by Malcolm Toogood

Created on: August 19, 2011

Despite the elevation of the glorious Hoops to their rightful elite place once more, I have had little interest in the English Premier League throughout the summer. In fact, the news this morning (13th August 2011) that it all kicked off today (other than in Tottenham, where it all kicked-off the previous Saturday instead) came as a bit of a shock. 

Why has this crept up on me? Well a little thing known as the cricket season has, quite rightly, somewhat occupied my thoughts these last few months; for those unfamiliar with the name, it is the true National Sport where England actually wins World Cups nowadays, and will continue to do so for some little time to come. Somehow, scoring 710 for 7 declared against the World’s number one side is a lot more satisfying than crying into my beer because I’ve been denied a boring nil-nil draw in a ‘friendly’ against Holland at Wembley midweek. Maybe the riots did have a silver lining after all. On top of that, my beloved home county Somerset are looking like going one better in at least one of the competitions where they finished runner-up last season (that was all three major competitions in case you missed it, and their manager didn’t get fired as a consequence either). 

So I have quickly cobbled together a few thoughts this morning, and some finger-in-the-air predictions, which will no doubt lie in tatters by the end of the month. But what can you do when most of the clubs do not seem to want to commit to players, whether in or out, until after the season has long started?   

My first thought was what, twenty years on, what does the Premiership look like compared to that first season? Well of course there are only twenty clubs now instead of the 22 then, and only one of the entire bottom half has stuck to its status throughout, that being Everton (they’re not called the Toffees for nothing). By contrast, just one of the top half is no longer there - Sheffield Wednesday who finished sixth but are now wallowing in tier three - although two of the top five only just returned this season after a long absence, Norwich (third in 1991/2) and QPR (fifth). Only eight others still hold that initial Premiership status, and they are (with their finishing order all those years ago) Manchester United (1), Aston Villa (2), Blackburn (4), Spurs

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