Twenty years ago, the Geordie general kicked a first ball for his hometown team. He tells FFT what it really was like making it home the long way around, and about everything else in between...
Alan Shearer has been one of the most dominant figures in English football, inspiring Blackburn to the title in FFT’s first season and just a year later giving the nation hope that 30 years of hurt could be banished at Euro 96.
Shearer won the Golden Boot that summer and scored two goals in England’s 4-1 mauling of the Dutch at Wembley – surely the greatest England performance in FFT’s 22-year lifetime (and we include the 5-1 in Munich in that).