Time for Al to get off the fence

ALAN SHEARER celebrated Blackburn's title triumph in 1995 by creosoting his fence.

He has been sat on it ever since. It's time he got off. Time he proved what most of us believe.

That he has all the attributes needed to become a formidable football manager. One in the mould of a Sir Alex Ferguson or a Sir Bobby Robson. A great national manager of the future. The nearest thing we might get to an English Fabio Capello.

But he is not going to prove that by merely accepting an appointment that is nothing more than a half-baked, half-cocked gesture. If you didn't know better, made by someone who is half-cut.

Successful in it or not, this is an assignment that will tell us nothing about Shearer and everything about Newcastle.

Forget the spectre of relegation. Newcastle do not need a quick fix, they need long-term rehab.

So what if he keeps the club in the Premier League?

The ingredients of a successful, sustainable football club will still be absent - whether they are playing Manchester United or Doncaster Rovers.

Stability, realistic expectation, a vibrant youth academy, a pragmatic transfer policy. The sort of ideals Mike Ashley proclaimed to hold dear before discarding them like a bad poker hand.

For casino-loving Ashley, this is just another spin at popularity's roulette table.

He put a stack on Keegan and the wheel of fortune span against him. Like any self-respecting gambler, he has simply doubled his stake. And, in Shearer, Ashley might think he is on to a certainty. But as every cigar-chomping bookie will tell you, there is no such thing as a sure bet.

There is no doubting Shearer's affection for his hometown club.

Why else would he snub Sir Alex even when he had got as far as house-hunting in the footballers' enclave of Wilmslow?

Why would he resist Ferguson's advances again? And Newcastle fans - who crave a Messiah with Life of Brian desperation - need someone who loves 'em.

What they don't need is someone who loves 'em and leaves 'em. They need a relationship, not a one-night stand. There are those who say Shearer has taken the job because he is in a win-win situation.

Devotion

Those who believe his devotion to the Toon is second only to his devotion to himself.

Those who warn that the line between fabled single-mindedness and pure selfishness can become blurred.

"If we win, I don't care who scores the goals," Shearer was fond of remarking.

And a thousand off-stage whispers would declare the add-on he dare not say . . . "so long as it's me".

And, on the face of it, he cannot lose. Survive and he is a hero. Fall and it is the fault of the farcical past.

Maybe. But if Shearer walks away at the end of next month, it could be seen by some Toon fans as a betrayal. If he has black and white blood coursing through his veins, will he really be able to sink into the BBC sofa, spouting platitudes about the gilded world of the Premier League, while Newcastle battle in the biting winds of Blackpool? And if they stay up, what chance will his successor have while the saviour sits under the TV spotlight, smugly passing judgement?

Sure, it must be tempting. An undemanding public paying you a million bucks to inform them that the big fella will be disappointed at not hitting the target.

Yet, unlike his couch-bound colleagues, Shearer clearly feels the pull of management. But if you are going to do the job, have the balls to do it properly. Wherever Newcastle plays its football next season, the pull of Shearer would be immense.

Regardless of what the envious might have said at the time, Shearer's great friend Kenny Dalglish was as big a draw for Blackburn as Jack Walker's wallet. Players like to play for a legend. And a season in the Championship would hardly be the doomsday scenario painted by most.

For many supporters, I'm sure the memory of Kevin Keegan's rampage through the old First Division in 1992-93 is far more thrilling than the drudgery of yet another struggle among the Premier League dross. And for his own development as a coach - development that we would all hope takes him to the international stage - a learning curve in the Championship could hardly be anything but beneficial.

But if Shearer walks back to the Beeb's make-up room, we will know his managerial ambitions are purely cosmetic. He may well have played the role of the knight in shining armour but he will never be a knight of the realm like Messrs Ferguson and Robson. You may have noticed that there is a word Shearer adores more than a well-creosoted fence.

And repeatedly on Thursday, he applied it to the task of preserving Newcastle's Premier League status. He was wrong. Keeping Newcastle in the top flight would be fortuitous. Making the commitment to righting two decades of wrongs at your beloved club?

Now that, as he has blandly said a million times into the television camera, would genuinely be massive.

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