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#2 Blackburn Rovers
It’s never good for a league when a team who once won the highest prize are no longer in the top flight, but for Blackburn Rovers, things are even worse. The team that pipped Manchester United to the 1994/95 league title are not only no longer in the Premier League, but they’re currently in League One following their relegation from the Championship in 2016/17.
So why does the Premier League miss Blackburn? Well, for one, it’s impossible to look back at 1994/95 without using rose-tinted spectacles these days. Long-time fans would recall that some people accused Blackburn of “buying the title” when they purchased Chris Sutton for £5 million in the summer of 1994 – a fee that probably wouldn’t even pay the agent’s fee for a mid-level talent these days.
As it turned out, the buy was the catalyst for Blackburn’s title win, as Sutton formed a potent striking partnership with Alan Shearer and helped them to overhaul United.
Of course, the big difference was that the money to buy Sutton – and other top players like Shearer, Graeme Le Saux and Tim Flowers – came from local businessman Jack Walker rather than an oligarch or an oil-rich investor, which somehow made it feel much better.
Walker passed away in 2000 and the club was eventually sold to Venky’s – an Indian company primarily involved in the chicken industry – but while the sale led Blackburn to slide out of the Premier League, for a time it also made them wildly entertaining – the bizarre stories that leaked out of the club during their latter EPL days under hapless boss Steve Kean were simply hilarious.
Which is why, at the end of the day, Blackburn Rovers are missed in the Premier League. Whether they were succeeding or failing miserably, they were never dull. Hopefully, they’ll make it back at some point.
