The Premier League is 20 years old and has enjoyed plenty of highlights. Here, Total Football continues its new series looking back at some of the highs and lows.
Season 1997/1998 saw Manchester United control the majority of the title race but some silly defeats and costly draws allowed Arsenal in. The Gunners closed down an 11 point gap at one stage to take their first title since 1991.
All three promoted clubs; Bolton Wanderers, Barnsley and Crystal Palace went straight back down, the only time that has happened in the Premier League.
CHAMPIONS: Arsenal
RUNNERS-UP: Manchester United
THIRD PLACE: Liverpool
RELEGATED: Bolton Wanderers, Barnsley, Crystal Palace
TOP SCORERS: Dion Dublin (Coventry City) 18, Michael Owen (Liverpool) 18, Chris Sutton (Blackburn Rovers) 18, Dennis Bergkamp (Arsenal) 16, Andy Cole (Manchester United) 16, Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink (Leeds United) 16, Kevin Gallacher (Blackburn Rovers) 16, John Hartson (West Ham United) 15, Darren Huckerby (Coventry City) 14, Paulo Wanchope (Derby County) 13, Marc Overmars (Arsenal) 12, Dwight Yorke (Aston Villa) 12
BIGGEST WIN: Manchester United 7-0 Barnsley (25 October 1997)
HIGHEST SCORING GAMES: Blackburn Rovers 7-2 Sheffield Wednesday (25 August 1997), Blackburn Rovers 5-3 Leicester City (28 February 1998), Wimbledon 2-6 Tottenham Hotspur (2 May 1998)
PFA PLAYER OF THE YEAR: Dennis Bergkamp (Arsenal)
PFA YOUNG PLAYER OF THE YEAR: Michael Owen (Liverpool)
Arsene Wenger’s first full season in charge of Arsenal saw the club break Manchester United’s recent stranglehold on the FA Premier League crown.
The North Londoners went unbeaten from mid-December until the beginning of May, enough to overtake United, who had an 11 point lead over them by the end of February.
Pre-season saw the French manager continue to strengthen his squad, with the arrivals of pacy winger Marc Overmars and dynamic central midfielder Emmanuel Petit.
Manchester United had to deal with the sudden retirement of Eric Cantona and his replacement was Teddy Sheringham, a £3.5m buy from inconsistent Tottenham Hotspur.
Newly promoted Bolton Wanderers broke their own club transfer record to bring in Dean Holdsworth for £3.5m and experienced Italian Atilio Lombardo was a surprise addition to the Crystal Palace ranks.
Following an unsuccessful two year spell at Anfield, Stan Collymore was sold to Aston Villa for £7m, with Liverpool using that money to bring Oyvind Leonhardsen in from Wimbledon and Paul Ince return to the country, following a successful spell in Serie A with Inter Milan.
Last season’s runners-up Newcastle started the season in crisis mode, when Alan Shearer got seriously injured in a pre-season tournament on Merseyside. This was hours after Les Ferdinand was sold to Tottenham for £6m.
David Ginola also went in the same direction, as Kenny Dalglish brought in experience in the form of Stuart Pearce, Ian Rush and John Barnes.
In the managerial dugout, Howard Kendall returned for a third spell as manager of Everton whilst Dave Jones became Southampton’s new boss after leaving his good work behind at Stockport County.
Lastly, English globetrotter Roy Hodgson became the permanent appointment at Blackburn Rovers.
Old faces for Teddy
The opening weekend of the season saw Teddy Sheringham meet up with old faces, as his new side visited his old club at White Hart Lane.
Sheringham hit the post from a harshly given penalty, delighted the home faithful but it was business as usual for the champions with a 2-0 win, courtesy of goals from Nicky Butt and a Ramon Vega own goal.
Cantona’s replacement scored his first goal for the Red Devils at the end of August at Everton but new captain Roy Keane was soon out for the season, after picking up a serious injury at Leeds in September.
Although they would lose that game, the champions were still sitting second in the table at the end of the second month of the campaign.
After 102 years, Barnsley had made the top flight and the Tykes were determined to make their Premier League bow into a real party.
Neil Redfearn headed them infront after only nine minutes of their first match but they went down 2-1 at home to West Ham United.
Victories over Premier League returnees Crystal Palace and Bolton in the first month showed there was no lack of team spirit in Danny Wilson’s side, although a 0-6 hammering at home by Chelsea did highlight defensive inadequacies at the top level.
Blackburn Rovers were involved in some incredible games early season, as Roy Hodgson settled into his new role with four wins and a draw in their first six encounters.
Sheffield Wednesday got battered 7-2 infront of the Sky cameras, which was to be sign of things to come for the Yorkshire side.
Leeds fared better a month later, when they visited Lancashire. The two clubs sharing a remarkable seven goals in 33 minutes, then none in the remaining 57! 4-3 to Leeds it finished.
179, just done it!
In September, Ian Wright broke Arsenal’s all-time goalscoring record with a hat-trick in the home side’s convincing 4-1 win over Bolton.
Wright started the season with a hatful of goals and broke Cliff Bastin’s record with his second goal, which was his 179th for the club. In typical fashion for the striker, he had a vest underneath his shirt, which he ripped off after his first goal with the words, 179, just done it! At that point, he was still on 178!
A hamstring injury in January ended Ian’s participation in the season but Dennis Bergkamp was in sparkling form.
The Dutch maestro scored the goal of the season with a masterful third to complete a sensational hat-trick early season at Leicester and he won the PFA Players Player of the Year award at the end of the season.
Another London club going well were Chelsea. Despite some patchy away form, they had climbed to second by the end of January before the mysterious sacking of Ruud Gullit.
The board insisted that they couldn’t meet the Dutchman’s wage demands over a new contract, something Gullit has always denied. Later on, Chairman Ken Bates would say in an interview; “I didn’t like his arrogance – in fact I never liked him.”
Surprisingly, Gianluca Vialli was upgraded to the managerial position at Stamford Bridge, despite having no previous experience at this level.
Vialli ignored all the criticism and won the Coca Cola Cup and the Cup Winners Cup, as well as guiding the Blues to a fourth place finish in the league.
That was despite losing 15 games during the season, only one more than relegated Bolton.
Pleat and Francis get the chop
November is often a time when managers begin to fear and as Sheffield Wednesday slipped into the bottom three, time was running out for David Pleat.
Wednesday were powerless to stop a rampant Manchester United, who beat them 6-1 at Old Trafford, which proved to be the final act in his job. He was sacked and replaced by Ron Atkinson.
Atkinson guided the Hillsborough side to three consecutive wins to begin with, including a 2-0 triumph over champions-elect Arsenal. He kept the club up by four points but his contract wasn’t renewed at the end of the season.
Gerry Francis was also under pressure to get results, with some Tottenham fans calling him ‘useless.’
A second half capitulation at Anfield in mid-November, which saw them lose 4-0 and drop into the relegation zone was the end for Francis, as he resigned from his position.
Unheralded Swiss coach Christian Gross took over and the tabloids had a field day when he arrived late for his press conference.
He brandished a London Underground train ticket, kissed it and said; “I want this to become my ticket to the dreams.”
Chairman Alan Sugar was probably regretting his appointment immediately and things got worse, when they lost 1-6 at home to Chelsea, 4-0 at Coventry and 4-1 to Aston Villa within three weeks in December.
Tottenham eventually finished 14th, with Gross getting some acclaim for bringing back Jurgen Klinsmann on a six-month deal to finish his playing career at White Hart Lane.
Another manager who didn’t see out the season was Brian Little, resigning from Aston Villa in February 1998 with the club lying in a disappointing 14th position.
Time to pay out
On 28 February 1998, Phil Neville scored his first senior goal for Manchester United as they won 1-0 in a lunchtime kick-off at Chelsea.
They went 10 points clear of Blackburn and 11 ahead of Arsenal, with a fifth title in six seasons now looking increasingly likely. One bookmaker even paid out on punters who had already gambled on Alex Ferguson’s side winning the league.
However, Arsenal did have three games in hand and when United lost 2-0 at Sheffield Wednesday the following Saturday, they had already slipped to their sixth defeat of the season.
Arsenal won the following Wednesday in a rearranged match at Wimbledon (abandoned in December due to a suspicious floodlight failure), which setup a crunch meeting at Old Trafford on 14 March.
One goal from the main threat on the day, Marc Overmars settled the match in Arsenal’s favour. Ferguson threw his chewing gum away in disgust, knowing that with the games in hand advantage, Arsenal now had the momentum in a title race that had just come alive.
Meanwhile, Liverpool struggled to find any consistency all season, despite league doubles over Arsenal and Leeds United during the campaign.
Roy Evans’s side finished third but a distant 13 points off the pace. One bright spark from Anfield during the season was the emergence of a young talent by the name of Michael Owen.
He scored 18 Premier League goals to end up as joint top goalscorer with Coventry’s Dion Dublin and Chris Sutton from Blackburn Rovers, also winning the PFA Young Player of the Year award and earning international recognition from England.
Sutton had an excellent season as Blackburn finished a creditable sixth, despite a disappointing end to their campaign.
However, his reputation suffered when he refused to play for an England B team. As a result, Glenn Hoddle refused to consider him for the World Cup finals squad.
Awesome Arsenal blast to the title
If Alex Ferguson was hoping for an Arsenal slipup, it didn’t materialise.
The North Londoners won every single match after their triumph at Old Trafford in March, whilst the Red Devils dropped costly home points with draws against Liverpool and Newcastle United.
It meant that victory over a struggling Everton side on 3 May would wrap up their 11th league title and first Premier League success.
In reality, it was never in doubt once Slaven Bilic headed into his own net after only six minutes. Despite missing the injured Bergkamp, Overmars proved his worth again with two blistering strikes to put the outcome of the game beyond any doubt.
Then in stoppage time, Steve Bould’s magnificent pass found his centre back partner and captain Tony Adams, who beat the offside trap to volley in the final goal in a convincing 4-0 win.
This season, Arsenal was the side to beat and added the FA Cup a fortnight later. Although they lost their last two matches of the season, the job was done and in grand style too.
At the other end of the table, Crystal Palace and Barnsley were relegated before the season’s conclusion.
Palace failed to win a home match at Selhurst Park before April and Steve Coppell had quit in March. Atilio Lombardo couldn’t rescue a miracle and a 3-0 home defeat to Manchester United was the final straw, for both the club’s league status and Lombardo as a manager.
A forgettable 1-0 loss at Leicester on the penultimate weekend ended Barnsley’s one year stay in the top flight but Bolton’s 5-2 win over doomed Palace meant they had a fighting chance going into the last day.
Everton stay alive
Everton started the final day in the bottom three, one point behind Bolton and in desperate need of a positive result.
It started well when Gareth Farrelly’s magnificent strike in the seventh minute put them ahead against mid-table Coventry City.
Early in the second half and Bolton fell behind at Stamford Bridge to a goal from Gianluca Vialli.
However, the Trotters began dominating possession and were creating plenty of chances.
The home supporters even began booing their own players, chanting ‘Come on Bolton!’
Nerves increased at Goodison, when Dublin headed Coventry level with two minutes left but any hope of a reprieve in West London for Colin Todd’s side was snatched away by a stoppage time strike from Jody Morris.
Coventry looked for a winner but it didn’t arrive. The 1-1 draw was enough for Everton to pull off another great escape.
They had produced a last-gasp survival, with Bolton’s 2-0 defeat at Chelsea meaning for the only time so far in Premier League history, all three promoted clubs went straight back down.
Other points of note saw Aston Villa climb upto 7th under new manager John Gregory, having only lost two of their last 13 matches and having been runners-up for the past two seasons, Newcastle came in a poor 13th and only guaranteed survival on the final Saturday of the season.
This season though, it firmly belonged to London and especially to Arsenal, who magnificently wrestled the title away from Manchester United, with their own delightful double.
By Simon Wright – Follow me on Twitter @Siwri88
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