Sheffield Wednesday came close to signing Alan Shearer in 1992 according to an excerpt from former head coach Trevor Francis’s autobiography as published by Yorkshire Live.
Back in 1992, Wednesday were one of the top teams in the country and manager Trevor Francis was trying to find the players which would get them that final step, winning the Premier League. And one of the players that Francis was looking at was Shearer.
Now, we know that Shearer would become one of the best English strikers in history over spells with Blackburn Rovers and Newcastle United. At the time though he was a young striker at Southampton starting to get a lot of notice for his finishing ability.
Francis was looking for someone to partner David Hirst and was looking to sign Shearer. But the board balked at the £3m cost of the future legendary striker and it was not to be. Instead, Wednesday would sign Mark Bright who ended up being a very good striker, though fans will always dream of seeing Hirst and Shearer being strike partners at Hillsborough.
Francis wrote: “I watched Alan Shearer playing for Southampton and have never been more certain about a player, bearing in mind that when you are considering any player you can never be 100 per cent sure about how it will turn out.
“I was never more certain about a player than I was about Alan Shearer.
“I remember at the time I rang Alan to ask him if he would be interested in coming to Sheffield Wednesday.
“The fee was £3m. I went to our chairman, Dave Richards, and said, ‘Listen, it’s a lot of money but I have never been more certain about a player – I guarantee that in a couple of years’ time, if you wanted to, you would be able to double your money.’
“We did not sign him and he went to Blackburn Rovers for around £4m in 1996 and then, after helping Rovers win the Premiership, went to Newcastle United for an enormous fee of well over £15m.”
