April 24th 2006

ALAN SHEARER: THE LONG GOODBYE

By Andrew Boulton, Goal.com

At the age of ten I returned home from school to be told by my dad that my beloved pet rabbit, ‘The Predator’, had passed away. To this day there remains a cloud of suspicion over the circumstances of his death, and fourteen years later I am still yet to hear of another case of spontaneous rabbit combustion.

The reason I bring up this especially traumatic episode of my childhood is for the simple fact that this week has been my lowest emotional point since then. This week, with the heaviest of hearts, I bade a sad farewell to the goal scoring genius that is Alan Shearer.

The media will undoubtedly be full of tributes to the Geordie legend in the aftermath of the injury he sustained in the 4-1 victory over local rivals (if a team with fewer wins this season than corner flags can actually be regarded as rivals) that cut short the remainder of his career.

But rather than regurgitate the same old statistics and platitudes about record breaking goal scoring feats that everyone in football knows all too well, I thought I’d pay my tribute to Big Al in a more personal way.

To me Shearer will always be more than a man who found 409 different ways to hit the back of the net, even if he could only come up with one way to celebrate. He was the foundation on which my love of all things football was built.

Throughout the years I’ve seen all the tricksters, the ball players, the so-called magicians. I’ve marvelled with the rest of them as Zinedine Zidane played the game at half the speed as everyone else but always seemed to have twice as much time on the ball. I’ve applauded as Thierry Henry has outpaced a centre half despite giving him a forty yard head start. I’ve tipped my cap whenever Ronaldinho has shown that having an ugly face is no real hardship when you’ve got the world’s most beautiful feet.

But for me, football genius has always been about Alan Shearer. The ability to take even the most horribly awkward passes the likes of Titus Bramble can produce and make it stick like glue to chest, head or feet. The strength he showed on the pitch that made you believe he could easily shield the ball with his back to goal from a gang of angry polar bears. The snap of a steely neck muscle, the thud of an ever expanding forehead against leather and the whistle of a ball as it flies past yet another pair of outstretched goalkeepers gloves. These are the things that my football dreams were made of.

I’ve never seen Shearer dribble past three men and deftly chip the goalkeeper. Probably because he’s never had to. Usually a perfectly executed hammer swing of his right leg has been enough to suffice.

Then it was just a case of waiting for the net to ripple, and he’d be off, one arm in the air and a grin on the face that just said; ‘easy.’

So while all my mates were prancing around the playground, trying to perfect their shimmies and tricks, I’d be there, back to goal, elbows digging into the ribs of anyone who dared to get too close, blasting the ball instinctively goalwards every time it came my way.

Like the great man himself it didn’t always make me popular during ‘One Man Wembley’ (especially as my rocket shots tended to have a degree of accuracy that was more Alan Titchmarsh than Alan Shearer).

Nevertheless I was happily following in the footsteps of my hero.

He was the man for whom the phrase ‘classic English centre forward’ was made. Your granddad may tell you that Tommy Lawton or Nat Lofthouse were the genuine classic centre forwards, but Shearer has a better record in front of goal than those two luminaries of the game and what’s more he’s done so in a generation where merely standing within a three foot radius of the goalkeeper would be penalised, let alone crashing them into the back of the net when they’re standing with the ball safely in two hands.

There is a certain poignancy to the fact that Shearer should finish his
career in the way he has. As I watched him drill the last in a long line of penalties past another helpless goalkeeper I couldn’t imagine that the next spot kick Newcastle are awarded will be taken by someone else.

There’s also a certain satisfaction to be had in the fact that although this injury has forced him out of the last few games of his farewell season, injury never forced him into retirement in the way it threatened to throughout much of his career.

There’s a famous scene in the film ‘Cool Hand Luke’ in which Paul Newman’s character is taking a beating in a boxing match against the far bigger and stronger George Kennedy. Every time he’s gets knocked to the ground he clambers to his feet and comes back for more. Kennedy finally tells him to do himself a favour and stay on the ground, to which a defiant Newman replies; ‘you’re going to have to kill me.’ This, for me, is what Alan Shearer is all about.

That he finished his career with neither the club or international success he deserves is a sad footnote in a story of incredible personal achievement.

A single Premiership winner’s medal is his only real honour, a statistic that would read very much differently if he had elected to join Manchester United on both occasions they came calling.

In opting to join his hometown club of Newcastle he made the most romantic gesture the cynical, corporate world of Premiership-era football has witnessed. His reward has been the love, gratitude and hero worship of the entire city of Newcastle, and the knowledge that while the trophy cabinet remains as sparse as when he arrived, the memory scrap books of the Toon army will be overflowing for generations to come.

And so I bid a not entirely un-tearful farewell to my footballing hero. As for ‘The Predator’, let’s just say that the search for the truth goes on.