Every club has them. The transfers that got away, the kind of ones you think back now and ask: how did we not get the deal over the line?
In this series I have picked out a few; some of them we will be happy to have missed out on. Others for the most part will leave you wishing, and thinking only what if.
PLAYER IN QUESTION: Alan Shearer
DATE OF INTEREST: June 1998
Back in the summer of 1998, Dick Advocaat had taken over at Rangers. Feeling we were short of goals and a proven goalscorer Advocaat set his sights on the best British forward in the last 20 years, the single man who would solve all our striking problems, Alan Shearer.
Alan Shearer is a goal scoring machine. From his earliest days at Southampton, to his title winning spell at Blackburn Rovers, before returning home to the team he always supported Newcastle, in a record transfer. One thing was guaranteed, goals. A whopping fee of 20 million pounds was on the table, and Newcastle and Shearer were giving it some serious consideration. So much in fact, Shearer flew to Glasgow and was whisked away by David Murray’s private chauffeur, and onto Glenagles for talks over a possible move.
Quite why this very deal was never completed is two folds. One is the Newcastle board were scared of the backlash from the magpie supporters, the sale of Andy Cole to Manchester United still very fresh in the minds of the board, and the protests this caused. The second was down to the player himself, at the time he was the current England captain and worried how this potential move would be perceived down south, this along with being unable to pry himself away from his hometown club, was ultimately why he made the choice to stay.
This is one of these transfers that you can only wish had happened, and despite his leanings towards our friends across the city (in large part due to close friendship with Shay Given) I can’t help but wish I had seen the man don the light blue.