Blackburn Rovers hailed for Southampton transfer that "transformed the club" - it made them £15m as well | OneFootball

Most clubs will struggle to come up with a move as lucrative as Shearer to Blackburn Rovers

This article is part of Football League World's 'Terrace Talk' series, which provides personal opinions from our FLW Fan Pundits regarding the latest breaking news, teams, players, managers, potential signings and more...

Blackburn Rovers have seen plenty of top-class footballers walk through the doors at Ewood Park.

One of only a handful of teams to be able to boast a Premier League trophy, Blackburn have sought out no end of talent in the transfer market.

But there’s one signing that trumps all the rest, and probably always will.

We asked our Blackburn Fan Pundit, Simon, to name the top transfer masterstroke his club ever pulled off. His answer probably won’t surprise you.

Speaking to Football League World, Simon said: “For me, the biggest transfer masterstroke will always be capturing Alan Shearer before he even hit his prime.

“You know, what a career he had a Blackburn. He helped Blackburn win the league. He transformed the club and was a massive part of the club’s transformation under Jack Walker.

“And then he's obviously gone on to be one of the top goalscorers in the Premier League and also one of England's leading goalscorers.

“So, to capture him before we had him in his prime and then obviously to then sell him on to Newcastle for what was at the time a record transfer fee.

“We bought him for a couple of million and to then sell him on for £15m at the time, was a massive, massive transfer masterstroke.

“So, capturing Alan Shearer has probably got to be one of the biggest transfer masterstrokes that Blackburn ever did.”

It’s tricky to find any negative in Shearer’s time at Blackburn

Rovers picked Shearer up from Southampton in 1992, paying £3.5m for the striker – not an insignificant amount at that time, and one which broke the English transfer record at the time.

And he didn’t disappoint, notching more than 30 Premier League goals in three consecutive seasons from 1993/94 until 1995/96, including 34 goals and 13 assists the year they won the league.

That in itself is enough to make the initial outlay worthwhile, but the Lancashire side actually wound up making money from his stint at Ewood Park.

As Simon recalls, Shearer moved from Blackburn to his boyhood club Newcastle United for £15m, this time breaking the world transfer record, providing Rovers with a significant return on their investment, not to mention the added revenue from the title win Shearer had been so vital in achieving.

There may never be an English striker as lethal as Shearer again, and Blackburn have since slipped into the second tier, so the chances of them ever recreating a deal as successful are remote.

That, in a way, makes Shearer’s Blackburn story all the sweeter, that it was enjoyed by a disrupter like Rovers rather than one of England’s traditional heavyweight clubs.

Much like he is with the Magpies, Shearer will always hold a special place in the history books at Ewood Park, regardless of who they go on to sign in the future.