How Geordies stitched up Man United over world record £15m signing Shearer

TOON DEAL WITH BLACKBURN OWNER WALKER SECURED IT

ALAN SHEARER stood in the farmhouse kitchen of David Platt’s parents to seal the moment that defined Newcastle for a decade.

The only question Shearer wanted to ask? “Can I have the No.9 shirt?”

Standing across the room, Newcastle manager Kevin Keegan said: “You’ve got it.”

And, with those words, a £15million world-record transfer began – the signing of Newcastle United’s greatestever goalscorer secured.

Deal-maker and then Newcastle chairman Freddy Shepherd (below) recalled: “That was the best signing ever. Will Newcastle do a deal like that again? Could you come up with another Alan Shearer?

“Well, actually I did, but it was made of bronze, to stand outside the stadium!

“He had his heart in the club. You couldn’t repeat what he had. Players come mainly for the money, their career. Alan washed all that aside and said he was coming home.” Those were heady days for Newcastle, vying at the top of the Premier League with Keegan’s barnstorming “Entertainers” team.

Power on the pitch – and off it. Shearer was Europe’s No.1 player at the time – the man every club coveted.

He was in his prime at 25, had won the title with Blackburn and scored 30 or more goals in the past three seasons.

Inter Milan and Manchester United were courting the Euro ’96 top marksman, but here were Shearer and Keegan conjuring a transfer with lasting impact.

But, sadly for Newcastle, not the title-winning impact that they wanted.

Ten years later, he had a talismanic 206 goals in 395 appearances and is likely to remain the club’s most influential player for generations.

Shepherd had agreed with Manchester United chairman Martin Edwards not to go over £10m and had to phone if he did.

“Oh, we have too,” Edwards admitted to Shepherd. “Best man wins then,” Shepherd said he told his rival. Shepherd added: “I said to Blackburn owner Jack Walker, ‘We will up it to £15m’. He said, ‘I’ll accept it. If it was Man U, it would be much more’. I said, ‘Two £7.5m payments’. He said, ‘No, £15m up front’. “I said, ‘What?’ . “Very few pay up front. That was a worldrecord fee! “Luckily, we had the Barclays Bank man in the kitchen too. Shearer was there, getting himself a bit worried. I said the deal is £15m, but we need it up front. I thought, ‘Here’s the argument’.

“Funnily enough, the bank manager said, ‘No, that is fine, pay them up front’.

“I could have fallen on the floor. That was a fortune 20 years ago. When we all arrived in Thailand for pre-season, it became public. We told the Newcastle Evening Chronicle reporter, ‘We’ve bought Shearer’.

“We let him stew and then went back and said, ‘Only kidding you’. We let him panic for 10 minutes – then told him it was true!”

That first season Shearer got 25 goals in 31 games, including three in the game of the season, a hat-trick to haul United back from 3-1 down against Leicester.

But the title eluded them, finishing second again, and a power shift started away from United as Keegan quit mid-season and Kenny Dalglish took over.

Dalglish did well to steady the ship and keep them in the top two – and the Champions League.