Alan Shearer, Blackburn to Newcastle for £15m, July 1996
All my circle of relatives are Blackburn; my dad went to college there, my grandparents purchased a area from Jack Walker overlooking Ewood Park. Born to northern oldsters within the south I used to be the one child at school who supported Rovers, however it used to be ace – we had been promoted to the Premier League when I used to be 4 and topped champions when I used to be seven. A yr later the entirety modified: Kenny Dalglish used to be now not our supervisor and Alan Shearer used to be at the verge of becoming a member of Newcastle. Aged 8, I scrawled a tear-stained letter pleading for my hero to not depart and passed it to Martin Tyler – I used to be perfect pals along with his son in class. He promised at hand it to Alan however I’m 99% positive he by no means did. Can you consider: Martin within the tunnel ahead of a recreation, strolling as much as Shearer and announcing, “Oh Alan, before you go, you know your move from this sinking ship of a club to your hometown side for a world-record fee?” Well, factor is, my son’s buddy has written you this notice asking when you’d believe.” Shearer did not keep. You broke my center, Alan. MB
Niall Quinn, Manchester City to Sunderland for £1.3m, August 1996
Learning the pain of relegation for the first time was bad enough but to then see my first hero, the name and number adorning the back of my shirt, leaving was a double whammy. It was an early sign, aged eight, of the cruelty that football can offer. To make matters worse, Niall Quinn went on to form a deadly partnership with Kevin Phillips at Sunderland under Peter Reid, a manager Manchester City had sacked and replaced with poorer alternatives. Things got worse for City as they were relegated again to the third tier while Sunderland became a steady Premier League outfit with Quinn scoring goals up top. When so young, you think football is all fun and games, but the summer of 1996 was a miserable one. I still love you, Niall. I know it wasn’t personal. But your departure from City made me realize football is a business. wu
Juninho, Middlesbrough to Atlético Madrid for £12m, July 1997
Brazilian footballers used to be dotted throughout English football and were the most exotic things in my small, little world, no one more so than Juninho. During Middlesbrough’s doomed 1996–97 season he charmed everyone with his skill, effervescence and optimism, and his tears when relegation was confirmed at Elland Road almost brought a lump to the throat. The following Sunday, Eric Cantona announced his retirement. Alex Ferguson wanted to replace him at Manchester United with Juninho, a fantasy that became all-consuming: I went full transfer moron. This carried on for the best part of a month, during which time the wind changed and a couple of words began to appear next to Juninho’s name with disquieting frequency: ‘Atlético’ and ‘Madrid’. Aged 21, I started to understand the concept of denial. Juninho joined Atlético at the start of July, by which time Ferguson had signed Cantona’s replacement: a 31-year-old Englishman called Teddy Sheringham. It wasn’t exotic, but it turned out OK. RS
Andy Johnson, Crystal Palace to Everton for £8.5m, May 2006
Every Crystal Palace supporter knew it was inevitable. After scoring 32 goals as Iain Dowie’s side stormed to promotion via the 2004 Championship playoffs, and then following that up by finishing as the Premier League’s second-highest scorer behind Thierry Henry with 21 goals, Andy Johnson was somehow persuaded to stay put for another season. by the chairman, Simon Jordan, despite relegation. But after Palace missed out on another promotion via the playoffs to an Ashley Young-inspired Watford – they won the semi-final 3–0 on aggregate – Johnson was sadly on the move, joining Everton at the end of May 2006, not long after being included on Sven-Göran Eriksson’s standby list for that summer’s World Cup in Germany. His replacement? Shefki Kuqi from Blackburn, who managed seven goals in 38 games as Palace ended the following season a disappointing 12th. EA
Michael Owen, free transfer to Manchester United, July 2009
In the summer of 1995 Mark Hughes, Paul Ince and Andrei Kanchelskis left Manchester United, and despite their epochal heroism and my 16-year-old arrogance, trauma was assured by certainty: Alex Ferguson knew more about football than I did. But the intoxication of the manager’s own omnipotence eventually led to his acceptance of the Glazer takeover even though it hampered his chances of success, which, with typically belligerent genius, Ferguson achieved nonetheless. So it was that in the summer of 2009, after three straight titles and two straight Champions League finals, he replaced Cristiano Ronaldo with Gabriel Obertan, Antonio Valencia and … Michael Owen. A has-been held in little affection at Anfield nevermind Old Trafford, Owen was an on-pitch representation of the backroom treachery that imperils United to this day, an insult of a transfer whose summer-ruining quality will endure forevermore. DH
Xabi Alonso, Liverpool to Real Madrid for £30m, August 2009
I got married in the summer of 2009. It was, then, a time of happy beginnings. It was also a time of sad endings; two months after I said ‘I do’, Xabi Alonso said ‘I don’t’ to staying at Liverpool. Like most supporters, I was gutted. Alonso was brilliant for us, no more so than in the previous season when he had been central, literally as well as figuratively, to a serious title challenge by the Reds. He was a star, we wanted him to stay forever, but he was off to Madrid following a breakdown in his relationship with Rafael Benítez. It felt like the end of an era and proved as much the following campaign. The summer of ’09 really was great – as well as getting married I saw Blur play Hyde Park – but Alonso’s departure meant it was also a bummer. However hard I tried, I simply couldn’t stop wishing he and Liverpool had more distance left to run. SN