said about that. He ruled for 20 years, lost the battle with Jimmy Hill to keep the lid on players’ wages, denied TV coverage saying “regular live football would undermine the game’s health” and prevented Chelsea entering the European Cup in the 1950s.
Look where we are now.
The Premier League exists on hype and a huge pile of TV money.
It does not deserve a Hall of Fame. All the Premier League is trying to do, yet again, is rewrite football history.
The Premier League wants to brainwash the country into believing football started in 1992. Their Hall of Hype is aimed at wiping out the Football League’s history.
Of course the Premier League has got a sponsor, everything they do is backed by lots of pound notes.
Budweiser are picking up this tab. “We are passionate about football and so are our consumers so we couldn’t be prouder to celebrate sport and the players’ legacies with the Premier League Hall of Fame,” says Steve Arkley, global vice-president of Budweiser marketing.
This sums up the Premier League, could double as a quote for sponsoring dog food. Just change the detail where required.
It cannot be allowed to succeed. What are the Premier League going to put in there? It’s hardly going to be a recognition of diversity.
Manchester United have won their league 13 times. Put up a plaque.
chester City four, Arsenal three, Blackburn one, Leicester one, Liverpool one.
A room each should be dedicated to Blackburn and Leicester, the two clubs who broke the boredom of the big guns winning everything.
Membership of their Hall of Fame is billed by the Premier League as the highest individual honour awarded to players by the League.
Each player inducted will get a personalised medal. It should sit nicely on the shelf next to the keys to the Lamborghini.
In the original, existing Hall of Fame there’s the shirt Diego Maradona wore when he scored his “Hand of
God” goal for Argentina in the against England.
Near it is the iconic yellow cotton Brazil shirt Mexico 1970 World Cup.
There’s a Pelé shirt, Sir Stanley Matthews’ shirt, Nobby Stiles’ 1966 long red sleeve one from when he danced on the Wembley turf like a happy leprechaun, and one from George Best, the best player I ever saw live.
Beatle off the pitch; a football God on it.
How will the Premier
League Hall of Fame com