Tuesday 3 July 2018

1045 United title win


First  viewed : Early  May  1993

There's  no  trace  of  it  in  the  schedules  but  I'm  pretty  sure  there  was  a  special  programme on  BBC  One  to  mark  Manchester  United;'s  first  title  win  for  26  years  in  the  first  season  of  the  Premier  League. It  seemed  to  confirm  every  prediction  that  the  Premier  League  would  be  all  about  money  that  the  richest  club  finally  got  their  mitts  on  the  trophy and,  with  all  due  respect  to  Leicester, that's  been  the  case  ever  since. Still  they  won  it  in  time  for  Matt  Busby  who  was  dead  by  the  time  of  the  next  one  and  Bryan  Robson  who  got  a  couple  of  championship  medals  at  the  end  of  his  playing  career  although  his  contribution  in  both  seasons  was  peripheral.

2 comments:

  1. While United may well have been the richest club of the time, I would argue other clubs had spent equal if not more cash in the two or three years up to 1993... Liverpool had thrown big sums on the likes of Walters, Thomas, Stewart, Saunders; City on Phelan, Curle, Quinn, Coton, McMahon etc. The title win was the accumulation of five years work by Ferguson, with a huge stroke of luck with the arrival of Cantona.

    As a near-teen at the time, it was a key moment and I enjoyed bragging rights at school. It remains a source of amusement to me that a Liverpool fan at the time handed me a list of world events between 1967-1993 with the warning "winning it is one thing, defending it is quite another!"

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  2. I wouldn't argue with that. Liverpool seemed adept at turning good players into donkeys under Souness and most of those City buys were seriously over-priced. Neither of them put a serious title challenge in that season and the less said about the defending champions the better.

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