“I WAS IN SUCH DESPAIR WHEN LIVERPOOL SCORED THEIR WINNER. THEN CHRIS SUTTON STARTED DANCING WITH ALAN SHEARER. WE WERE CHAMPIONS!”
Blackburn Rovers paid £25,000 to sign me from Dundee back in 1987. To be honest, I wouldn’t have been able to tell you where Blackburn was at the time. Don Mackay brought me in to be a centre-back, but sometimes I’d play centre-forward in the early days.
Not long after I arrived, I scored the winner in the Full Members’ Cup final against Charlton. Not many Scottish players have scored a winner in a Wembley cup final. We were a mid-table side in the Second Division, and never in my wildest dreams did I believe we could be champions of England one day. There were so many bigger clubs than Blackburn.
Soon, though, I became aware of Jack Walker. At first, he had more of a behind-the-scenes role. He had helped the club sign Steve Archibald from Barcelona and Ossie Ardiles from Tottenham – no mean feat for Blackburn back then. We made the play-offs two seasons in a row, but didn’t go up. We were competing with top teams – Chelsea beat us in the first year, then Crystal Palace with Ian Wright.
In 1989, I moved to Manchester City for £750,000. Blackburn needed the money and City were a big club. But a couple of years later, Peter Reid signed Keith Curle and wanted to let me go. I still had unfinished business at Blackburn, and they agreed to pay City what they’d spent on me – £750,000.
By then, Walker had officially taken over the club and Kenny Dalglish was the manager.
