It was a moment of Filbert Street, Highbury, Upton Park and Dell. Sir Bobby Robson guided Newcastle United in the Champions League, while Dave Bassett, in a doomed last hurray, Leicester took City to the League.
Leeds United, fresh from a semi-final of the European Cup, was one of the most exciting young sides in Europe, Manchester City fought his way out of Division One under Kevin Keegan, and nobody heard talk about Zlatan Ibrahimovic. The late George Harrison was number 1 in the Top 40, New Labour in Westminster and found Old Trafford the Barclaycard Premiership governed.
January 2002 was a fascinating moment in the history of English football. The Premier was still young (as it was then called), but be considering his 10th birthday on the horizon properly implemented, and Arsene Wenger is widely continental revolution, and strangely blind inaugurate credited changed the face of the game, rhythm and temperament. English football had converted Europe, during the European football was supposed to be English, come up with a clutch of teams in the Premier the later rounds of the Champions League after the years of post-Heysel dominate broke.
Meanwhile, a first foreign coach for the national team, after the first, began predictably reserves the tempered excitement about the future bring, driven by a 5-1 victory over Germany at the Olympic Stadium in Berlin, which had the team of Sven-Goran Eriksson is on the brink of the World Cup in the Far East.
Led by Metropolitan sexual David Beckham and Michael Owen, Paul Scholes and Rio Ferdinand at the height of his power England was desirable consumption and very fashionable.
Despite the ability of our collective memory plays red with tinted spectacles and know that everything we hold in our breast pocket Football in England is burned in the snowy winter of 2002 with optimism.
All that energy together to give maximum category, perhaps the most intense race tracks breath in a generation, perhaps of all time. It began in earnest in the night of 22 January.
Liverpool, under the temporary address Phil Thompson, who held three days earlier to a disappointing 1-1 draw at home to Southampton, I traveled to Old Trafford for midweek showdown with champions Manchester United. The game seemed to be graduated, with five minutes to slipped Steven Gerrard Danny Murphy Vaseline the winning goal in Liverpool Fabien Barthez and claw two points behind United.
The next evening the fourth place went to Arsenal Filbert Street and beat Leicester 3-1 with goals from Gio van Bronckhorst, Thierry Henry and Sylvain Wiltord. From today until the end of the season, Arsenal and Liverpool were no less ruthless. Between 22 January and 11 May both teams fell just seven points between them in the league, winning picking up 86 of 93 possible games and 28 31st
In the process, they reach the United champion out of the race, with Sir Alex Ferguson ended 10 points of the head and from the top two for the first time in the era of the Premier. The master himself, incredibly, won 19 of their last 24 games but were undone by a terrible start to the season which saw them lose five of seven in the autumn, inspired before a 1-0 defeat at Middlesbrough Alen Bokšić from Old Trafford in March effectively outside their challenge.
Newcastle Robson, who had spent the table for much in December, the next race back-to-back defeats left against Arsenal and Liverpool in the early spring. Reds and Gunners, meanwhile clashed at the top of the league, in what has become a relentless procession of brilliant football.
Early February 10 goals Liverpool met in a week, getting the first shipment of Leeds, for the good times were for the first blows derailed on a path into oblivion and relegation bound Ipswich should result which were dismantled in June -0 Portman Road in a master class Owen and Emile Heskey goal.
Here, in one afternoon, lasting appeal that short time was encapsulated in English football. Since the name of Owen and Heskey have the abbreviation of ridicule and poor performance in our cultural vocabulary marker wasted talent and lost become optimism. But there was a time when they were considered too hot property and its mission to treat both the club and former glory restore tied Saturday Afternoon subplot with a background in the winter and slightly bitter compelling.
He was apocryphal, of course. Even in its heyday Heskey had been a little more flexible and mobile than a garden shed, and Owen never really seemed the aura throwing of a precocious child with a future to be in front of him, but somehow never got there. But after he scored four of five goals from England to Berlin, Britain was ready to believe, and it was something comforting warm look defense like bowling to break, as Liverpool chased the tile. In short, everything seemed possible, and Owen / Heskey partnership seemed to endorse this glorious Technicolor.
And Liverpool steamroller. Blackburn were sent on a pier 4-3 voltage, Newcastle and Chelsea were rebuffed at Anfield in and the imposing presence of Sami Hyypiä and Markus Babbel held firm to grind narrow victories on Sunderland, Fulham and Middlesbrough.
Freer score was Arsenal, one shot endpoints Jo Tessem fell against Southampton in early February, but then never looked back. Dennis asked Mark to Nikos Dabizas at St James Park one of the flagships league goals Bergkamp upside down; Robert Pires with a delicious lob over Peter Schmeichel boldly darkened at Villa Park.
These are times when Arsenal did not choose the continued allocation away days at Everton, Bolton, Charlton and the rest comes strengths in all three, galvanized by the sight of the finish line instead of being hunted by the failure of the spectrum as shown in the following years. Patrick Vieira and harassed began with a brightness of Ballet; Tony Adams and David Seaman, forced by injuries sidelined, was high on the sidelines, quietly demanding approach.
Towards the end of the column of smoke began to run and the hard work has resumed. Freddy Ljungberg and Lauren objectives were needed to squeak past Ipswich and Tottenham at Highbury, while survival Ashley Cole goal line 0-0 against West Ham probably not play the era of video technology. Arsenal rallied the hammer with two goals to beat in the last 13 minutes.
Three days later, after an incredible series of results that had spread over three months, blinked Liverpool Thompson. After 12 victories in 13 of the Reds 1-0 in fell, of all places, Gus Poyet White Hart Lane end of the first half of the opening of the door volley for Arsenal to sweep the job and quit. Two days later she won at Bolton and Liverpool execution dazzling came to nothing. Arsenal won the title with a goal from Wiltord home of the deposed champions May 8
And so he ended a brief period of brutal intensity and glorious chance in the Premier League Premier. The next five seasons have the title is seen as winning both sides galloped away easily collapsed, and the Premier League might not appear at any time to be there as a flicker to life. Since the days of the football field four English-medium, it feels housed in an inaccessible part of the past.
