The Premier League is over 30-years-old now and it’s fair to say that it’s revolutionised football, not just in the UK but all over the world. It’s the biggest domestic league on the planet and has seen some of the world’s best take part in epic rivalries and cold Tuesday nights in Stoke.

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It all kicked off in the early 90s, when British football was coming out of a rather bleak period in which clubs were banned from Europe, the Hillsborough Disaster had shook the nation and the leagues were pretty much an all British affair when it came to the talent taking to the pitch.

A lot has changed since those days, but what are the biggest changes?

Dressing Room Culture

Dressing room culture has shifted astronomically over the last few decades, and certainly for the better. While there’s something nostalgic about looking back over a period where the players loved a social, getting out drinking on a Saturday night or as part of the infamous Tuesday Club, looking back you can also see it was considerably damaging the players’ health.

A large number of players from the 90s ended up in alcoholism rehab, as well as suffering with the likes of gambling addiction due to the culture around them, and it paints a truly heartbreaking picture in many cases. Think Tony Adams, Paul Merson, Paul Gascoigne. They would have thrived in this era without that monkey on their back, being better looked after and in turn fans getting the best of them both on and off the pitch.

Sponsors

Saying that, these days gambling would be all around them. There have been many calls in recent years to limit the amount of gambling adverts in football, and reforms are set to be made in the coming years to prevent gambling sponsors on shirts.

Back at the beginning of the Premier League, alcohol was the main taboo when it came to sponsors, with those brands now banned from shirts, while electronics also were prominant across major teams, with JVC at Liverpool, Sharp and Manchester United and Candy at Liverpool.

Not Quite As International

Of course, the key change has been the multiculturalism on the pitch. The Premier League saw an influx of foreign players arriving in changing rooms, and was perhaps one of the key catalysts for changing the culture, with both players and managers from overseas bringing in a health conscious culture, new training regimes, and a flair that has excited fans for the past three decades.

Could we imagine a division without Thierry Henry, Cantona, Zola and Aguero? It’d sure be a poorer place!