One freezing evening in early 1993, the first season of the Premier League, a friend and I went to watch Arsenal vs Leeds. We showed up at Highbury stadium without tickets, paid about ￡5 each, and stood at the Clock End. The small ground was only two-thirds full, with 26,516 spectators. Unfortunately, a large chunk of them were standing in front of us, so I could see little of the muddy field, and nothing of the goal at our end. All four goals were scored there.
Tiny Gordon Strachan was brilliant for Leeds. “Dunno what they feed him on,” said the man next to us, and he shouted at the Arsenal defence: “Go on, tackle him! What are you, the Gordon Strachan Appreciation Society?” Arsenal’s David Hillier, not a crowd favourite, got a booking for his umpteenth clumsy lunge. “Send him off, ref!” shouted an Arsenal fan. “Ban him for life!” advised another. “Or longer if possible!” added a third. Watching the match highlights on YouTube (time travel is now possible), what struck me was that almost every player was white and British, and that the football was dreadful.
Thirty years ago this week, England’s first-division clubs resigned from the Football League in order to set up the Premier League. Their creation has become the most globally watched league in sporting history. Judging by clubs’ results in European competition, the Premier League overtook Spain as the strongest league in Europe, and therefore the world, in 2017.