The Premier League- a throwback to the old Third Division

The Premier League- a throwback to the old Third Division.

At the top of the Premier League those household names are scrapping and fiercely competing for the Premier League title. Now the Premier League used to be the old First Division and if you were fortunate enough to win the old First Division you were acclaimed as the League Champions with that marvellous old trophy which looked as if it belonged on some Victorian mantelpiece. Occasionally one of the servants of an earl's ancestral home would dust it and then we would all sigh with wonder.

Now of course the Premier League trophy, although still very impressive looking, is somehow lacking in the charm and grandiosity of that big old silver pot. You can't help but think that those in the know didn't really think it through and what we're now left with is some very poor parody of a once cherished footballing prize. Still, it does look good in your club's trophy cabinet so maybe it's me.

At the moment the current Premier League does have a distinctly old Third Division feel about it. There is here a very nostalgic throwback to the 1960s. True, the Beatles, That Was The Week That Was, Vietnam and the Beach Boys have long since been swallowed up by history. But the fact remains that the old days have now launched a major comeback and if you close your eyes for a couple of moments you can almost see Bill Shankly of Liverpool, Sir Matt Busby of Manchester United, Bertie Mee of Arsenal and Bill Nicholson at Spurs. And then you revert back to the present day and find that it was all some wonderful dream.

So yes the Premier League does remind you of the old Third Division. Let me explain. There's Watford, Bournemouth and Hull City who once occupied the rather more unfashionable places in the great Football League pyramid. Now though they're all established members of the Premier League. Well not exactly established members of the Premier League but it does feel that all three clubs have accidentally dropped into a private party and perhaps found that they were at some very rich ambassador's get together. They're clearly not out of their depth but both Watford, Bournemouth and Hull City may feel in need in some of acclimatisation. A case of the working class proletariat mixing it with the upper class bourgeoisie

Anyway all three will have to get used to their exalted surroundings believing that every football club has a right to rub shoulders with the highest echelons of an all members club. For years the likes of Arsenal, Liverpool, Manchester United, Chelsea, Spurs and Everton have all felt some divine right to be recognised as the cream of the crop. The old First Division is the place where all of the upper class aristocrats adopted their familiar airs and graces. All of the so called superiors turned up their noses with their snooty, snotty mannerisms and affectations.  If you didn't wear the right jacket then you were kicked out, rejected and disowned. But those days have long since gone and maybe for the best.

At the Emirates Stadium Arsenal, one of the longest residents of the old First Division and still a class act in the Premier League, shook off the cobwebs that had begun to accumulate in their previous two matches and slowly re-discovered their slickness, their nimbleness, neat one touch football and all the facets of their game that have almost become second nature to them.

Their opponents Hull City, formerly of the aforesaid old Third Division, were the Gunners opponents and wore the kind of shirts that may have reflected their mood. Yesterday Hull ran out of the Emirates tunnel in the most depressingly sombre black. It is hard to remember a time when any football team in Britain has ever worn black. But here they were all in black and it was hard to understand why. Maybe they were lamenting their lost youth or fed up with being Hull City. Maybe they were just moping about the quality of their opponents and spitefully refusing to play well.

But Hull did play exceptionally well and belied their position in the lower basement of the Premier League. For long periods Arsenal must have felt as if the spectre of Chelsea and Watford was still hovering over them. Hull moved the ball around the Emirates as if they were the team who were in the top six rather than Hull. There is something about class, entitlement and privilege which does football no favours. Here were Hull on an equal footing with an Arsenal side that always look as if they play their football on a country estate. Hull had though just as much refinement as Arsenal but without quite the same social status. On the day Hull. were just as clever and cunning as the Gunners,  a team that may be struggling to survive but, it has to be said, deserving of equality.

For long periods of the first half though Arsenal looked as if the defeats against Watford and Chelsea had imposed  more psychological scars than they might have been expecting. Arsenal stuttered quite alarmingly as if perhaps mindful of Bayern Munich in the Champions League next week. The passes went into mysterious cul-de sacs and the fluency that has always characterised their football under their manager Arsene Wenger began to desert them.

 Suddenly the gifted likes of Theo Walcott, Alex Oxlade Chamberlain and the often brilliant Alexis Sanchez all performed as if they'd quite literally been introduced to each other. Mezut Ozil, their joyous midfield playmaker, frequently looked to the heavens as if mortally offended by forces that were beyond him and the whole foundation of Arsenal's heavenly passing game seemed to be wobbling and creaking at times.

Then came Arsenal's two winning goals and the status quo had been restored. Sanchez scrambled in Arsenal's first and then drove home a penalty that could have been avoided but wasn't. All was well in North London yesterday and when the Arsenal fans heard about their neighbours Tottenham's misfortune you could almost hear that belly laugh of hilarity that always seems to happen when Arsenal win and Tottenham lose.

Once again the game started at Saturday lunchtime which used to be the cue for a mass exodus to the pub and just a couple of hearty steak and kidney pies. In the old days football obeyed the old fashioned rules and regulations. The old First Division, including the Second, Third and Fourth always kicked off at the same 3pm slot they'd always been accustomed to and everybody just obeyed the conventions of the day. Everything seemed right, proper and fitting just as it had always been.

In the old days Arsenal played at Highbury and Hull played their games at Boothferry Park now long since lost to ancient history and very rarely mentioned by Hull's new generation of fans. It almost seems as if the game of yesterday is like some sentimental memory, a souvenir of the past rather than some ambitious plan for the future. But it did seem that Arsenal and Hull were playing on the same level playing field as each other so there was something to be said for what goes around comes around.

And yet my father in law, a lifetime Gunner and I, sat and watched a game on a satellite channel that could only have been some fanciful daydream 40 years ago. Then football had a sense of time and tradition, a feeling that everything that used to be common practice had now been tampered with beyond recognition.

Still my father in law was delighted with an Arsenal victory that, in the end was  thoroughly deserved. And yet I suspect he could still hear the distant echoes of Liam Brady, Charlie George, John Radford, Eddie Kelly, Dennis Bergkamp and Thierry Henry still calling but now just pleasant memories. As for Watford, Bournemouth and Hull. Let's just say that the old Third Division  is now League 1 and there are now 300 million TV channels as opposed to the three I was brought up with. How times change. I'm off to look for my game of Subbuteo