When Blackburn Rovers won the Premier League
Since the birth of the Premier League in 1992, league titles have been shared between Manchester United, Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester City, Liverpool, Leicester City and Blackburn Rovers. Of these names, the presence of the last two is striking, with the case of the Foxes being the best known. With the passage of time, the story of that Blackburn champion has been somewhat forgotten, however there are many elements that are worth highlighting.
Blackburn Rovers stadium Ewood Park
History of Blackburn
Blackburn Rovers was founded in 1875 thanks to the proposal of John Lewis and Arthur Constantine, two young men from Lancashire, who wanted to form a football club. In 1884, they won their first FA Cup, an achievement that they would repeat up to 4 times until 1891, consolidating themselves as one of the strongest teams in the country. In 1888, they were one of the founding members of the Football League, winning the First Division in 1912 and 1914. In 1936, they suffered their first relegation and began a long period oscillating between the top, second and third tier of English football.Jack Walker
He was a British businessman from Blackburn and a Rovers fan who made his fortune in the world of steel through his company Walkersteel. In January 1991, the club was competing in the second tier of England and that was when Walker took over the majority of the shares of The Riversiders, with the intention of making it once again a power in English football as they were at the end of the 19th century and early 20th century.Walker was clear about what his objective was and invested a lot of money in the club, both in the facilities and in Ewood Park (increasing the capacity of the stadium) as well as in the staff and the squad. Thus he took Kenny Dalglish, Liverpool legend, as manager and made record signings such as Alan Shearer and Chris Sutton. Walker, after winning the Premier League title with Blackburn in 1995, left a phrase for which he is still remembered in the British media: "Why do you want to sign Zidane when we have Tim Sherwood?" At that time, the French star was still at Girondins de Bordeaux and was offered to the English club.
Kenny Dalglish
In addition to being a legend as a player at Celtic and Liverpool, as a manager, Kenny Dalglish had also achieved many titles with the Reds in the late 80s. In February 1991, he decided to leave his position at Liverpool after 3 titles league, 2 FA Cup, 1 Football League Cup and 4 FA Charity Shield. In October of the same year, he took charge of Blackburn Rovers, which was in the English second tier, something unexpected considering that just a few months before he was in one of the best clubs in the world.At the end of that same 1991-92 season, they achieved promotion via play-off to the top tier after 26 years without playing in the category that, starting the following season, changed its name to the Premier League, so Blackburn It was one of the clubs that inaugurated the nascent Premier League in 1992. In its first two seasons in the top flight, Rovers finished fourth and second, respectively, in a way, warning of what was to come.
Alan Shearer
The English striker began his career with Southampton where he progressively gained more minutes until he became one of the young promises of English football, attracting the attention of important teams such as Manchester United since Sir Alex Ferguson became a great admirer of Shearer's talent, whom he tried to sign on several occasions without success.Despite United's interest, in 1992, with Blackburn's arrival back in the top tier, Walker made a record investment at the time for a British football player (£3.6 million), taking Shearer to Rovers. The striker was boosted in his new club, reaching scoring rates much higher than what he had at Southampton and setting the trend for what would be the rest of his career in the Premier League.
Season 94-95
After two very good first seasons in the Premier League, Walker was more motivated than ever to win the league and for that he once again broke a new transfer record by paying £5 million to Norwich City for Chris Sutton, another promising striker who will accompany Shearer. Between them, they would score 49 goals in the Premier League that season.The team had a good start in the league that was markedly opposite to the performance in the rest of the competitions as they were left out of the FA Cup in the third round, out of the Football League Cup in the fourth round and in the first round of the UEFA Cup, surprisingly against Trelleborg from Sweden. With this uninspiring context, Blackburn was able to focus more on the Premier League, unlike Manchester United, its main contender to win the league, which reached the final of the FA Cup.
From matchday 16 they settled in first position, something they maintained until the last matchday despite the fact that they had a few final matches marked by irregularity while United looked increasingly solid and forceful. On May 14, 1995, the last day was played, where Blackburn visited Liverpool and the Red Devils visited West Ham, where only victory would help them and the Rovers would not beat the Reds. In case of a tie, Ferguson's team was favoured by its better goal difference.
Liverpool needed victory to be able to enter European competitions and in fact they would achieve a 2-1 victory, however, United could not get past the draw against the Hammers, leading to Blackburn Rovers becoming champions of the top tier after 81 years in addition to breaking the small hegemony of the Red Devils in the young Premier League.
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