JOHN RICHARDSON ‘The hardest part of title party was getting Jack on to the Anfield pitch’
Kenny Dalglish’s Rovers side might have lost the game against Liverpool 2-1 – but they had won the title.
Almost 25 years to the day that the Lancashire club rocked the football establishment, the man who was at one-time steel magnate Walker’s side throughout the incredible journey doesn’t need any prompting to retell the story.
Robert Coar was chairman as Jersey-based Walker, who had sold his steel business, pumped almost £100million of his fortune into resurrecting his downtrodden local club’s fortunes.
The cash bonanza rebuilt Ewood Park and allowed Dalglish the financial muscle to compete for the game’s biggest domestic prize.
Everything came together on that emotion-racked afternoon of Sunday, May 14, 1995 – one that is forever etched in Coar’s memory.
“The final game at Anfield is still like it was only yesterday,” he said.
“We arrived at Anfield to be met by David Moores, the Liverpool chairman, director Noel White, Peter Robinson, the secretary, the usual Liverpool group. They knew what it meant to us and what was at stake.
“They are proper football folk and tried to put us at ease.”
Easier said than done with Manchester United breathing down leaders Blackburn’s necks, going into the last day of the season. If Rovers lost against Liverpool and United were successful at West Ham, the glory would be snatched away at the 11th hour.
Alan Shearer gave Rovers the lead, only for John Barnes to equalise and in the 90th minute Jamie Redknapp’s free-kick made it 2-1 to leave everyone connected with Blackburn fearing the worst.
“The press box at Anfield was immediately to the right of the directors’ box. There were one or two of the reporters who were listening to their radios and then one of them came over to me and said that we’d won the title, Manchester United had only drawn at West Ham,” added Coar (right).
“I then passed on the ecstatic news to Jack, who always sat next to me. ‘Oh bloody hell!’ he said.”
Then came the tears followed by a strategic problem – how to get Jack on to the Anfield pitch to join in the celebrations.
“We were on the front row of the directors’ box,” said Coar. “Tim Sherwood and Alan Shearer came towards us and beckoned Jack to join them on the pitch.
“Some Liverpool fans below us shouted to Jack that they would help him over towards the pitch.
“They helped him scramble over the front of the box, so he took the direct route instead of going down the stairs and through the tunnel. You could say he went over the top!
“Liverpool looked after us pretty well then we went back to Northcote Manor, a hotel in the Blackburn area. We all had a drink there. Everybody then wanted to go back to their own families and friends.
“Kenny and all the players went to a bistro in Preston. I ended up in my local pub The Bonny Inn, probably coming out at 2.30am.
“I was a very lucky guy, being chairman in these exciting years. None of it would have happened without Jack. We all worked hard at it.
“Nobody at the time thought anyone outside the big six could win the Premier League. We proved them wrong and Leicester did the same. You need this in sport.” Blackburn’s rise was phenomenal, Walker only buying into the club four years previously. Coar added: “He was based in Jersey, but Blackburn through and through. He would fly over on a Saturday morning, have lunch and then the two bits of the day he really looked forward to was going into the dressing room at around 2.40pm for 10 minutes, talking to the players before the game. “Then he’d go again into the dressing room just after 5pm and have another chat, would come back upstairs and leave the ground at 6pm for Jersey. “His first ambition, once we got going, was to win the FA Cup because he probably felt that would be easier than the league.
“Everybody was rebuilding grounds in those days because we had only just had the Taylor report in the aftermath of Hillsborough.
“We managed to build three brand new stands inside 20 months.”
Coar, who acted as the conduit between Walker and Dalglish, was the man charged with making some ambitious transfers happen.
In came Tim Flowers, David Batty, Chris Sutton, Sherwood and Shearer.
“Quite a lot of the players we brought in wanted to come because of Kenny being manager and also through Ray Harford, Kenny’s assistant,” added the former chairman.
“Ray was very important because he had been the England Under-21 coach. He identified players such as
Tim Sherwood and Alan Shearer. I used to go down to the training ground and ask Kenny if there was anything he wanted. I’d then relay things to Jack.
“Kenny always insisted that there was a certain figure we would go to in order to sign a player – but not to go beyond it. He always very canny with money. He was prepared to walk away from deals if he felt we were overpaying. He saw it as an embarrassment to him if he was seen to be paying over the odds for a player with Jack’s money.
“If Kenny didn’t want you to understand something, he would revert to his best broad Glaswegian.
“He’s got such a great sense of humour. Ray was the same, as was Tony Parkes, who was so dry. It made the repertoire unforgettable.
“It was a fantastic place to be.”