Home
He is remembered as a Newcastle legend, but the most significant period of his career - by far - was at Blackburn
Alan Shearer never scored more than 30 league goals in a season for Newcastle. Photograph: Owen Humphreys/PA
Those
observing from afar tend to rank another person's relationships purely
on longevity. Size definitely matters. On the inside, it can be
different: the person trapped in a loveless 30-year marriage might
still long wistfully for the magic of that two-month fling back in
1974, or those final hours in 1976 before the injunction kicked in.If
that's the rule, Alan Shearer's career might be the exception. To the
man himself only his nine-year career at Newcastle seems to matter, and
at times you wonder if he's been to Lacuna Inc.
to erase the memory of his four years at Blackburn. Yet to many an
impartial observer, those years were significantly more exciting,
rewarding and memorable than his time at St James' Park. When Newcastle
meet Blackburn Park tomorrow, only one set of fans should still be
chanting Shearer's name, and none of them will be topless.The
differences between Shearer's work at Blackburn and Newcastle are
startling. At Ewood Park he was, as one blogger put it recently, "some sort of demented machine";
at Newcastle he grew into a caricature of himself, like Oasis's later
albums. At Blackburn he was omnipotent on the field; at Newcastle he
was only omnipotent off it, getting rid of managers such as Ruud Gullit
and showing such a masterful grasp of politics that you feel it's not
only his anodyne offerings that mean he should be somewhere else other
than the Match of the Day sofa.Even the ending of each club
career was in stark contrast. Shearer's last act as a Blackburn player
was to ram home a penalty for England in the Euro 96 shootout against
Germany, having proved himself Europe's best centre-forward; his last
act for Newcastle was to knack his knee against Sunderland and limp
into retirement.At Blackburn he scored 112 goals in 138 league
games; at Newcastle he scored 148 in 303. That's an extra 165 games for
36 goals: Emile Heskey has suffered years of ridicule for less (or,
rather, more). At Blackburn, Shearer scored goal after goal after gloriously inevitable goal,
ramming the ball in viciously from all angles and distances. When
Shearer scored a scorcher for England against Poland in 1996, Sir Alex
Ferguson best summed up his quality by saying, "he hit it as if he
meant to kill it."Shearer was actually a Newcastle player at
that point, and for his first season at St James' Park he was every bit
as good as at Blackburn. Then, in a pre-season game at Everton ahead of
the 1997-98, he suffered ankle-ligament damage and was simply never the
same. The explosiveness that was central to his game had gone. It's
nobody's fault his game dropped off after that, but that simple fact
means that, in terms of seasons in which he performed at the very peak
of his powers, it's Blackburn 4-1 Newcastle.He hustled around 20
goals a season for Newcastle, and hit 30 in all competitions in
1999-2000, but his output could not match his earlier efforts. He still
got by on a potent combination of experience and aura, and he never
lost his finishing ability, which is something a No9 takes to the
grave. But it was all a diluted version of what had gone before. He was
a deluxe hasbeen.Unthinkably, he even started missing penalties.
Sometimes he was horribly ineffective. In his second, injury-hit
season, 1997-98, he scored only two goals in 17 league games, and the
only thing he connected properly with was Neil Lennon's head.Shearer
raised his right hand in celebration more than 30 times in the league
for three consecutive seasons between 1993 and 1996, but never at
Newcastle. Further analysis of his Premier League statistics
show that he contributed 41 assists from open play in 138 league games
for Blackburn, and 69 in 303 for Newcastle. He was a very good player
for Newcastle, but for Blackburn he was a great one.Yes he broke
Newcastle's goalscoring record, an obviously worthy achievement, but as
with so many records, that is a reward for longevity as much as
excellence. And if he was as good as he and his disciples thought, why
was he slumming it around mid-table for half his Newcastle career?Shearer,
with the ruthlessness and desire of the very top player, had no
compunction about ratting his way out of a sinking ship in 1996; why
not do so again? Many will cite simple love of the club. Do me a
favour. Such a perception does not fit at all comfortably with
Shearer's merciless edge, or the persistent rumour that he wanted to
join another United, Manchester, in 1996. Just as the former West
Indian fast bowler Colin Croft would, in the words of a team-mate,
"bounce his grandmother" if he thought there was a wicket in it, so
Shearer would do absolutely anything necessary to further his cause.
It's what made him, briefly, so great.In the opinion of many the reason, as Michael Hann noted,
is because the club had become an "adjunct of his ego". You suspect
Shearer knew he was gone at the very highest level - and a cynic would
attribute his decision to retire from international football in 2000,
ostensibly to focus on Newcastle, to this as well - and needed to fuel
his ego in other ways. Shearer knew he could do no wrong; that, if he
said jump, 40,000 Geordies would say, "Howay". Unsurprisingly, he fed
off that.As did they. The fusion and the delusion suited both
parties. Whereas Blackburn fans have moved on from being dumped, and
still regard - and you'll like this - Simon Garner as Mr Blackburn,
Newcastle fans are so in thrall to Shearer that, as Simon Barnes noted, the club cannot move on until Shearer has had his stint as manager.The
peculiar psyche of Newcastle, which encourages the fans to deify
weaklings like Kevin Keegan and run proper professionals like Sam
Allardyce out of town, means that they crave a hero who ticks certain
basic boxes, and Shearer did that. In return he got an adoration
entirely disproportionate to his achievements, and a reputation that
consequently stayed intact despite compelling evidence to the contrary.Which
leaves only one problem. Shearer left Blackburn because he wanted to
win trophies, yet at Newcastle the closest he came was being a fly on
the wall during Arsenal and Manchester United's FA Cup final
processions of 1998 and 1999. David May has more championship medals
than Shearer. It was not supposed to be like this.Shearer's
signing was supposed to push Newcastle on from the heartbreaking
failure of 1995-96 yet, though they finished second in his first
season, they never mounted a significant title challenge. Shearer, and
Newcastle, revised their expectations as time went on, which allowed
them to present a picture of perfect, contented unison. Maybe that's
truly how they felt. But for many of us, Shearer as we want to remember
him - by some distance the greatest English centre-forward most of us
have ever seen - will always be associated with blue-and-white halves,
not black-and-white stripes.
