With the Premier League set to kick off for the first time in August 1992, ambitious Blackburn Rovers paid a British record £3.6m to sign 21-year-old England striker Alan Shearer from Southampton. The Geordie scored twice on his Rovers debut, at Crystal Palace, and hit 16 goals in 21 Premier League games before snapping his right anterior cruciate ligament on Boxing Day. Shearer scored 31, 34 and 31 Premier League goals in each of the next three seasons, firing Rovers to the title in 1994/95, before signing for his hometown club, Newcastle United, for a world record £15m in the summer of 1996.
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