Alan Shearer is a football legend, but its fair to say that the younger generation perhaps don't realise that he started with Saints and in spectacular style.

The thing that has struck me as I start on number 6 in this series is the big gap between Peter Osgood ending his Saints career and Alan Shearer starting his, well over a decade, given that, that period was perhaps the best in Saints history, it a surprise that there is no contender from that time.

I think that is for a couple of reasons, firstly parts of I Saints didn't play with what you would call a true centre forward, the forward duo of Keegan & Moran certainly couldn't be called number 9's and nor could Mick Channon who usually made up the attacking trio back then, throughout that time we did have centre forwards, but none of them played enough games or did enough to merit inclusion, Colin Clarke certainly started for the club in fine form and I almost included him, but although his goalscoring record was good, ultimately his stay of just over two seasons was nothing spectacular in terms of actual achievement for the team from his goals.

So we come to Alan Shearer undeniably the most famous of the contenders here due to his on & off field success.

Back in the mid 80's like now our youth set up was the envy of the land for not only was it providing genuine quality players for our first team, but those that didn't quite make the grade at the Dell usually forged a career elsewhere to varying levels of success.

The myth about Alan Shearer is that he scored a hat trick on his debut for Saints, this is nearly true, he did in fact make two appearances as sub before he made his full debut against Arsenal in April 1988, but in his first start he showed just what was to come taking only 5 minutes to find the net and completing his hat trick on 49 minutes.

At the time Colin Clarke was going through a barren spell, he had been prolific for Saints but he would only score 1 goal in his final 20 appearances for the club, if he had left at the start of those Clarke's record would have read 62 league games played, 35 goals scored a phenomenal strike rate at that or any time.

But back to Shearer, many would assume that his explosive full debut would be the immediate springboard to glory, but the fact was it wasn't, season 1988/89 saw the arrival of Paul Rideout and he would initially form a dual strike force with Clarke, when the latter departed Saints changed tack and although Alan got a couple of sub appearances in early doors, it would be the New Year before he got another start, by then Saints were in freefall and his 8 games saw Saints struggle to score and he soon returned to the fringes.

1989/90 could be considered his breakthrough season, he played 19(7) games and scored 3 goals, but he was far from the star turn in a team that had not only Paul Rideout vying for the centre forward spot, but Matt Le Tissier scoring the goals and Shearer's main task was as provider not scorer, Le God got 20 goals, Rod Wallace hit 18 and that was mainly due to the graft of Alan.

1990/91 was more of the same with only 4 league goals scored despite playing in nearly all of the games, however the fans realised who was the driving force in the team and Alan was voted player of the year, but the next season would be the one where after learning his craft Shearer would come to maturity.

It wasn't a great season for Saints in 91/92, under new manager Ian Branfoot they had a new style, the direct long ball way of things didn't please the fans, but it certainly suited Alan, he hit 4 goals in his first 6 games and ended the season as Saints top scorer on 13 goals, strike partner Iain Dowie was slightly behind on 9 and Le Tiss who found himself being marginalised by Branfoot only hit sixth.

But Shearer was now the next big thing in footballing terms and those away from Southampton saw him as coming of age after the potential of his hat trick debut 4 years earlier, so at the age of 22 he not only got his first England cap, but made it another scoring debut, before he left Saints he would win another two caps although he would have to bide his time till after that summer's European Championship and the International retirement of Gary Lineker.

But barely was the tournament over and Shearer was gone, Blackburn were the club with all the money back then and they forked out £3.6 million, a British record fee back then to take him North, it was rumoured they were going to pay him £3,000 a week as well and Saints couldn't match that in those pre Premier League days, the wealth was about to arrive but clubs like Saints had to be cautious.

Alan Shearer had a distinguished career after leaving Saints, but his time at the Dell is perhaps over looked by many possibly because of his low scoring record compared to his latter time at Blackburn and Newcastle, but that wouldn't be telling the full story of how hearer led the line at Saints and created goals rather than scored them.

His time was long in terms of being at the Dell, six years from apprentice to leaving and four from debut to Blackburn, but his impact was far greater than statistics can tell, however 105(13) games and 23 goals in the league is not insignificant, 11 (3) in the FA Cup for 4 goals, in the League Cup he played 16(2) and scored 11 times plus another 8 games in the Zenith Data trophy hitting 5 goals although sadly not in the Final at Wembley where we went down to Nottingham Forest 3-2

Photo: Action Images

green added 19:36 - Nov 18 Good article. I think his time with us gets overlooked because it wasn't in the newly conceived Premier League. As Sky and others like to re-write history, despite being top-flight it seemingly 'doesn't count'. A bit like Arsenal winning the title in the last game in '89, if that had been the Premier League I'm sure it would get much more coverage than it does now.
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