Football Wasn’t Invented In 1992

‘Football wasn’t invented in 1992’ is probably one of the most pompous, smug and annoying ubiquitous clichés around.

I find it ironic and insulting in equal measure when football supporters of a certain disposition try to exert intellectual authority over others by using this statement in response to quotes about Premier League records such as ‘Chelsea are now the second most successful team in the Premier League era’.

It is ironic because they seek to belittle others in the name of “accuracy” yet fail to accurately read the content of the statement or choose to ignore it and extrapolate from the use of “Premier League” to infer the writer is admitting an unwavering belief that football was invented by Sky in 1992 for TV audiences.

It is insulting because they are smugly claiming superiority over people who have either made a conscious fine distinction or have little to no knowledge of what came before.

On one hand I can understand why certain people feel the need to incessantly remind others of the existence of football pre-1992 as they have seen their club fall into mid-table obscurity, or become a peripheral and relatively toothless outside challenger, or how the torrential influx of money into the game they love has completely changed the landscape they could once have drawn like a master cartographer. I can understand them longing for the days of loyalty, of unadulterated passion for the club from the players, of closeness to the players that extended beyond the terraces whereby – unlike modern times when you are lucky to catch a glimpse of one speeding past you in a car probably worth more than your house – you could just as easily bump into one on your local high street as you would a friend.

On the other hand I find it frustrating that they would choose to castigate others who have moved with the times or are too young to know any different.

It is clear to me that Arsenal’s history is respected by a vast amount of people who weren’t around to experience it the first time. I see guys from all over the globe, from the West Coast of America to small towns and villages in Kenya to the urban sprawls of Mumbai, able to quote Arsenal’s history as well as any local. They love this club. They breathe it. They want to know everything about it because that is what infatuation is.

I would even go as far as to say many of our overseas fans have a greater appetite for Arsenal’s history because they do not take it for granted. The Premier League has afforded them access to Arsenal in a way that wasn’t possible before but that does not mean they, or even UK supporters, believe football was invented in 1992 – or Arsenal was founded in 1996 as some of the more venomously vile elitists would convince you they believe.

I don’t think it is unfair to talk about Premier League records or disrespectful to the past. Many who use that irksome banality would have you believe, ironically, that the Premier League was a rebranding of the old First Division. It wasn’t. It was a breakaway league – it is irrelevant that the league was made up of the First Division teams – as the clubs involved decided to form a new league away from the control of the Football League.

Before the Premier League English football was haemorrhaging players to better leagues overseas, had dwindling attendances, poor facilities, eroding stadia and decreasing revenues. The relative success of the English national team at the 1990 World Cup saw a slow and steady reverse in that deterioration of the game (boosted by the lifting of the European ban on English teams and the recommended upgrading of stadia in the Taylor report). The creation of the Premier League gave the participating clubs commercial independence from the FA and Football League allowing them to negotiate their own broadcast deals.

In another turn of irony the then head of LWT, Greg Dyke, wanted his company to get involved with the television rights, rights that ultimately led to a greater influx of foreign players but that is a whole new can of worms.

The entire point of the breakaway league was to use the increase in money to benefit the game as a whole and lift the top division of English football up to and beyond the level of its European rivals. Arguably it has done so but at a cost to supporters which possibly has given rise to this whole historical knowledge superiority complex.

The Premier League changed English football, quite dramatically so, and that is why I have no issue with people choosing to use post-1992 statistics when making a point about the success or failure of a club, player or manager.

I do not consider the omission of pre-1992 records and statistics as being disrespectful, in some senses I consider it to be fairer to past generations.

Can we really compare the quality of the Premier League, averaged over its 23 year existence, to the quality of the 50s? Most of us wouldn’t have been born in that decade let alone have lucid memories to compare it with. Even the few who regularly attended football in those days, as that was pretty much the only way you could get your fill of the beautiful game, will have diaphanous recollections at best. Add to that the fact they did not have the benefit of highlight programmes, catch up TV, YouTube or commemorative DVDs (Spurs…) and it is quite impossible for them to talk about the quality of the league in general.

Look at the Invincible team, Bayern and Barcelona (the Pep years). It was unlikely you could assemble a team with the talent those sides had from the entire league let alone just one club. If we take the Invincibles as one example you must consider the quality that was in the teams who tried and failed to challenge them. Chelsea had just spend £150m on players who would help them gain a record points tally just a season later. Manchester United were full of players who had won four league titles out of the last five available.

The general quality of the league and the players was different. The type of ball used, boots worn, scrutiny performances were put under, was different too. It is unfair to compare what players did in completely different eras.

Would modern players get into teams of old and vice versa? Who knows? We cannot say and as such it is unfair to compare.

You wouldn’t compare the quality of special effects in Godzilla (1954) to Godzilla (2014) because things are so different. We live in a world where we advance so quickly it is hard to comprehend the speed we are moving at and as such take for granted the leaps we have made.

In 1992 you would have had to spend over £1500 to buy 12 “gadgets” you can now fit in the palm of your hand. In 2002 we were all texting and playing Snake on Nokia 3310s, two short years later we were all blue-toothing each other ringtones and hilariously disgusting videos, three short years after that the first iPhone was released.

With everything else in the world moving so fast are we really foolish enough to believe football hasn’t changed? Is it fair to compare Rix and Overmars? Talbot and Ljungberg? Armstrong and Pires? Rocastle and Alexis? Brady and Fabregas? Drake and Wright? James and Bergkamp?

Most fair-minded people would say no and I’m sure for different reasons be it talent, nostalgia, position, function or anything else.

Bastin scored 100 goals quicker than Henry did but Henry scored more in fewer games. Henry also scored just 3 fewer league goals than Bastin scored in total. It’s just not fair to compare.

Ian Wright has a slightly better goals to game ratio than Henry. Are we saying Wright is better than Henry?

I recently had a “disagreement” with someone on Facebook who became a touch abusive because I refused to agree with his view that all statistics should be included when talking about the Premier League.

I think it is madness to expect people to know every single statistic from Arsenal’s entire history and the wider game as well. And if we are expected to consider all statistics why don’t we delve into reserve football and junior matches? I’m pretty sure I read something about a Premier League footballer scoring 20 goals in a youth match.

Why don’t we take that into consideration? Because it is ridiculous that is why. We don’t compare youth football to senior football because it’s a completely different level.

We don’t have to compare the modern era to our great achievements of the past to honour our club legends. I believe we often do them a disservice by doing so. Why can’t we just appreciate them for what they did for the club rather than compare them to their modern counterparts?

David Jack holds the record for most consecutive matches scored in whilst Ian Wright holds the not so distinct honour of most consecutive appearances scored in. It would seem we have created a whole new category in order to honour the great achievement of David Jack but in all fairness the true record belongs to Ian Wright because it is arguably harder to come back in to the team after being dropped or injured and continue your scoring record than it is to keep up a purple patch.

I take nothing away from David Jack whatsoever. I would argue he deserves his place in history for what he achieved.

However, we must always consider context, general quality of team-mate, opposition, facilities and standard of the game when comparing players of vastly different eras.

The game changes and whilst certain things get easier other things get harder. If we look at most hattricks scored for the club and the 11 players listed on the official site we see that in the 94 years since the first player on the list (Jimmy Brain) joined the club there has been 8 players with 5 or more hattricks to their name in the first 47 years up to 1968 compared to just 3 in the second 47 years and two of those players are Thierry Henry and Ian Wright our two top goalscorers of all time.

It suggests that scoring multiple goals became harder as time moved on. I cannot declare that to be the actual case as I do not have access to all the scoring data from 1921 to 2015 and even if I did I do not have the inclination to trawl through it all.

What I do glean from the base information available to me is that something changed that made it harder for players to score hattricks. I do not know what but it falls in line with my general theory of “football changes and it is futile to compare one player from a distinct era to another”.

Football wasn’t invented in 1992 but the Premier League was and there is absolutely nothing wrong with people using that as a sample period for comparing players or records from that era. If you want to educate people about bygone eras please feel free to do so, I’m sure most of them would be delighted to learn something new. Patronising someone and belittling their pre-1992 knowledge isn’t helpful nor is it very becoming.

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