The new season kicked off Friday night of course with the Arsenal beating Leicester City 4-3 at the Emirates, a thrilling affair for the neutral and armchair supporter tuning in for the new campaign. The Premier League began in 1992/93 so this new season is the 25th anniversary, the silver anniversary if you like, for what has become the most popular league in the world. Not the best but the most popular.
In England a generation of fans will have no idea what football was like before the Premier League was vomited forth from a number of the bigger clubs, including the Arsenal, and a TV company desperately short of subscribers. From little acorns and all that. Today the Premier League us arguably more popular outside of England than it is in its own country and pre season tours have become the norm to allow the minted clubs to meet their fawning consumers in far flung places.
Before the Premier League football was not necessarily better and neither was the match day experience. Brawls on the terraces, in the streets or at the railway station were not everyone's cup of tea though many were forced to witness the ugly scenes. Stadiums were slowly being upgraded though so at least we could watch games in a degree of comfort though the enforced introduction of all seated stadia brought in post Hillsborough wasn't welcomed by everyone.
You could though wake up in the morning and decide to go to the game, all ticket affairs were few and far between on the whole, and you could be in the same part of the ground as your mates. Ticket prices were also pretty reasonable, in the last season before the Premier League began Arsenal were charging from GBP 10 - 20 for a seat ticket and GBP 8 to stand.
The last season before the Premier League was 1991/92. It also marked the last time an English coach, Howard Wilkinson, would guide a team, Leeds United in this case, to the title. On the dawn of the new era Liverpool had 18 titles to their name, Arsenal had 10 and the next best, with seven, was Everton. Boy, how that has changed! Manchester City and Chelsea were the also rans of also rans, not world behemoths powered by the deep pockets of foreign oligarchs and sheikhs.
But if as football fans you thought we were wetting our collective boxer shorts at the thought of this super duper new football league you would be wrong. As an Arsenal fan I was more concerned about the North Bank being demolished. I had returned to England in time for the start of the season and went to a few games but I didn't like what I was hearing. Supporters were being asked to hand over in excess of GBP 1,000 for the right to buy a season ticket! You still had to buy your ticket! And there was to be the season when the North Bank would be no more, the construction work of the new stand would continue behind a mural. I didn't like the sound of that. I didn't wanna see Highbury disfigured in such a way so I left, moving to Cologne to live out my Aug Weidersehen, Pet fantasies. For me and perhaps many other fans the Premier League was just another name for Division One. Little did we know how much things would change though it is fair to say a number of fanzines at the time could see the writing on the wall.
In Arsenal's first home game of the 1991/92 season, against Queens Park Rangers, there was a two page interview with our vice chairman at the time David Dein where he was asked to explain this whole brave new world to us and he attempted to woo is by saying 'the present league structure neither efficiently looks after the top of the First Division or the bottom of the Fourth Division. Effective change is virtually impossible under the current football league system as its voting composition very often has a frustrating effect on real progress.' So the Premier League was about power?
Later in the interview the programme editor, Kevin Connelly asked Dein if the creation of the Premier League was about money. I can only assume Dein put on his ultra gravitas voice as he said 'No, it is about progress, management, the future,' before adding money played an important role, England needed to keep its best players playing in England. Dein noted Liam Brady, Mark Hateley, Glenn Hoddle, Chris Waddle, Paul Gascoigne and David Platt had all be tempted by the riches on offer overseas.
\Dein also insisted the clubs from the lower divisions would also benefit in this brave new world with the Football Association, which would run the Premier League, promising to 'indemnify' clubs should their income stream be impacted negatively by the new league.
Then came the key question, on page two, when Connelly asked Dein 'Who will be the ultimate beneficiary in the Premier League?' Smooth as you like Dein replied 'First the spectator because there will be better facilities and stricter criteria for grounds. Secondly, the international team because when the Premier League is finally reduced the England manager will have more time with his players. Thirdly football generally because progress will be able to be made without the confines of an unwieldy system.'
At the time there was talk of a payers' strike and legal action being taken by the Football League so the rest of the interview covered those topics before one little gem. 'What role will television play in the new Premier League?' Answer? 'There will be joint negotiations between the football association and the Premier League together with broadcasters...'
As far as interviews go Dein was giving little away probably because, much like the ministers today discussing Brexit with the EU, no one really knew what they were doing. Nothing like this had been done before and all involved were essentially inventing the wheel.
Twenty five years on and with some hindsight offering some excellent benefits, it is clear the arguments Dein put forward for the creation of the league have been shown to be bogus except one about power. Certainly the national team hasn't improved, the gap between the haves and have nots has widened to a chasm and television basically owns the game. TV clicks its fingers and football rolls over to have its tummy tickled.
The Premier League has become massive thanks to the brands, the history and the chaotic style of play. When it kicked off all the football money was concentrated in Italy. Sky and the Premier League has changed the way people see football and the way football is viewed. Clubs are brands, players are celebrities and replica shirts are fashion items and not even the far seeing Dein could have envisaged that. English football, once the preserve of people like me and eccentrics from Northern Europe has come to be shared by people all around the world and especially Asia and Africa.
Top flight football for many of my generation is irredeemably broken on the alter of mammon but it is more popular than ever and Arsenal, through David Dein's efforts, were there at the very start continuing the innovative thinking that had started in the 1920s and 1930s with men like Henry Norris and Herbert Chapman. And that innovative DNA continues to this day with the great prophet Arsene Wenger convincing a generation of fans football isn't just about trophies and an American owner who is so disconnected from the club he may as well be on another planet or in the Serengeti being hunted down by hordes of wildebeest or irate shotgun packing conservationists. And yes, both Wenger and Kroenke were introduced to the Arsenal by Dein
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