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Alan Shearer - The Last Of A Lost Generation
Alan Shearer has been the top Premier League goalscorer for over 20 years, yet his greatness is almost ignored in favour of those more 'sexy'. Daniel Storey pays homage...
1996 was the year that football 'came home' to England. Euro '96 united the country, a collective attempt to recapture the spirit of '66, Moore, Hurst and all that, a nation defined by football for one glorious summer. It was not to be.
Thirty-eight days after Oliver Bierhoff's golden goal at Wembley, football truly did come home to Newcastle. A city partied in the streets, celebrating the warmest of welcome backs. Fifteen thousand people had gathered in the car park of St James' Park, 15,000 worshippers outside their footballing church longing to pay homage to a returning deity. Forget the European Championships, forget penalties and forget the Germans - Alan Shearer was back where he belonged.
The mood in Newcastle on August 7, 1996 was one of jubilation, a cloud of hysteria engulfing every Geordie. The Guardian interviewed 63-year-old Barbara Donaldson: "The morning he signed I went to get my pension," she said. "Normally they're a right grumpy lot but that day everybody in the queue had a smile like a Cheshire cat. If you'd put us in for the Olympic high jump that morning, we'd have set a world record."
Newcastle owner John Hall and manager Kevin Keegan were suitably excited, effervescent with pride. "This sends out a signal to the world," Keegan said. You only half-imagined that he was limiting this boast to the world of football.
Amidst the hoopla, Shearer seemed calm and reserved, almost embarrassed by the fuss he was causing. He was presented to the fans on a makeshift stage, flanked by two large novelty blow-up bottles of Newcastle Brown Ale that looked like an elaborate joke about Geordie bouncers. And then he beamed, a smile that seemed like it would never be taken from his face. Confetti was thrown, scarves were raised, flags were waved.
When Shearer finally spoke, he seemed shy and nervous, talking almost exclusively in clichés, before revealing a glimpse of his true emotion. "If money comes my way, that's fine," he concluded. "I'll deal with that when it comes along. It certainly won't change me. After all, I'm only a sheet metal-worker's son from Newcastle." Whatever the gap in wages, fame or adoration, he was one of them. And they loved him for it.
Newcastle fans have a history of adoring their strikers, from Hughie Gallacher to Shola Ameobi via Jackie Milburn, Malcolm Macdonald, Kevin Keegan, Peter Beardsley and plenty more besides. But, amidst all those favourites, Shearer was different. He wasn't so much loved as worshipped. Every fan wanted to be Alan Shearer, and to them he epitomised everything great about a city that lived its life through football.
Ask any supporter for their favourite memory of Wor Al, and each will be different, but preceded by the same reaction: That far-off look into the distance, the widening smile and shining of eyes. Shearer was not just their hero, but also their everyman, their "sheet metal-worker's son". Every Geordie loved Shearer because, on some minute level, every Geordie felt as if they were Shearer. He simply lived their dreams.
It is odd now thinking about Shearer as a player, closing in on 20 years since that unveiling and a decade since he retired. He is a great, perhaps even the great Premier League striker, a complete forward boasting an astonishing goalscoring record. Yet Shearer's achievements and ability feel strangely overlooked. Except on Tyneside, of course.
Shearer now appears part of a lost generation. At a time when English football was desperate to sell itself as sexy and continental, his brilliance was almost became brushed under the carpet. It now seems bizarre that his Premier League career overlapped Thierry Henry's by seven years.
He is, as you will know, the top scorer in Premier League history, his 260 goals putting him 73 ahead of Andy Cole in second place. The gap between Shearer and Cole is larger than that between Cole and 16th place on the list. He has more PL goals than Stoke, Crystal Palace and Nottingham Forest, amongst many others, and scored 11 hat-tricks; no current player has more than six.
This level of goalscoring is so rare in an Englishman. For all Wayne Rooney's excellence, no domestic player has won the Premier League's Golden Boot this century. Rooney will come close to overtaking Shearer's record, but is likely to fall short. Whilst the Manchester United striker has scored more than 20 league goals in a season twice, Shearer did so on seven occasions. A reminder too that the latter was 22 by the time the Premier League even began.
Shearer's goals came in 441 matches, at a rate of 0.59 goals per game. He can also boast a record of a goal every 147 minutes, which is behind Edin Dzeko, Luis Suarez, Ruud van Nistelrooy, Thierry Henry and Sergio Aguero. However, if you take out Shearer's matches after turning 34, that record is less prolific than only Henry, Van Nistelrooy and Aguero.
His longevity must also be applauded. He scored more than 20 Premier League goals in a season in 1993/94 and 2003/04. His first PL brace came on its opening day and his last in April 2006. Should Rooney fail to reach 260 league goals, his is a record that is likely to stand for another 15 years at least. If Harry Kane, the latest Bright Young Thing, scores a goal every other league game (never missing a match through injury or suspension), he will overtake Shearer by the age of 35. That helps to put his durability into perspective.
Shearer's record must also be put into context of the clubs he played for. His only career honour (Le Tournoi aside) was the Premier League title in 1994/95, and he shunned a move to Manchester United in order to join his hometown club. If we examine the three aforementioned strikers (Henry, Van Nistelrooy and Aguero) who have a better minutes-per-goals record, they finished in an average league position of 2.3, 2.4 and 1.3 respectively over their time in the Premier League. Shearer's figure is 6.6.
In short, he was the complete striker. Most notable was his power, epitomised by Alex Ferguson's summation that Shearer "kicked the ball as if he wanted to kill it". However, he also possessed a wonderful technique, and his volleying was amongst the best in Europe at his peak. That over 20% of his Newcastle goals were scored with his head reflects his obvious aerial ability.
There is a tendency to see Shearer as functional, but this is grossly unfair. It's as if our brains cannot compute that volume of goals. Luis Suarez scored 31 goals last season and everyone lost their s**t - Shearer matched or bettered that for three seasons in a row.
However, the most fervent praise is reserved for the way Shearer changed his game after serious injury. A snapped right anterior cruciate ligament in December 1992 did not severely hamper the striker's future career, but when Shearer then tore his ankle ligaments in 1997/98 and suffered further knee problems, he transformed himself from all-round striker to target man. He suffered another serious knee injury in 2001 and had further operations to relieve the effects of tendonitis. It was a medial ligament injury that finally ended his career in 2006.
Perhaps it is Shearer's reputation for being 'boring' that affects his standing in comparison with other Premier League greats. 'Sexy' is the word you would perhaps use least to describe his game, and Shearer's personality and demeanour is of a quiet, family man. You cannot name his wife or children, and his wedding was not splashed across Hello magazine. Even Shearer's celebration was mocked for being boring. He was labelled 'Mary Poppins' by then Newcastle owner Freddy Shepherd for his cleaner-than-clean image. As if that's a bad thing.
Shearer also suffers for his punditry career, his brand of 'Alanysis' on Match of the Day criticised for being bland and cliché-ridden. Whilst the accusation may be true, he is simply a product of his own environment. If the show really wanted anything more provocative, it would have been demanded by now.
In many ways, Shearer is a collection of contrasting notions. He is a legend in Newcastle, and yet scored 112 goals in 138 league games at Blackburn. He began his career as a poacher, but ended it as one of England's finest ever target men. He was a Division One striker, but in a Premier League era. He was a footballing great, but a man who never sought greatness.
But, most of all, he was a Geordie. "When I was a young boy I wanted to play for Newcastle United, I wanted to wear the number nine shirt and I wanted to score goals at St James' Park," Shearer said upon his retirement. "I've lived my dream, and I realise how lucky I've been to have done that." The people of Newcastle consider themselves lucky to have had him.
Daniel Storey
