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Originally Posted by Swift

As everyone's probably aware, it's the 30th anniversary of the Premier League kickoff (first round of fixtures were on 15th Aug 1992). It was coincidentally the real start of my football fandom. I was a Liverpool fan since as far as I can remember but I didn't actually follow football day in, day out. I could name the players and watched the occasional match on TV, but otherwise didn't keep track of them. However, my younger brothers and I were on vacation in Aug 92 and so were allowed to stay up late to watch Match of the Day, and from then on we were hooked - watched every bit of football we could (didn't have Sky until a few years later so listened to the audio commentary on a scrambled screen), bought the magazines, had posters on the wall, read the back pages as soon as the newspaper was delivered, collected stickers, played football every day after school, etc

I look back fondly on the early days when it was still Brits and Irish kicking lumps out of each other on bobbly fields, but with the occasional foreign flair thrown in. Cantona was there already, but then came players like Gullit, Vialli and Klinsmann. These were players I'd watched in World Cups and couldn't believe they'd ever play in the less than glamourous English league. It was a very exciting time to be a teenage fan.

I don't think I'm a fan of where it's ended up. Far too much money in the game. I can remember when Keane went to Utd for a British record £3.75m, then Cole to Utd for £7m, Collymore to Liverpool for £8.5m and then Shearer to Newcastle for £15m. That ridiculous progression only took 4 years and it's obviously ballooned crazily since then. Now you've got average players going for double, triple and quadruple that. It's nonsense that's ultimately going to result in well known clubs going bust as they try to compete.

Anyway, here's the promo video for the launch. So many old familiar faces there, and also many I don't recognise either.

It's so ridiculous seeing Vinnie Jones in there. Painfully sub-par actor, and a worse footballer.