Sporting Bygones: Twenty years on from when Blades star Deane rose to occasion and marked start of a bright new era in English top-flight football

The setback for Manchester United left them fourth-bottom.

But so much was to change in the two decades that followed with this weekend marking the 20th anniversary of the Premier League.

Deane will forever be credited with scoring the first goal of the Premier League at 3.05pm on Saturday, August 15, 1992.

All the sweeter was the fact that it came against the Red Devils – and the fact that Deane added a second from the penalty spot five minutes after half-time.

Mark Hughes scored for the visiting side just after the hour mark but there was no way back in the contest for the visitors who slumped to an opening-day defeat in a season in which they would ultimately be crowned champions.

But, alas, the Blades were to lose their Premier Division status in 1994 and again in 2007 and, indeed, just 10 teams from the original clan still have top-flight status 20 years on.

Of those, Southampton have returned to the promised land exactly 20 years after its inception, while two others, Norwich City and QPR, regained their status in 2011.

The remaining septet have been ever-presents for the last two decades – 12-time winners Manchester United, champions Manchester City and three-time winners each Arsenal and Chelsea as well as Liverpool, Aston Villa, Everton and Tottenham.

So what happened to the rest of the opening season 22?

Quite clearly, the most documented demise has been that of Leeds United, who finished third in the inaugural season under Howard Wilkinson.

But United’s demise did not come until the early Noughties and only after an exciting period under David O’Leary which climaxed with a Champions League semi-final spot against Valencia in 2001.

But at such a cost with the Whites still yearning to win back that top-flight status even now.

The Elland Road outfit are not alone in having experienced something of a fall from grace with Blackburn Rovers, Coventry City, Crystal Palace, Ipswich Town, Middlesbrough, Nottingham Forest, Oldham Athletic, Sheffield Wednesday and Wimbledon being the other sides who began as Premier League members but who are plying their trade elsewhere 20 years on.

Leeds aside, the most turmoil has been experienced by the club formerly known as the Crazy Gang – Wimbledon – who began Premiership life with a 1-0 defeat at home to Ipswich under Joe Kinnear.

The Londoners would go on to be a rough and ready top-flight force for the next eight seasons before finally suffering relegation in 2000.

These days, of course, Wimbledon, as it was, is no more with the club moving to Milton Keynes and operating today in League One as Milton Keynes Dons with the original club’s diehards having formed AFC Wimbledon.

Now up to League Two, having originally begun life in the Combined Counties League, who is to say they will not one day return to the top flight?

More likely to return in the immediate future are Blackburn – relegated last season 17 years on from becoming the Premier League’s second champions.

Under Kenny Dalglish and backed by Jack Walker’s millions, a Rovers side featuring Alan Shearer, Chris Sutton and Colin Hendry carried all before them in the Premiership’s second season though there was so sign of what was to come as they began the new era with a 3-3 draw at Crystal Palace.

Added to a Shearer brace that afternoon was a goal from Stuart Ripley with Mark Bright, Gareth Southgate and Simon Osborn on target for a Palace side who were ultimately relegated at the end of the term.

Other opening day goal-scorers in the summer of 1992 included one-time Aston Villa wonder Dalian Atkinson plus Nigel Pearson for Sheffield Wednesday – the former defender now targeting a place in the top flight next season as manager of Leicester City.

The shock of the opening day was undoubtedly Norwich City’s 4-2 success at Arsenal – the Canaries then under Mike Walker, one of 20 managers from the opening day of the Premier League season who are no longer managing.

Other notable characters who were at the helm of a Premiership side on the first day of the season include Brian Clough – the legendary Nottingham Forest chief who passed away in 2004.

Graeme Souness, a man forever on our television screens as a pundit, was in charge at Anfield while there was little sign of Roman Abramovich and his millions at Chelsea under Ian Porterfield, who became the first manager to be sacked in the top flight – then Blues chairman Ken Bates doing the firing in February, 1993.

And, as for the man in charge at Manchester United on the opening day?

Sir Alex Ferguson – the only one still going.

Time moves on but some things never change.