JOY OF THE ROVERS
Graeme Le Saux looks back on Blackburn’s epic Premier League title triumph 25 years ago
IT REMAINS one of the greatest achievements in Premier League history.
Against the odds, Blackburn Rovers pipped Manchester United to be crowned champions on a dramatic final afternoon to the season on May 14, 1995 – 25 years ago today.
Who can forget Blackburn boss Kenny Dalglish celebrating wildly at Anfield after his team lost to Liverpool 2-1 but still won the title as United slipped up at West Ham.
Dalglish showed little emotion when winning everything as a player and manager with Liverpool – and yet here he was, back at his spiritual home, enjoying arguably his finest success.
Graeme Le Saux, the Blackburn left-back from that side, said: “It’s a bit like Pep Guardiola when people say, ‘But could he do it with a Championship team, bring them up without the resources?’ Kenny didn’t have huge funds, brought Blackburn up and did it.
“I’d love to ask Kenny whether he sees it as his biggest achievement. His passion and love of the game, in training and being part of the dressing room, was remarkable.
“He loved joining in and even in his 40s he was still incredible on the training pitch. His celebrations said everything.
“Kenny never shows much emotion but I’ve never seen him like that before or since.
“I saw him earlier this year at Anfield, he was pitchside and I spontaneously gave him what you might call modern ‘man hug’. He just froze, arms by his side and I could tell he was so uncomfortable.
“Kelly, his daughter, was working for Sky, saw it and said, ‘Did you just hug my dad?’ She went on, ‘I don’t think even I’ve hugged my dad!’
“I hadn’t seen him for ages, I’ve got so much love for him and it was so funny.
“He would never talk about himself. When you consider what he achieved, he was so modest.”
Blackburn were the only team other than United and Arsenal to
win the title in the first 12 years of the Premier League.
The SAS strike partnership of Alan Shearer and Chris Sutton provided the goals to fire them to the title and late owner Jack Walker supplied the millions.
But Le Saux said: “We’re always really defensive about the comparison of other clubs when it comes to big pockets, spending loads of money and buying success because it was far more sophisticated than that.
“The group, the culture that Kenny and his No2, Ray Harford, set was so important. There was no hierarchy, nothing flash. When I got there in 1993, they paid £600,000 for me and Chelsea paid £5.5million to buy me back. They made a £40m profit on that team.
“Ian Pearce, Jeff Kenna, Jason Wilcox, Henning Berg, Stuart Ripley did not cost a huge amount, yet where we had an identity was our work ethic.”
However, Shearer was the star, scoring 34 goals as Sutton got 15 in a perfect partnership. But it does make Le Saux laugh now to see them as two of football’s best-known media pundits.
He said: “If I’d have said back then that Alan Shearer would be on Match of the Day, Chris Sutton on the BBC, BT Sport and radio, they’d have thought I’d gone mad. Neither of them liked doing the media at the time.
“But Chris and Alan together were just phenomenal.
“Taking Alan out of our team was like taking Michael Jordan out of the Chicago Bulls. But it was also an incredible team.”