The Ties That Bind - Part 2
The 1988-89 season saw one of the tightest-ever battles for the First Division title, with both Arsenal and Liverpool — who happened to be playing each other — in contention on the last day of the season. Owing to its importance, the game was broadcast live on television and finished most dramatically: Arsenal needed to win by two goals to be crowned champions and, with seconds to remain, Michael Thomas scored the Gunners’ second to land them the prize.
With such drama on live TV, it showed how entertaining football could be and, more significantly, how many viewers it could bring in — untapped commercial potential. Within months, conversations between broadcasters and football chairmen about how to exploit this began and the Premier League was born, with BSkyB winning the rights to show 60 live games a season.
The Liverpool-Arsenal match was a key element of the memoir (and later film) Fever Pitch by then-upcoming writer Nick Hornby. The (sort-of) Londoner represented a hitherto low-key football fan; considered, thoughtful but no less passionate and obsessive than the stereotypical supporter. The book was a huge success and for his sophomore effort, Hornby wrote the novel High Fidelity, about an obsessive and sensitive music fan undergoing an existential crisis; a character who was likely closer to home than the author would admit.
Meanwhile, as the Premier League blossomed, music in the UK underwent one of its semi-regular changes and, arguably, the last true youth culture movement exploded circa 1992: Britpop.