Shearer the Black Widow?
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not sure if this has been posted:
Alan Shearer is the Winona Ryder of Newcastle United. She used to be known as the "Black Widow" due to her habit of picking up rock singers, having a relationship with them, and then discarding them, seemingly destroying their careers in the process.
Shearer's not that bad. He just picked the one football club - one he professes to love - and set about turning it into an adjunct of his ego. He never seems particularly concerned about what he could do for the club, unless "friends" divulging to supine journalists the circumstances under which he'd be prepared to manage the club actually counts as helping the Magpies. I'm not sure it does.
Now, it's probably true that not everything that has gone wrong at St James' Park in the past decade has been Shearer's fault. Just most of it. But what can one expect from a man who has spent so much of his career letting the world know that he is bigger than any team he plays for - even the national side. Remember when Graham Kelly said Shearer had threatened to withdraw from the England World Cup squad if the FA dared to punish him for the unfortunate and accidental contact his boot made with the head of the hapless Neil Lennon in April 1998?.
There were plenty who disliked Shearer long before he became the anointed one of Tyneside. At Blackburn he picked up a reputation for being a nasty, niggly player; one who was happy to bend the rules, harangue referees and offer opponents the benefit of the sharper parts of his anatomy. It's said that fans only hate opponents with ability. That's not true; we hate opponents who think they're above the rules, too. That's why people started to turn against Shearer.
But we didn't see how unhealthy his presence could be until August 1999, when Ruud Gullit was sacked as Newcastle manager after leaving Shearer out of the starting line-up for the home game against Sunderland. History records that the Magpies lost 2-1 and Shearer was regarded as having forced Gullit out. History less often records that Newcastle were 1-0 up at half-time and the scores were level when Shearer came on. As Gullit justifiably observed: "When we were 1-0 up no one complained. Then we put him on in the second half and lost. What conclusions do you draw from that?"
Bobby Robson followed Gullit and by the end of 2000 the Sunday Mirror was reporting his intentions. In a piece published on December 31 - in which Shearer was quoted, so it probably wasn't wild speculation - the paper noted that he would "take over from Robson in the summer of 2002". He didn't, of course. Robson wasn't going anywhere, but this was the first of the many false starts to Shearer's managerial career, and it set the pattern to come: the assumption that whatever Big Al wanted, Big Al would get.
Some thought it might finally happen in early 2004, when Robson left Shearer out of Newcastle's Uefa Cup game against Valarenga. Shearer told the world he was "angry, disappointed and very surprised" to be left out. And the world heard the sound of knives sharpening.
They weren't deployed on that occasion, but there was plenty of evidence that Shearer was exerting an unhealthy level of influence during Robson's reign - not least in the manager's apparent acceptance that the only way for Newcastle to play was in whatever fashion suited Shearer. Remember, by this point Shearer was shorn of his pace and wasn't the finisher of his prime, which meant Newcastle had to adjust their game to compensate for his weaknesses.
It's a tribute to Robson's skills that he was able to construct the only worthwhile Newcastle team since Kevin Keegan was boss given those constraints. It's also arguable, though, that having to build his team around Shearer prevented Robson from rebuilding, at a time of strength, in a fashion that would have provided Newcastle with a base for the future. Newcastle fell apart when Shearer retired not because he was gone, but because they had already been fatally weakened on the pitch by the need to accommodate him.
And now this. After months of febrile speculation about how much Shearer wanted the Newcastle job - not his fault, but he could probably have stopped those "friends" from telling the press about his ambitions - Sam Allardyce finally vacated the seat, the great hero of the Geordie Nation having seen him off as well. Surely, at last, Shearer would have the courage of his convictions and make his case. But still, no official comment from the great man; just the mutterings about how he's nobody's No2 (despite still not having completed his Uefa Pro Licence, theoretically necessary for all Premier League managers, more than 18 months after retiring), except possibly Keegan's.
I wouldn't give a toss about all this were Shearer open about his ambitions. But he's not, is he? His behaviour over the course of this season has been, frankly, cowardly and cruel. He allowed Sam Allardyce to be hung out to dry in his name, without ever saying a word about his own intentions or feelings. He's displayed breathtaking arrogance in his apparent belief that he has nothing to learn from any more experienced managers. And his failure to discuss any of this in any meaningful way has displayed incredible contempt for his employer, the BBC, and Newcastle's fans. And still he is fawned over. It's baffling beyond belief.
Alan Shearer was a great, great footballer. If only he were as much of a man.
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/sport/2008/01/16/black_widow_shearer_answerable.html
