The new 32nd season of the Premier League has begun. And now is the best time to remember how it all began. Where did the Premier League come from, which clubs and ideas stuck to its origins, and why did the wider English football community launch a new competition format in the early 1990s?
The Fever Pitch documentary series will help answer a few questions! The promotion of the Premier League, which will be discussed today.
“Intensity of emotions! Rise of the Premier League Original title: Fever Pitch: The Rise of the Premier LeagueYear of production: 2021 Country: Great Britain Seasons: 1 season. Time: 59 minutes Sport: soccer. Main Stars: David Beckham, Alan Shearer, Eric Cantona, Vinnie Jones, Gary Neville IMDb Rating: 7.6/10
English soccer bottom line
English football in the 1980s was going through one of the most painful crises in its history. Attendance dropped by an average of two to three times, and the arenas themselves became less a place to watch football than a space for clashes between fans. Security at matches was so poor that renowned newspapers such as The Guardian began to describe football as “a sport for the dregs of society”.
Shot from England’s championship football match in 1980
Photo: Duncan Raban/Getty Images
The drop in attendance was also strongly reflected in the income of the clubs. Many of them did not have the opportunity not only to buy expensive players, but even to properly repair their own arenas. Another heavy blow to English football in the 1980s was a five-year ban from European competitions. This happened after the so-called Heysel tragedy, which occurred in Brussels in May 1985. Then, before the European Cup final between Juventus and Liverpool, a group of English fans jumped over the fence of the stadium that separated them from Turin, which caused an uproar and the collapse of the support wall of one of the stands. As a result, 39 people died that night.
Against the background of all the problems, the management of the English football giants comes to the conclusion that the league needs drastic changes. This is where television comes to the rescue.
The video is available on the Prime Video AU & NZ YouTube channel. The rights of the video belong to Amazon.
The 1980s is the decade when British television starts to make a lot of money. This is the first decade that future Premier League rights will be worth millions of pounds. Another jump in the popularity of television audiences towards soccer occurs in 1990, when the England team reached the semifinals of the World Cup. The fateful match with West Germany, which England will lose on penalties, is watched by a record audience of 25 million at the time.
And tonight, both English television and football officials finally get it: It’s time to change the local league. The initiators are the leaders of the five influential clubs of the time (Liverpool, Everton, Manchester United, Arsenal, Tottenham), who met in the lobby of one of the London hotels, discussed the changes and finally put the whole structure back together. of the English elite. football And they gave the top division a resounding name: the Premier League.
Frame of the presentation of the Premier League in 1992
Photo: Howard Boylan/Getty Images
It is not Wikipedia, but a collection of stories.
These are just the first 20 minutes of the Fever Pitch mini-documentary series! The Rise of the Premier League, which, as the name implies, is dedicated to the history of the creation of the most popular football club league today. But you should immediately dot the i’s and say: don’t expect scholarly presentation and thoroughness from the four-hour program. Yes, at Fever Pitch! full of chronicles and interviews with dozens of participants in the events. But this is not a documentary encyclopedia, but an almanac, made up of stories that have greatly influenced the appearance of the nuclear submarine. The series finale even has a signature epilogue, in which the show’s creators invite everyone to visit a special website with additional information if anyone is missing texture.
The second thing you should know about Fever Pitch! – The series is entirely dedicated to the 1990s. It begins with the history of the formation of the league and ends with the epic Champions League final between Manchester United and Bayern and the legendary comeback of Sir Alex Ferguson’s team . Among these events are dozens of personal and club stories that have become part of the basis of the Premier League’s popularity today. And it is that, judging by Fever Pitch!, English clubs, players and officials have had to endure many difficulties.
Manchester United with Ferguson in the 90s
Photo: Mark Leech/Getty Images
The first series of Fever Pitch!, in addition to the story of the creation of the Premier League, is dedicated to Manchester United. The authors tell a rather predictable story of how a rich losing club, coupled with the transformation of the league, suddenly became its hegemonic power. In general, Manchester United is in Fever Pitch! will play almost the main role. Later in the show we get to know both the Class of ’92 and the great rivalries of the 1990s with Blackburn, Newcastle and of course Arsenal.
But any documentary about the early years of the Premier League could not do without Manchester United, it is more interesting to look elsewhere. The authors attempt through personal stories to outline the league’s circle of problems, and its characteristic points of growth, as well as its ups and downs.
Billionaires, money, racism.
For example, the same story of Blackburn is not presented here as a fairy tale about Cinderella, a small club that unexpectedly won the title. But rather as a precursor to future clubs bought by billionaires and sheikhs. Because the main creator of that championship Blackburn Fever Pitch! -Steel magnate Jack Walker, who sold his multi-million dollar business and took up football. At Ewood Park, the millionaire would put together a very nice team led by a young Alan Shearer and beat Manchester United, who were then almost unstoppable.
If Walker’s story alludes to today’s Premier League club owners, then, for example, David Beckham’s story is about how players in the 1990s eventually became global superstars. How their salaries and the general level of well-being grew, which did not always benefit them. At the center of this plot is a rather sad story about Keith Gillespie, an incredibly talented United alumnus who got so caught up in gambling that he lost everything he earned.
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But the above is only a small part of Fever Pitch! You’ll also learn from the series how the Premier League in its early years tried to largely align itself with American sports leagues by putting on bizarre pre-match shows. How clubs like Manchester United gradually went from being a sports project to a transatlantic business with fans in all corners of the planet. How the league first became aware of the problem of toxic fan-player relations (thanks to Eric Cantona and a Crystal Palace fan), how the fight against racism began, and much more.
Stars in the frame and a simple thought.
And at the end of the fourth and final hour of Fever Pitch! it is clear: there is no coincidence or magic in the success of the Premier League. The league has passed all the important points of growth: it made friends with cable TV, taught the public to pay for football, began to actively take care of security in stadiums so that people could go to games with their families. The clubs stopped paying attention only to the domestic market (here I must say thanks to Arsene Wenger and his Arsenal), began to actively fight racism and learned how to turn clubs into brands. Of course, that’s why Fever Pitch! it ends precisely with the final of the Champions League; after all, great sporting victories have played a big part in the growing popularity of the Premier League.
Newcastle with Alan Shearer – Champions of England
Photo: John Giles/Getty Images
To decorate this rather simple, albeit picturesque, story about the formation of the Premier League, in Fever Pitch! He invited dozens of famous speakers, from Canton and Schmeichel to Beckham and Shearer. All of them recall the past and also chew their memories to the viewer. Basically, it’s pretty boring, but there are, nevertheless, funny moments: Cantona separately admits that he has no regrets about the beaten fan, but regrets that he only hit him twice. And it turns out that Ray Parlor, for example, knew absolutely nothing about Wenger and in the coach’s presentation he said something like: who the hell is this.
To the tune of fever! The Rise of the Premier League can, like almost any other sports documentary, be treated differently. On the one hand, this is classic BBC: lots of reporting, great speakers, but not too deep a dive into history, which leaves a lot of questions behind. On the other hand, this is an almost exemplary product not for fans, but simply for fans of sports and English football, who do not know much about the past, but are still not averse to getting acquainted with it.
Screenshot from the documentary Fever Pitch! The rise of the Premier League
Photo: video frame
The authors tell the story of the origin and maturation of the nuclear submarine in fairly broad but distinct strokes. And by the end of the fourth hour, the average viewer will have almost no questions left. Fever step! The Rise of the Premier League is a very good entry point into the subject. Well, if you really want more information in order to properly plunge into the history of the Premier League, wait – the same site with additional information from the authors of the documentary will definitely not be enough for you.
