We should have signed Zidane
But it all began to fall apart...
ALL GOOD things must come to an end, and so it proved with Alan Shearer and Chris Sutton’s prolific partnership for Blackburn Rovers.
As the famed SAS, they lifted the Premier League trophy together in 1994-95 after scoring 49 goals between them.
To mark the 25-year anniversary of that triumph, we have a special interview with the two strikers who formed that legendary partnership, and how it fell apart as Rovers failed to build upon their first topflight title since 1914.
In the spirit of lockdown, KIERAN
GILL conducted the interview over video app Zoom. BLACKBURN owner Jack Walker, the late steel magnate, was ambitious and determined.
In 1991, Rovers finished 19th in the Second Division, the equivalent of the Championship. Four years later, they were Premier League champions, having broken two domestic transfer records to sign Shearer and Sutton for £3.6million and £5m respectively.
CHRIS SUTTON: There are people who say Blackburn bought the league. Total nonsense.
Jack was different to a lot of owners — his priority was giving something back to Blackburn and the town’s people.
He wasn’t investing to make money. It was a friendly, family club. That was big for me. I’d come from a similar one at Norwich.
It had a small club feel when I signed but a togetherness, in terms of what he was trying to do.
He was trying to take the club to a different level. After the title, the question was could we carry on?
It didn’t happen but it tells you everything that we are talking about it a quarter of a century later.
ALAN SHEARER: Other clubs spent more money than Blackburn that season anyway.
Mark Atkins, £50,000, he played 30-odd times for us. Graeme Le Saux, £600,000. Henning Berg, £400,000. Tony Gale, nothing. He was a mate of Ray Harford (boss Kenny Dalglish’s assistant).
He came in and won a title! Yes, Jack spent money, but there were some unbelievable bargains too.
SUTTON: Jack actually said his plan was to win it the year after, so we did it a year early!
KIERAN GILL: So why did it all fall apart so quickly?
SUTTON: We didn’t strengthen. Sir Alex Ferguson has highlighted the importance of that over the years.
It’s fair to say we were fading towards the end of the title-winning season but we just got over the line. Then Kenny went upstairs and Ray took over as manager. Ray was a tremendous coach but we lost our figurehead in Kenny. He was such an important part — the one we looked up to, our safety valve, our comfort blanket.
He went into a director of football role, so he was still there, but it wasn’t quite the same.
It’s easy to sit here and say ‘we didn’t do this’ and ‘we didn’t do that’. In hindsight, Jack would regret not spending and getting a few fresh faces in.
But Ray’s mantra was: ‘If it ain’t broke there’s no need to fix it.’
SHEARER: If you listen to the top managers over the years, certainly Fergie, what they’ve always done is strengthen while at the top.
Bring two or three fresh faces into the team, not just the squad.
Freshen it up, and get the excitement going. Ray was one of the best coaches I ever had but, looking back, he wanted to give the players a chance to go again, to repeat what they’d done. We were linked with
Zinedine Zidane (above) and Christophe Dugarry and we didn’t get them.
We didn’t strengthen while we were at the top.
SUTTON: It was an impossible job for Ray, really. But just imagine Zidane at Blackburn!
SHEARER: It never happened and that’s one of the reasons why we finished seventh unfortunately. BLACKBURN’S Champions League campaign in 1995-96 did not go well. They finished bottom of Group B, losing four of their six games.
In one 3-0 defeat away at Spartak Moscow, Le Saux and David Batty got into a scrap on the pitch.
Le Saux aimed a left hook towards his team-mate’s throat before captain Tim Sherwood separated them.
SHEARER:
We were all hugely excited to get into the Champions League. I remember thinking: ‘Come on, this is going to be great, we are in with the big boys.’ We ended up with Spartak Moscow, Legia Warsaw and Rosenborg.
KG: Not the greatest draw, was it?
SHEARER: You’re thinking: ‘Oh my God.’ We worked our socks off and we ended up with that! It was a disaster from start to finish.
SUTTON: The fight on the pitch was not a great moment in Blackburn’s history. But the truth is most clubs see skirmishes all the time. We had a group of players which had some feisty characters in, some winners, so these things happen.
We weren’t ever in the title race but the second half of that season was actually pretty strong.
It wasn’t great but seventh wasn’t a disaster in the end. IT IS no secret that Manchester United wanted Shearer. But the lure of Tyneside proved too strong for this Geordie. The SAS were officially broken up in July 1996, with Newcastle United paying a world record £15m to get their man. Blackburn owner Walker had made one last roll of the dice — in a bid to have him stay at Ewood Park, he offered Shearer the position of player-manager.
The England international was only 25 years old at the time.
SHEARER: It was talked about. I’d spoken to Jack. He’d always said that if I wanted to leave, he wouldn’t put a clause in any contract, his word was his honour.
I decided to go see him and say: ‘Look, I think the time has come.’ It was never going to happen — I was turning 26 when I left.
SUTTON: Would you have given me a new deal if you’d been our boss? SHEARER: Ha! You’d have been the first out of the door. But yeah, it couldn’t happen. He offered me a new contract but my mind was made up. It was time to move. SUTTON: It was awful when he went. Look at his numbers and what he’d done. Without Alan, Blackburn wouldn’t have won the title. We had other big performers but Alan was the key. Tim Flowers will tell you he was the key! He was important. Of course he was. But Alan was a huge, huge loss. Blackburn lost our goals and our main man.
SHEARER: It was Kenny, really. He started it and put it all together. Then for him to go upstairs, for whatever reason, I think that was the start of it unravelling. I signed for Newcastle. It wasn’t like I was going to a poor team. Before I signed they blew the 12-point lead. I thought it was a club ready to challenge for trophies. BY THE end of 1995-96, Shearer had 31 goals in 35 games. Sutton, with injuries holding him back, could only make 13 appearances and failed to score in the league.
They went their separate ways but with plenty of memories of that title-winning season, including those celebrations on the final day at Anfield. That iconic picture of the SAS holding the trophy aloft now hangs on the wall in the players’ lounge at Ewood Park.
Walker, the man who made all of that possible, passed away in August 2000, at the age of 71.
KG: Looking back now, 25 years on from winning the Premier League, what do you think?
SHEARER: I think: ‘Thank f*** we won it!’ I never won anything else! So at least I won one trophy. Kenny was the driving force. To come in and within four years of taking over the club, which was 19th in the old Second Division, then get promoted, then finish fourth, then second, then win it, was staggering.
SUTTON: At that time I didn’t appreciate it. But, 25 years later, you look back and think: ‘An unbelievable achievement.’
That plan from Jack Walker, to take them from the Second Division to the Premier League title, to actually achieve it… incredible.
SHEARER: You had a wealthy owner, who’d worked hard to make his money. He loved the area and the club. Leicester is the biggest surprise since but nobody saw them coming. Everyone was aware of what we were trying to do.
SUTTON: There has probably never been a more deserving winner of a Premier League title.
Our title success wasn’t about the money — not for Jack. It was about making the town happy. That’s rare. People still talk about that success.