With less than a month to go until the Premier League season begins, Total Football’s Simon Wright will be looking back at the players, teams and goals that have lit up the 20 years of what is widely regarded as the world's greatest league.
The next player featured in the Premier League icon series is an ultimate record-breaker.
As of today, he still is the leader for goals, with a staggering total of 260. Only loyalty denied him the potential for more trophies. This is the Premier League story of Alan Shearer.
Name: Alan Shearer
Clubs he played for in the Premier League: Blackburn Rovers (1992-1996), Newcastle United (1996-2006)
Clubs he managed in the Premier League: Newcastle United (2009)
Honours: FA Premier League championship winner in 1995, PFA Players Player of the Year 1995, 1997, Football Writers’ Award 1994, Golden Boot Winner in 1995, 1996 & 1997
PL Appearances: 441
Goals: 260
He is very strong, physically tough, a target man and more often than not, a proper goalscorer. It is unlikely that we will ever see the likes of Alan Shearer again in the history of the FA Premier League.
Shearer wasn’t just a striker who scored a particular type of goal. He was an all-round player who was dynamite from free-kicks, scored penalties for fun, accurate from long and close range and produced the classic header amongst his 260 strikes in the top division, for Blackburn Rovers and Newcastle United.
He is also Newcastle’s record goalscorer and despite an unsuccessful time in charge of the Toon Army in 2009, Shearer has often been earmarked as the greatest player in this generation of Premier League superstars.
Shearer’s career began on the South Coast for Southampton and began making headlines immediately, by scoring a hat-trick against Arsenal in April 1988, becoming the youngest player to do so in the top division.
He spent four seasons in the Southampton first-team, scoring 43 goals in 158 appearances and despite serious interest from Manchester United and Leeds United, made the move to Blackburn Rovers in time for the new Premier League era.
Walker’s millions
Jack Walker’s millions were enough for Shearer to be convinced that Blackburn was onto something special, which proved out to be the right decision.
Rovers paid Southampton £3.6m for the striker, which at the time, was a British transfer record.
16 goals did follow, including a stunning double on his Rovers debut at Crystal Palace on the league’s opening weekend. However, he suffered a serious knee ligament injury on Boxing Day at home to Leeds, which ended his first season in Lancashire, far earlier than anticipated.
He worked himself back to full fitness and was playing again by September of 1993, scoring 31 times in 1993-94 as Blackburn came second in the league to Manchester United. His goals were enough to see him voted as the Football Writers’ award winner for 1994.
The following season was his best domestic campaign, as Alan ended top goalscorer in the league, netting 34 goals. Combined with new strike partner Chris Sutton, they scored 49 in the Premier League, earning them the famous SAS nickname.
Individually, Shearer won the PFA Players Player of the Year award and celebrated on the final day, as Blackburn dramatically won the title, thanks to Manchester United’s failure to beat West Ham United.
On 30 December 1995, Alan Shearer became the first player to score a century of Premier League goals, when he got the decisive strike in Blackburn’s 2-1 win over Tottenham. Another 31 goals followed and another golden boot, although Rovers seventh placed finish suggested the decline was starting for the club.
He bowed out of the 1995-96 season early for a groin operation, with two goals against Wimbledon. Little at the time did anyone know that these goals were to be Shearer’s last for Blackburn.
Coming home
After Euro 96, Blackburn agreed fees with both Manchester United and Newcastle United for Shearer. He nearly signed on at Old Trafford but the lure of coming home to his boyhood club was just too much.
Kevin Keegan signed him and Newcastle paid Blackburn £15m, another new British transfer record, which lasted for four years.
The faith was repaid in the goalscoring stakes, with 25 goals in the league and the PFA Players Player of the Year award, for the second time in three years.
Keegan left mid-season in 1996-97, as Newcastle missed out on the league and it was former Blackburn boss Kenny Dalglish, who took over the reins.
He would miss Shearer for the majority of the 1997-98 campaign, as he sustained a serious ankle ligament injury in a forgettable Umbro Cup pre-season tournament on Merseyside.
He returned in January 1998 but only scored twice in the league and his discipline was called into question, when he was charged by the FA for kicking Neil Lennon in the face during a Premier League match at Leicester. All the charges were eventually dropped.
There were two FA Cup final appearances but form was more sporadic and under Ruud Gullit’s reign, the pair fell out dramatically. Gullit would go onto later say that Shearer was ‘the most overrated player I have ever seen.’
Shearer might have been Magpies captain but that didn’t stop Gullit dropping him for the derby game with Sunderland in August 1999. The Toon Army fans were furious and the defeat that followed, finished Gullit’s dismal year on Tyneside.
Reignited under Robson
Sir Bobby Robson took over and luckily for Newcastle fans, reignited Shearer’s goalscoring touch.
Five goals followed in an 8-0 drubbing of Sheffield Wednesday on Robson’s home debut as boss. Shearer became only the second ever player in Premier League history to achieve this feat.
He finished in second place in the Premier League Golden Boot race in 1999-00 and the feat was repeated in 2001-02, as Newcastle returned to the top four after several seasons languishing in the bottom half of the league table.
23, 17 and 22 goal tallies in the Premier League followed but when Robson dropped Shearer for a match at Aston Villa in August 2004, he was told to clear his desk by chairman Freddy Shepherd.
Shearer had planned to retire from professional football in the summer of 2005 but the desire to win something for Newcastle still burned brightly and Graeme Souness convinced him to do one more season.
In February 2006, Shearer scored the second goal in a 2-0 triumph at home to Portsmouth, which saw him break Jackie Milburn’s 49-year old record as Newcastle’s all-time leading goalscorer. 201 was the magic number, finishing with 206 in total.
His retirement from playing was effectively brought forward to April 2006, when a minor medial ligament problem forced him to be replaced in a derby game at the Stadium of Light, having scored a customary penalty before this.
After spending time off with his family, alongside his media commitments with the BBC, Alan Shearer was appointed Newcastle manager in April 2009, for the last eight games of the season. This was a desperate bid by Mike Ashley to keep them in the Premier League.
The fairytale didn’t happen, with just one win from these eight games and relegation at Aston Villa on the final day. Shearer wasn’t offered the job afterwards, despite expressing an interest and has returned to the BBC since, as a senior pundit on Match of the Day.
Management might not have worked out for Alan Shearer but his playing legacy in the Premier League was a real and proper journey. He has set many Premier League goalscoring records that will be tough to break for years to come.
NEXT TIME ON PREMIER LEAGUE ICONS: Remembering the career and the life of the late Gary Speed.
By Simon Wright – Follow me on Twitter @Siwri88
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