Fever Pitch: The Rise of the Premier League
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- Episode
- Episode One
- Broadcast Info
- 2021 (56 mins)
- Description
- Badly marketed, under-invested and with hooliganism rampant, English football was in the doldrum... and then came Italia ‘90. Success for England on the pitch created heroes in the form of ‘Gazza’, Gary Lineker, and the fatherly Bobby Robson. Together they captured the imagination of a new generation of football fans. This new euphoria hadn’t gone unnoticed by the chairman of the ‘Big 5’ clubs Manchester United, Arsenal, Tottenham Hotspur, Liverpool and Everton. They’d been waiting for an opportunity to create a new league which would take English football out of the dark ages and revamp the sport for a new era. This was it, football’s Big Bang. At the same time Rupert Murdoch’s new satellite channel Sky TV was haemorrhaging money. He desperately needed a solution to stem the flow and decided to gamble everything on a £300m investment to secure the television rights for the new Premier League. Founder members Manchester United hadn’t won a league title since 1967. They entered the new Premier League era lacking confidence, with a manager facing a crisis. Six years into his United career, Alex Ferguson was yet to prove that he was the man for the job - sections of United fans were calling for his head. Then a mercurial Frenchman by the name of Eric Cantona rides into town. Thirty miles away, the less fashionable Blackburn Rovers are preparing to make an assault of their own on the new Premier League. Backed by local steel magnet Jack Walker and his £360m personal fortune, they are ready to spend, spend, spend. Alan Shearer snubs the overtures of Alex Ferguson for Blackburn in a British transfer fee record of £3.6m. It’s a gamble but Shearer is a goal scoring machine and Blackburn climb the table. With his future on the line, can Alex Ferguson silence the fans and make history?
- Genre
- Business Studies; Culture; Media; Sport
How to cite this record
The Open University, "Fever Pitch: The Rise of the Premier League". https://learningonscreen.ac.uk/ou/search/index.php/prog/240263 (Accessed 10 Jan 2025)