[crowd cheering]
The Football Association has approved controversial plans to set up a new super league.
[announcer] On he goes!
[crowd cheering]
[man] When Murdoch wrote the cheque,
everyone said, "Poor old Rupert's lost it this time."
[Alan Shearer] How big it was gonna be, I don't think anyone could have predicted.
20,000 fans surrounded St James's Park
to welcome the world's most expensive footballer.
I would love it if we beat them. Love it!
[Eric Cantona] When the seagulls follow the trawler,
they think sardines will be thrown.
It's just all money. Each club is one big theme park now.
[man 1] Footballers became sort of like rock stars overnight.
I don't think anything prepares you for media attention at such a young age.
[man 2] I look at myself and think, "What an arsehole."
'Cause I'd let everything go to my head.
[crowd cheering]
[man 3] I've got a choice in life now.
I either go back to the booze
and the gambling and the drugs or I go the other way.
[woman] It's like a religion.
It's something to believe in.
[interviewer] Three, two, one...
Doing a documentary for the BBC
on the Premier League in the '90s.
I know I definitely wouldn't have been able to do that.
[laughs]
Yeah, let's go.[woman] Okay?
Yeah.
[announcer] Here's McGrath.
Oof, Vinnie Jones caught him there.
[Jones] When I first played,
there was a lot more crunching tackles
that you could get away with.
[whistle blows]
You're fighting for every game,
every tackle, every header every second.
We were more of a borstal
than a football team.
People will go on YouTube and look stuff up,
and they'll go, "You was a lunatic!"
And I'll go, "Yeah. I was a bit lively, yeah."
[announcer] Dreadful scenes at Kenilworth Road.
Absolutely disgraceful.
[man] Football was going nowhere in the '80s.
You know, let's be honest, you know?
There was such bad press, stadiums were empty,
and I think people were scared to go to football matches. They were scared.
It was football violence, football violence, football violence.
There were quite often fights on the forecourt, you know, regularly.
And your dad was pulling me and Phil through at the age of five and six.
It wasn't an environment for the family to attend.
[Jones] At that time, it was like
all these intercity firms going down the tube station
for a punch-up.
[narrator] In the 1980s, football was a source of shame.
Ordinary fans were turning their back on the once beautiful game.
The Sunday Times branded it a "slum sport"
watched by "slum people" in "slum stadiums".
I'll show you this graph.
After we won the World Cup in 1966,
attendances were at a high of something like 30 million.
And by 1986, they had declined to 17 million.
Had that been Tesco supermarkets or Boots chemists or Rank cinemas,
they'd have had to have done something very dramatic to stop going out of business.
[Dein] Football was not glamorous
and there was no television income of any consequence.
So nobody could ever say it was a well-run business 'cause it wasn't.
["Nessun Dorma" playing]
[Pavarotti] ♪ Nessun dorma♪
[crowd cheering]
[man] At that time, I was working for The Independent,
which was a new newspaper start-up,
and the World Cup in 1990 changed our view
of how the game could be reported,
what we could see in it.
And it produced amazing characters.
[narrator] The emotional highs and lows of Italia '90
marked a turning point for English football.
Different types of people suddenly started watching.
Football was bringing the nation together.
[announcer] And chipped in, and volleyed in!
And it's there by David Platt!
And Bobby Robson-- ecstatic.
[inaudible]
[White] And what happened in 1990 was
you had the added drama of those penalty shoot-outs.
I remember being with friends and them having to leave the room
while the penalties were going on.
♪ Vincero♪
[crowd roars]
[announcer] And England are out of the World Cup.
West Germany are through to the final on penalty kicks.
[Robson] We played a major part in the tournament.
We've done very well to get to the semis,
and we can go home, you know, feeling very proud, I think.
[music crescendos]
[crowd cheering]
[narrator] When England finally bowed out,
the match was witnessed by a UK television audience of more than 25 million.
[White] Lights were going on in brains
amongst the next generation of media moguls,
realizing, "Hang on. This is something very, very powerful.
And if we get this right, there's money here."
[narrator] With the prospect of bringing fans back to the game,
a new breed of business-minded chairmen
sensed the time was ripe for a sporting revolution.
I was in the commodity business actually trading physical sugar,
and I built up my own business, and it was going fairly well.
A group of us got together who were more progressive than others
and said, you know, it's time to change.
My own personal motto is the motto of the turtle.
You don't get anywhere unless you stick your neck out.
[man] Being young and enthusiastic,
we sort of thought, well, things need to change.
We all realized that, really, under the 92 old football league formula,
the big clubs in England were never really going to reach their full potential.
The big five, the two Liverpool clubs, Liverpool and Everton,
the two north London clubs, Arsenal and Spurs-- and United--
got together, had this unofficial cartel,
and they were trying to work out ways that they could grab more of the take.
[Dein] We had a famous meeting, and the plot was laid to break away.
The Football League had been going since the 1880s or something--
over a hundred years-- and all of a sudden, here we come, five of us decide
here's the four divisions of 92 clubs.
We're gonna take the top division of 22 clubs at the time
and break away, form a whole new legal entity,
rebrand ourselves, reinvent ourselves,
call ourselves the Premier League and start again.
[news intro playing]
Good evening. The Football Association has approved controversial plans
to set up a new super league, but the decision looks certain to cause a rift within the game.
Upsetting. Ah, more divisive,
and bringing all the aggro to the fore again.
[female anchor] The elite clubs will set up their own premier division
enabling them to keep more of the profits from sponsorship and television.
That may not worry the fans of Arsenal, Spurs and the rest,
but what about the likes of Oxford, Southend and Gillingham?
It's a difficult thing to change anything that's been going for over a hundred years,
and of course there was a lot of resistance.
This is the last thing that the man in the streets wants or even understands.
I thought it was all about 22 men kicking the ball about.
You know, I could be radically wrong in that situation.
That guy, and I don't want to talk badly about him,
but he was chairman of the Football League,
and he said, "It's always been like this, for over a hundred years.
You can't change it now."
Oh, really? Well, you know what? A hundred years ago, buses were drawn by horses.
[man] Five, four, three...
...two, one and cue.
We're on BBC.
[narrator] The new founders were staking the success of their breakaway league
on selling TV rights to live matches.
And just as they were looking for broadcast partners,
television was going through its own revolution.
[TV host] Programmes beamed from outer space, the shape of television to come.
In February, you'll be able to pick up programmes from the Astra satellite.
Now to do it, you'll need this.
This is a dish, shallow curve there, made by Amstrad.
Costs about £200 on sale at Christmas.
[man] I remember it vividly.
-The phone rang. -[ringing]
Rupert Murdoch wanted to see me.
To me, Rupert was a mystical figure.
It was like following Gandalf the Grey.
Gandalf the Grey, though,
wearing glasses like the windscreen of a Ford Cortina.
[narrator] Rupert Murdoch was attempting
to expand his media empire with the launch of a new network,
Sky Television.
Rupert Murdoch has officially launched his bid
to win over Britain's television viewers.
He plans four new satellite television channels.
[reporter] The man may own more newspapers and more television stations than anyone on Earth...
[Crick] I've been a television news reporter for 40 years.
I was at that event when Murdoch launched Sky,
and I remember, um, rather nervously
asking him, "Will the standards of journalism on Sky be the same as in your newspapers?
Fabrication and lies and obsession with people's private lives?"
And everybody was absolutely stunned.
Is it going to be the same kind of standard of journalism as we see in those newspapers?
It'll be totally different. I've told you it will be absolutely first class.
-Thank you. -And there was huge scepticism
about whether it would ever work and whether people would pay to subscribe to new channels
when they already had several channels to watch.
I suppose the worry about it was that Sky would monopolise football on television
and therefore we wouldn't get to watch it on Match of the Day
or on the ITV equivalent.
[Hill] At the time the Premier League was forming,
Sky was in a fairly perilous financial state.
We'd been losing a lot of money-- couple million quid a week--
and we had a tiny, little viewing audience.
[White] Initially, Rupert Murdoch's idea was
that films would be the driver of that.
You'd subscribe rather than go into the cinema and you'd get new movies.
But when they launched, there wasn't much take-up. People weren't that interested.
They realized that sport might be the way of doing it if we could get into sport.
Then I went looking to every sporting body in the UK
to try and pick up rights that weren't being used.
And, obviously, football was top of the list.
Getting the Premier League became that pot of gold that we desperately needed.
♪ Hey♪
Football's new Premier League has struck a £300 million deal,
which means its matches will only be seen live on satellite TV.
[narrator] If fans wanted to watch live matches,
they'd have to pay £200 for a dish and a monthly subscription on top.
When Mr. Murdoch wrote the cheque to the football league,
everyone said, "Oh, my God!
Poor old Rupert's lost it this time.
He's paid too much money."
[White] The pound signs were ringing
in the eyes of the football club chairmen.
It was transformational the amount of money that was being offered by Sky.
It was huge.
[man] So how much is he prepared to lose?
I don't know. Whatever... Whatever it takes.
[interviewer] I'm just gonna show you one of our clips.Yeah.
All right. Go on then.
Yeah, I have to put my glasses on.
Is that all right?Yeah.
["Alive and Kicking" by Simple Minds playing]
Oh, God, the ad.
I remember the music. That was it, wasn't it?
That was the start of the Premier League.
♪ You turn me on♪
[Jones] This was on a Sunday morning, I think.
Obviously, we'd been out Saturday night after the games,
you know what I mean?
No one told me I had to bring football boots.
I think I was sponsored by Nike at the time.
I think I had somebody's Reeboks on, about four sizes too small, hungover,
and, er... yeah, lost my Nike contract, thanks very much, Sky. [laughs]
That was my start to the Premier League, yeah.
-♪ Who's got the touch♪ -♪ To calm the storm inside?♪
-♪ Who's gonna save you?♪ -♪ Alive and kicking♪
♪ Stay until your love is♪
♪ Alive and kicking♪
I guess when we saw this, we thought, "Maybe things are a little bit different."
We were aware that the whole of the country were about to embark on a journey,
but what that journey was gonna be or how big it was gonna be,
I don't think anyone could have predicted.
[Hill] Rupert's career has been marked by gambles.
He's virtually pushed all the chips
into the centre of the table.
[announcer] The FA Premier League,
live only on Sky.
It's a whole new ball game.
[crowd cheering]
♪ Right here, right now♪
♪ There is no other place That I'd rather be♪
♪ Right here, right now♪
♪ Watching the world wake up From history♪
[Hill] Football is the greatest entertainment of all time,
but it wasn't being represented that way.
What we had to do was market it properly.
Make people realize
the FA Premier League was not the same.
For us, this was like make or break.
[narrator] The multimillion- pound injection from Sky would have an immediate impact.
The money would be shared between 22 teams, but not equally.
The higher up the league table a side finished, the more money they'd get.
[announcer] Good afternoon, everyone.
A new league, even a different button to push on your television set.
We're all lovers of this marvellous game,
especially when players of this pedigree are involved.
Founding members Manchester United should have been amongst the favourites,
but after six years in charge, Alex Ferguson had failed to win a league title.
The fans were losing patience.
[crowd chanting]
The club just had one theme, and that was to go and win the Premier League title.
Denis, Denis, just play football. Denis!
You listened to the boss.
He knew he needed it. You could see it in his face.
Well, the fans were ambivalent about Ferguson up to that point.
I mean, he'd come down from Scotland having had this extraordinary record
with Aberdeen, but he'd been at United then for nearly six years,
and we still hadn't won the league.
Manchester United will be expected to win titles.
So that's just about the only thing that your predecessor, Ron Atkinson, didn't do,
and he's almost been branded a failure after five years.
I mean, that in itself does sum up the magnitude of the job you've taken on, doesn't it?
[man] We hadn't won the league since 1967.
Every year that went by, it got more and more difficult
and the tension grew.
So by the time we got to '92,
it'd become a big... Like a monster.
It was... It was hanging over us.
Of course, he was under enormous pressure.
I mean, we used to receive a lot of letters from supporters
complaining that Alex wasn't the right man, he'd come from Scotland,
he hadn't got experience in the English league and all the rest of it.
[man] Around that time, Fergie's football was dire. It was really poor.
So it came to me one night that I should take the bedsheet off the bed
and get some black paints out the shed
and paint a banner expressing my feelings.
The banner said "3 years of excuses but it's still crap...
Ta ra Fergie".
Most of the crowd cheered and applauded as they saw it,
and Fergie called it his darkest day in football.
The overriding feeling though was still sadness
that I'd had to do it and I wanted to do it
and that United were still playing poorly.
Denis, just play football.
[crowd cheering]
[announcer] And up comes Schmeichel,
and a clean strike effected.
-[crowd roaring] -[announcer] And Deane scores.
The start wasn't great. Uh...
We actually conceded the first ever Premier League goal.
[announcer] Four minutes and 36 seconds when the ball went into the net.
[crowd roars]
[announcer] And the referee says penalty.
[Pallister] I'd come with a reckless slide,
and I took a little bit of flak, as did a lot of players.
You can feel the history. It certainly brings it home to you very quickly.
[crowd roars]
[announcer] So Alex Ferguson's team open with a defeat.
[Pallister] To start that year so badly
kind of left us doubting ourselves.
[narrator] Something had to change for Ferguson, and fast.
He'd been closely tracking a young Southampton striker
who'd recently broken into the England team.
[announcer] Straight to Cook, and that's a lovely ball for Shearer!
He's got himself away from the defenders here. He's done well.
-He's done brilliantly! -[crowd roars]
[Merson] The all-round centre forward. The all-round centre forward.
I don't think people appreciate how rock solid he was as well.
I mean, he could hold a ball up, he was strong, he'd run the channels,
he'd score bundles of goals. He was the all-round package.
[narrator] At just 21, Alan Shearer
was the country's most talked about centre forward
and was being bombarded with offers.
I got a call from a representative from Manchester United
and said, "Man United would like to speak to you."
And I said, "Well, that's really great, thank you,
but I have promised that I'd give Blackburn an answer
before the end of the week."
And they said they couldn't get the money together
for whatever reason for a couple of weeks,
so would I be prepared to wait?
[clears throat] I said, "No, I'm not prepared to wait.
If you want me that much then you'd make something happen now."
I was disappointed in that conversation with him, I must say that.
He surprised me a lot.
He seemed to be-- Money seemed to be the most important thing to him.
[narrator] United's name, history and reputation wasn't enough.
Ferguson had been outbid.
I was actually flattered and hugely impressed
that someone was prepared to pay that amount of money for me, stupidly maybe.
Alan Shearer playing at Blackburn Rovers, you know.
Everybody wants Alan Shearer.
He could've gone anywhere. He could've gone Man United, anywhere he wanted,
and he went there.
[Shearer] The major factor of me going to Blackburn
was because one of the first things they said to me was,
"We want to win this Premier League, and we want to win it sharpish."
[dog barking]
[narrator] Blackburn Rovers hadn't won a major honour since 1928.
But having clinched the final spot in the new Premier League,
this was a small club with big ambitions.
Where's Blackburn? Where's Blackburn?
Blackburn? Ah, it's a town in the north? [laughs]
Yorkshire, is it?
Seaside town?[man] Sorry?
Um, it's in Merseyside near Manchester.
[scoffs]
Blackburn... Tony Blackburn? [laughs]
You don't think that people don't know about this place
because it's your be-all and end-all, isn't it?
Wow.
Blackburn Rovers, Julie speaking.
I came to Ewood Park when I was 29.
My family have always been Blackburn Rovers fans. Always.
It was a poor place. It was poor.
You know, the stadium was poor.
There were a row of terraced houses,
and they bought the two end terraces.
One was converted into a gym for the players, and it was grim.
I mean, grim. The town needed a lift.
The day that he did take over, the club secretary said, "I'm expecting a fax."
Usually, I had to pick up the fax and take it in to him,
but he were there hovering over it, waiting and waiting and waiting,
and when it finally came through, he says...
Held it up, and he said, "This will change our lives forever."
[reporter] Jack Walker is a millionaire many times over.
One survey ranks him as the 24th richest man in Britain
and lives a life of true luxury.
His wealth wasn't inherited or won. He earned it.
I'm fortunate. I managed to sell my business two years ago,
and I now have the time to do what I always wanted to do
and be involved in the Blackburn Rovers.
[narrator] Walker had sold the family steel business
and now had £360 million burning a hole in his pocket.
[White] The established giants did not like the arrival of Walker.
This was meant to be a super league.
This was meant to be creating a world in which Liverpool,
Manchester United, Arsenal and Tottenham reigned supreme,
not some upstart with a bit of cash.
[crowd cheering]
I had to go in and I had to do the business.
I had to score goals.
It shocked us.
You think, "Hold on a minute, 3.6 million,
and he's only how old, and he's done what?
He'd better be good." [laughs]
[man] Free kick!
[crowd jeers]
[crowd chanting] Not worth the money! Not worth the money!
[Shearer] To get off to a good start and score a goal
was hugely important because I cost so much then. The pressure was on me.
[crowd roars]
[Preugschat] He didn't buy it just to play with it.
Jack Walker meant business. He wanted to go all the way.
[narrator] The new league was producing unexpected plotlines,
and the success of Sky's £300 million gamble relied on the public getting hooked in.
But the fledgling broadcaster could not rely on the sport itself.
It assembled a marketing team tasked with commercializing English football.
Marketing is everything. It has to tell you something.
It has to touch your... your lifestyle.
♪ Can't, can't, can't Can't get up♪
[Smith] I had been living in Los Angeles
and just loved what they were doing with sport.
It was essentially entertainment.
So you go and see something like the LA Raiders, and it was a show,
and the sport was in the middle of the show.
♪ Get up, get up...♪
[Dein] I got taken to an American football game. The Miami Dolphins were playing.
And I'm trying to concentrate on the game, and all I can hear in my ear is,
"Hot dogs, Coca-Cola, cold beer. Cold beer, hot dogs, Coca-Cola".
And I'm finding I'm passing a dollar bill this way, a Coca-cola that way,
a hamburger this way. [laughs]
And that's just because they made an event out of it, which we didn't.
[announcer] Ford'sMonday Night Football.
[Richard Keys] Mondays are changing.
No longer that start-of-the-week depression.
We're into a whole new ball game on Sky Sports. Good evening to you.
Manchester City and Queens Park Rangers tonight
marking the start of a whole new era.
♪ But if that don't mean Nothing♪
[Hill] Monday Night Football was something that we'd insisted on
in the development of the Sky bid right from the get-go,
and the reason was very simple.
If you looked at the viewing figures in the United States,
the number of women watching on Monday night was almost double the number
that would watch the traditional time spot, which were on Sunday afternoon.
And it became a phenomenon in the US,
that people would have parties, and the weekend didn't really end
until the football game happened on the Monday night.
♪ But if that don't mean Nothing♪
I remember that the first few games, there were dancing girls, there were fireworks,
there was all sorts of stuff going off,
and you're thinking, you know, "We're just coming to play ball. Never seen none of this before."
[Keys] It's a family crowd. These are the Sky Strikers
about which you've heard so much.
♪ What you gonna do When it all cracks up♪
♪ What you gonna do When the love burns down?♪
We got whacked for the Sky Strikers.
♪ What's it gonna take...♪
[reporter] What are you actually gonna do?
We're doing pregame and halftime, you know,
and hopefully getting the crowd going. [laughs]
Just getting the crowd entertained.
That was our attempt at cheerleaders.
♪ Alive and kicking♪
Which, um... which didn't work.
[man] Impressed with what was in the centre circle, boys?
Yeah, in fact, I forgot the game was on. I decided I'd just watch them.
♪ Ooh, oh♪
[Smith laughing]
This was one of our ideas.
I stood in the crowd for it, and I thought,
"This is gonna be great. I'm gonna get their reaction."
And the guys around me said, "What the fuck's going on here now?
What's all that about, eh? What?"
[whistle blows]
[announcer] Here he comes. Yes!
[crowd shouting]
[laughs]
[crowd chanting]
I go, "Okay, we didn't quite get that right. Okay."
But the idea had a germ of something in it.
Let's entertain. Let's do better than a brass band at halftime.
[playing sax solo from "Baker Street"]
For us, there were no boundaries anymore.
We wanted everybody in that crowd.
We wanted women, we wanted kids, we wanted everybody.
We got advertising boards that weren't flat pieces of wood or cardboard.
They revolved.
And then you could have ball boys branded
with another form of advertising.
Oh, and by the way, you can have people in your stadium early,
so you're gonna sell more food, you're gonna sell more beer,
you're gonna sell more merchandise.
And anything that moved was saleable.
Many football fans certainly feel that commercialism is the priority of the game now.
And I think we ought to remember it's a sport. It's not pure business at all.
Yeah, playing Monday night games is such a killer.
How can fans from Manchester travel into Southampton,
hundreds of miles, on Monday night, pouring rain?
No chance. Haven't got money for that.
It's just out of order. Totally out of order.
Yes, it was done for financial gain.
No question, and I make no bones about it.
And in a way, it was a bit outrageous, really. But it worked.
[stadium announcer] Our thanks to the Sky Strikers.
[narrator] Having failed to land Alan Shearer,
Alex Ferguson was desperate to find another frontman.
He took a risk on a newcomer from the lower leagues,
23-year-old Dion Dublin.
[Ferguson] Well, I think we tried to be a bit sane about it.
You know? We did get involved in Alan Shearer a bit,
but when it came to the situation where, oh...
the terms and the actual transfer fees for a 21-year-old,
we just felt Dion Dublin was an alternative.
He's comfortable on the ball, and I think he's got a decent goal-scoring record.
And I just felt that probably, possibly, we've got the better value.
[narrator] But just three weeks later, disaster struck.
The tackle was horrendous,
and it broke his leg and his ankle at the joint.
You knew straightaway he was in trouble.
And he was a great guy, and he'd really just got into the team and started playing.
Come from Cambridge, which was back then
in the second or third division or whatever it was.
And he was just finding his feet as a Manchester United player.
[narrator] The pressure was mounting on Alex Ferguson.
Manchester United fans were growing impatient
and success looked a long way off.
If I asked you which side had only gained one victory from their last ten matches,
scoring just six goals, it might surprise you the answer is Manchester United.
[Edwards] We were having a tough time in the league,
and once we knew the seriousness of Dublin's injury,
then we had to bring in somebody else.
[phone rings]
I was literally in my office one day,
and I got a call from Bill Fotherby,
who was the chief executive of Leeds United.
And Bill said, "Martin, we're wondering,
would you be prepared to sell us Denis Irwin?"
And I said, "We can't let Denis go. He's too important", I said.
"But we'll take Eric off your hands."
[narrator] In France, Eric Cantona had earned a reputation
as a difficult character to manage and had fallen out with his coach.
[in French]
[Cantona in French]
[narrator] After threatening to quit football altogether,
he'd moved to England to play for Leeds United,
but the rumour was he was less than settled.
[Edwards] I'd heard through the grapevine
that Howard Wilkinson didn't particularly get on with Eric.
You know, he was a bit of a maverick character
and Howard couldn't cope with him and the rest of it,
and I'd heard that he wasn't happy with him.
So I just happened to throw in, "Would you be prepared to sell Cantona?"
"Right. What would you be prepared to pay?"
I said a million.
"Don't be stupid", he said. "I'll not let him go for a million.
What about 1.5?"
"No, no. No, a million."
"You give me 1.2..."
"Look, I've said a million. We've discussed it all last week.
We're taking him off your hands. Howard wants to get rid of him."
"Well, listen," he said. "We'll do a million, but can we say it's 1.2?"
He says, "We'll get slaughtered by our supporters here."
I said, "You can say what you like, Bill. Say what you like."
[man 1] Au revoir,Leeds. Bonjour,Manchester.
[man 2] The footballing fraternity was stunned
when Cantona left Leeds after just a year.
[man 3] Now Manchester United have to try and tame the wayward talent
of the French international.
[man 4] All right, look in this one.
-[man 5] And this one, please. -[man 6] This one, please.
[men shouting]
[Cantona] I came from France where they wanted us to be all the same.
But England was... was special.
They could accept somebody who was...
was a certain kind of personality.
Somebody who is a bit different can be accepted and loved.
[men shouting]
All the best, mate.
[reporter] Eric, can I ask you, are you surprised to be here?
No.[man] No, he's not surprised.
He arrived at Old Trafford like he was already the king of Old Trafford.
He walked in with his chest puffed out, his collars up.
Just such a confidence about the lad.
[Cantona] The day I signed for Manchester United, I'd say...
It was a great club, and I had to...
I had to succeed.
[reporter] Are you able to tell us how much the deal was for?
Ah, 1.2 million.
[reporter] Has playing English football made him a more mature person
and less of an enfant terrible?
[laughter]
[speaking French]
[interpreter] It still upsets him, that image, as it did before.
[interviewer] He's got a fiery reputation
a fiery Frenchman, and, with due respect, a fiery Scot.
How's that relationship gonna develop?
Well, the French and Scots have great old alliances
if you know your history.
I'm hoping this is part of a new alliance.
He has got a bad-boy image, hasn't he? How are you gonna deal with that?
Well, we'll just have this experience.
Hopefully, I have the experience to handle it.
This might be a new challenge for me too.
[announcer] There hasn't been a more controversial move in English football.
£1.2 million it cost for Cantona to come to Old Trafford.
Great cross, Phelan arriving. Cantona made it. Yes!
[crowd roaring]
Eric Cantona's first goal for Manchester United just seemed to land.
He's always had coaches or managers who were trying to shape him,
where Fergie let him be a free spirit.
[Cantona] And when you receive the ball, you want to...
It's like caressing the ball.
It's like a dance.
[announcer] Cantona, he's really in the mood.
[crowd roars]
They say a rising tide lifts all boats,
and Cantona was a rising tide.
He was exciting. It was good to watch. It was like we had United back.
[announcer] Passed forward. But not past the first time, but he does the second time.
Of course I was a winner.
I wanted to win, but I have to express myself.
[announcer] Cross with a left from Irwin. Cantona's looping header, and a goal!
-[crowd cheering] -[announcer] And the cult hero here
has his status elevated even higher.
Eric Cantona was a producer's gift from God.
Here you had this wonderful, wonderful character.
He almost had a hip-hugging hologram around him when he was playing,
that he was always doing something. The eye couldn't leave him.
[Cantona] Like the lions or the tigers,
you know, the way they move.
Like this, like they are sleeping, you know?
But if they move, they move quickly.
[announcer] Over the goalkeeper, Cantona!
Confidence, arrogance, belief, he had all those things.
He was different. He did art.
And then he'd talk about painting pictures on a football pitch.
Nobody used that analogy. I certainly never used that,
and I'm painting pictures on a football pitch.
That's how Eric saw himself, as an artist.
[Cantona] If you see
all the movements of the players, you know, on the pitch,
if you can draw it, you know,
make a big, wonderful piece of art.
[announcer] Cantona making ground in the middle, and he finds him!
Yes! A magnificent equalizer by Manchester United!
Eric Cantona!
[narrator] The £360 million fortune of steel magnate Jack Walker
was having a direct impact on the title race.
The return on his investment was being paid back with interest.
[crowd cheering]
[both] A Shearer shirt, please.
[woman] What size?Small boy's.
We never really had fan mail for players, you know.
But with Alan Shearer, it was a different story.
It just came in thick and fast.
My mum and dad were so proud 'cause they couldn't wait to tell everybody where I worked.
"Oh, she works for Blackburn Rovers. She's Alan Shearer's secretary."
If they'd said I were a surgeon, they would just be as proud.
[announcer] He's-- Oh!
[Hendry] It could have been an expensive failure,
but it was never gonna be an expensive failure
because as a finisher of goals, Alan Shearer was just... as good as there was.
Who was that?Shearer.
Shearer scored.
♪ I used to think that the day Would never come♪
♪ I'd see the light in the shade Of the morning sun♪
All of a sudden, there were a new life in the town.
[to "Winter Wonderland"] ♪ There's only one Alan Shearer♪
♪ Walking along Singing a song♪
♪ Walking In a Shearer wonderland♪
[both] Yay! [laughing]
[announcer] They've done it! They've caught Leeds out,
and Wilcox, who's got one goal, can get another one,
or he might lay it on who else but Alan Shearer!
[crowd cheering]
[Shearer] You felt a sort of a ping go in my knee.
When any player goes down and then doesn't move very much,
you automatically think that's something serious.
That runs through everybody's mind, and certainly through mine as well.
A ruptured cruciate ligament back in '92, '93
was viewed as a career-threatening injury.
[crowd chanting] Shearer! Shearer! Shearer!
[Preugschat] We'd just got going in the Premier League,
and then all of a sudden, it's cut, you know?
Alan's gone.
Heartbreaking.
The one time where the cost of this guy actually came into my thoughts
was when the surgeon produced a hammer and a chisel,
and I thought, "Oh, my God, you can't take that to this guy's knee.
You know, he's worth a fortune."
[Shearer] It's a long, hard road back, and you've got to accept that.
But then I was determined to get back bigger and stronger than ever.
[funk music playing]
♪ Get down, get down♪
The most complete football service in the world, seven days a week,
Sky Sports is in a league of its own. This is why.
Sky had a commercial association with other branches of Murdoch's media empire.
So he had The Sun, which was the most popular daily newspaper.
He had The Times, which was the paper of record.
And what he could do was fantastically push this new product
on the pages of his newspapers.
The Sunday Times,of course, was part of the Murdoch empire,
so you're not calling it a slum sport anymore.
You're saying, "This is something you should get involved in."
[man] It's quite good, really, you know what I mean?
Bit of coverage, see much more of the game.
I like the interviews after. It's all right, mate. See plenty of football.
So I like it, know what I mean?
[Hill] Every pub in Britain had to have Sky in there
for Sunday afternoon and Monday night.
Sky had arrived.
[chattering]
[narrator] On the pitch, a drama was starting to take shape.
The fairy tale, where a sleeping giant is reawoken,
was about to enter the closing chapter.
As his side climbed the table, Ferguson was winning back the fans.
But one slip, and the tide could so easily turn.
[chattering]
[Cantona] When you didn't win things for so long,
you have maybe more pressure.
And Alex Ferguson was the perfect manager for that
because he had everything.
He-- He knows football perfectly.
And I remember the pre-match talk from Alex Ferguson was always...
He always finished by, "Now you know everything. Now enjoy it."
[chattering]
[man] Since their last title in 1967,
United have won numerous cup competitions,
but have continually seemed to lack the resilience to clinch that league title again.
[crowd singing]
[announcer] Hello again. I'm Martin Tyler. This is Old Trafford.
Alex Ferguson on a crusade
to try and bring the championship here.
[narrator] With just six matches remaining,
the game against Sheffield Wednesday was seen as pivotal.
Locked in a title battle with Aston Villa,
a United win would put them top of the league
and provide momentum for the final run-in.
[crowd chanting]
[Schmeichel] We need to win this game in order to stay in the race.
This is thegame.
[announcer] Sharpe... Here's McClair!
[crowd groans]
[announcer] Cantona knew exactly what he was going to do before the ball arrived.
When you start to think too much, analyse everything...
You know, now they analyse everything in football.
All I know is that I could express myself,
and I don't want to know more.
[announcer] That's a great touch by Cantona for Giggs.
[crowd groans]
It's like in love.
I don't want to know why I love my wife.
Cantona has done it again! This is McClair.
[crowd groans]
[Pallister] We'd had so many chances in the game,
and then all of a sudden, this came around.
[announcer] Waddle.
Penalty!
[White] I was at that game, and here we were,
United's inherent weakness seemed to be there.
That nerve about getting over the line.
There's no doubt about it.
Ferguson was desperate to win that title.
You could almost see it in his eyes, thinking, "This is gonna slip away."
[crowd shouting, booing]
[stadium announcer] The Sheffield Wednesday penalty
scored by number five, John Sheridan.
[Pallister] I remember the deathly silence.
The fans were just...
dumbstruck really.
You're thinking this is a moment where
we could be throwing away the title.
We find ourselves 1-0 down going into the final minutes of normal time.
[announcer] Alex Ferguson needs his players to dig very deep.
[Cantona] What is great with Alex Ferguson,
he wasn't afraid to be in front of personalities.
He had Schmeichel, Robson,
Paul Ince, Steve Bruce.
He could deal with any kind of personality, and more than that,
he helped them to express themselves.
[announcer] Now Cantona.
That's a great play by Chris Woods.
And then be part of the team.
[announcer] Hughes. Still Hughes...
and Woods has kept it out again. Corner.
And I think this kind of team managed like this is...
stronger than anyone.
[announcer] Back to Bruce. Oh, it's in!
Woods couldn't do it that time.
Have Manchester United
got it in them to find another goal here?
It was that idea that, don't think that you can write this team off.
They'll come good at the last.
And, of course, for a broadcaster,
that is really, really brilliant content because it's the cliffhanger.
You've gotta stick to the end. You can't switch off
'cause anything could happen.
[announcer] We're in the 90th minute.
This is Premier League drama of the highest order.
For some reason, which I never ever found any sense or good explanation as to why,
Pally turned up on the right wing.
[announcer] Pallister.
Bruce... Yes!
-Yes, for Manchester United! -[crowd roaring]
Unbelievable!
Out of the depths of despair comes that.
It's all about the cross. [laughs]
[crowd chanting]
[reporter] I've never seen him go so ape shit.
Who?The manager.
You'll see the shot tonight. He's run onto the track.
I think it was Brian who went on the pitch.
Brian went on the pitch and they went mad.
I never ever, ever saw Fergie celebrate like that.
And when he's running up, I think he's about to do somersaults and everything.
And then he realizes... [snaps finger] "Oh, I'm the manager here.
I have to contain myself."
But Brian Kidd doesn't get that thought.
He carries on. He's on his knees and looking at the sky and everything.
From that moment on, everything changed.
[Ferguson] It brought us all excitement, the support.
Almost saying, "We are gonna do it. It's gonna happen."
[crowd singing]
[narrator] After their last-minute victory,
there was no looking back for Manchester United.
They were assured of the Premier League title before the season finished.
We had a sort of like a...
Eh, we had a... We had a... Oh, I'll put it the way it is.
We had a party at Bruce's house.
♪ Pump it up a little more♪
♪ Get the party going On the dance floor♪
♪ 'Cause that's where The party's at...♪
[narrator] On the evening before their final home game,
the players' celebrations would become the stuff of suburban legend.
[Pallister] We all piled round Bruce's house about 7:00,
and I think we left there about 4:00 in the morning. [laughs]
So it was like an eight, nine-hour bender.
♪ I don't want A place to stay♪
[man] If the gaffer could see us now.
Consistency, consistency. The man Ince.
I love him! I love him!
[in French]
And, of course, we tried to be sensible, but it's difficult.
In a way, it was quite unprofessional.
I'll say that we didn't do it like we should have done.
But it's not my fault.
[chuckling]
[chattering]
It just went on maybe longer than what it should have done, to be perfectly honest.
Everything about the game the next day was, "One more then I'll go.
You know what? Someone please grab me and say I have to go,
and then I will go." And obviously people weren't grabbing people early enough.
♪ Get your booty On the floor tonight♪
[horn honking rhythmically]
Oh, when the Reds!
-Go marching in! -Go marching in!
♪ Oh, when the Reds Go marching in♪
♪ I want to be in that number When the Reds go marching in♪
Good evening from Old Trafford.
There hasn't been a night here like this
for over a quarter of a century.
But once again, Manchester United are the champions.
It's been a long, long wait since those days of Best and Law
and Charlton.
[Molyneux] I wrote a letter to Alex Ferguson saying
that I criticised you when you got it wrong
or when I thought you were getting wrong,
and it's only fair that I applaud you now.
♪ Alex Ferguson, Ferguson, Ferguson♪
[Molyneux] You've made all our dreams come true.
You've done what you were asked to do,
and you'll always go down in the annals of time for that,
and thanks for doing that. I never got a reply.
And, also, I wouldn't have blamed him for thumping me.
Well, you shouldn't drink the night before a big game!
[all laughing]
Remember before the game when we're...
A lot of us are sitting down, virtually trying to keep our bodies upright
because we had maybe celebrated a little bit too much the night before.
[Ferguson] This is the greatest night of your lives.
It's a night where you can relax and play, but win.
-[players laughing] -Okay?
I'm not even gonna ask you what you were up to last night. I daren't ask you.
I daren't.
[crowd cheering]
[stadium announcer] Here they are, the Premier League champions, 1993,
Manchester United!
[crowd cheering]
I've never known an atmosphere like it in Old Trafford in all my life that night.
That was just... The relief, the enjoyment, the party atmosphere.
♪ We are the champions, My friends♪
[narrator] As the curtain came down on the first season,
United were to be awarded the Premier League trophy
after the final game against their ambitious rivals, Blackburn Rovers.
Their star striker was still out with injury.
Don't remember anything about that. It's irrelevant.
Well, they won the league, we didn't.
Not interested in it.
That's why I don't remember it. [laughs]
[announcer] Hughes trying to help it through.
A bit of a scramble. Cantona. Ince is in there!
And Manchester United have taken the lead through Paul Ince.
And Cantona is again the provider, and again no wonder they applaud on the bench.
[whistle blows]
[crowd cheering]
[reporter] Well, Alex, many, many congratulations.
How good does it feel at the moment
to know that you're the Premier League champions?
Well, it's a wonderful, wonderful night.
You strive all your life to get a feeling like tonight
and to experience an atmosphere like we have tonight is...
I've never seen anything like that in my life.
[reporter] Now when you signed Eric Cantona, there were probably a few raised eyebrows.
An absolutely inspired signing in hindsight,
but can you just assess his contribution this season to you?
I think he brought imagination to our game
that only great players can bring to teams
and our players immediately were magnetised by him.
And he just created a sort of a flair and a chemistry
that only United supporters can understand.
[Cantona] What I mean to him, I don't know.
What he means to me, it's like...
He was like a second father for me.
[interviewer] Did he make you a better player?
I think so, yeah. Yeah.
So thanks, Alex.
Boss.
Sir Alex Ferguson.
[crowd cheering]
[White] Well, at the beginning of that season,
there'd been huge losses at Sky.
And then suddenly, the Premier League was delivering
a million subscribers in that first season.
This was huge.
They actually turned a profit at the end of that first season,
and it was all done by the football.
It was wonderful. We had amazing theatre,
we had amazing stars and we had an amazing plotline that we didn't have to write.
We just went along for the ride, and it was fantastic.
[crowd] ♪ Glory, glory Man United♪
[narrator] Amongst the thousands of fans witnessing United make history
was an 18-year-old on the verge of breaking into the team.
I was in the stadium with my mum and dad.
To see us lift the trophy,
the team that me and my dad supported our whole lives,
was the most incredible moment.
You could feel that something special was happening.
You could feel that there was a change within the club.
Well, thanks...[man] Shh! Shh!
...to all of you for joining me tonight.[man] Cheers.
A wonderful night. Appreciate you all being here.
-[man] To Alex! -Hear, hear!
[all cheering]
[Le Saux] It was a celebration for them, but it was humiliating for us that night.
It was a big motivator for the next season
because how we felt afterwards
really, I think, got our backs up.
And I think we felt,
okay, right, we've got you in our sights.
[announcer] Ripley. Oh, and he's come for Alan Shearer!
Goal for Blackburn Rovers!
[man] Football became a huge part of the tapestry of the country.
Everybody was talking about the Premier League.
[crowd roars]
No, I don't. I don't have any regrets.
[announcer] Oh, my goodness me!
Eric Cantona has kung-fu'd a Crystal Palace fan!