Alan Shearer hadn’t scored for England in 21 months. It was summer 1996, he was in the prime of his career and on the verge of becoming the world’s most expensive footballer.
Yet as soon as he pulled on an England shirt, the goals stopped. There were calls for England manager Terry Venables to drop him, but he didn’t and Shearer repaid him big time.
Speaking exclusively to FourFourTwo on the eve of Euro 2024 Shearer recalls thinking: “‘Wow’. For him to have that much belief in me, I felt like I couldn’t let him down. I owed Terry a lot.”
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“I was under big pressure from everybody, including my team-mates, the manager and the supporters, because of the number of forwards that were around then who were scoring goals on a regular basis"
Alan Shearer
When England kicked off the tournament inside a packed Wembley Stadium, with millions watching, Shearer scored one of the most important goals of his career.
“In terms of importance, it’s right, right up there. It wasn’t one of the better goals. It was a good pass from Paul Ince, a good run and a decent finish.
“I was under big pressure from everybody, including my team-mates, the manager and the supporters, because of the number of forwards that were around then who were scoring goals on a regular basis. I just couldn’t score for England leading up to the tournament.”
Shearer hit four more after the Switzerland game and lifted the tournament’s Golden Boot – 28 years on he remains the third-highest scorer at a European Championships, behind only Cristiano Ronaldo and Michel Platini.
Euro 96 paved the way for his £15 million pound move back home to Newcastle United, that summer. Clearly, the transfer speculation wasn’t a distraction during the tournament.
“It wasn’t a distraction at all. I just said, ‘I’m putting everything on hold until after the tournament’, and that’s exactly what I did. I knew how important the tournament was.
Quiz! Can you name the first goalscorer at every major tournament since '96?
“I knew I had to go out and score, and I couldn’t let anything else get in the way of that. So, as difficult as it was, it was parked until after the tournament – I didn’t speak to anyone at all regarding my future at club level during the tournament, it was all going to be done after.
“I knew I had big decisions to make, but there was also a chance that I would stay at Blackburn. I knew I had some opportunities. We’d finished further down the league than I wanted, after winning the league the season before. But no, honestly, I didn’t have a clue what I was going to do.”
Alan Shearer was speaking to FourFourTwo as part of his work with Topps to promote the official UEFA EURO 2024 sticker collection, available now from Topps.com and all good retailers
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