London (AFP) – When Liverpool were last crowned English champions, in April 1990, Margaret Thatcher was prime minister and the Premier League was two years away from its glitzy launch.
Now Jurgen Klopp’s runaway leaders are a Manchester City stumble away from once again ruling the roost after seeing off Crystal Palace 4-0 on Wednesday.
If City fail to beat Chelsea on Thursday, then it will all be over.
In 1990 it was business as usual for Kenny Dalglish’s dominant Reds, who had finished in the top two every year since 1973, apart from one season.
Their triumph came a year after the trauma of the Hillsborough disaster, which claimed the lives of 96 Liverpool fans after a terrace crush.
Off the pitch, Britain was in the final months of Thatcher’s long premiership.
Fierce opposition to the ruling Conservative Party’s plans for a “poll tax”, which included riots in London, contributed to her downfall in November 1990.
Britain still faced a threat from the Irish Republican Army and was heading for an economic recession.
– Liverpool change –
The city of Liverpool suffered high unemployment and rioting during the turbulent 1980s.
Joe Moran, professor of English and cultural history at Liverpool John Moores University, said northern cities suffered during Britain’s accelerated economic transformation under Thatcher from a traditional manufacturing base towards a more service-based, consumer-oriented economy.
Liverpool’s long-term decline as a port exacerbated the problems.
“The year 1990 wasn’t the bleakest year in the city’s history but it was just coming out of it,” said Moran.
“Hillsborough happened a year before and it wasn’t really until the mid-1990s that the city was being transformed, partly because it was coming out of recession, and through European funding.
“Winning the title, it was more important because the city was going through quite a hard time.”
– TV riches –
The football landscape was also radically different three decades ago, with the English game yet to be flooded with the TV riches that came with the launch of the Premier League.
Bryan Robson remained the most expensive footballer traded between English clubs, nine years after his £1.5 million ($1.9 million) transfer from West Brom to Manchester United.
Moran said the 1990 World Cup in Italy was a catalyst for the “complete transformation” of football.
“I think the commercial changes to football since 1990 are in some ways a more extreme version of what happened in society,” he said.
from World Soccer Talk https://ift.tt/2B5xWaY
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