Sheffield Wednesday will always regret passing up on £3.6m transfer - he became a world-class striker | OneFootball

Trevor Francis tried to bring Alan Shearer to Hillsborough in 1992

Sheffield Wednesday’s history is marked by moments of glory, but also by pivotal what-ifs.

Most Owls supporters know about the time Eric Cantona trained at Middlewood Road in early 1992 - a mercurial talent on trial, deemed too much of a risk to sign - but fewer remember that, just months later, Wednesday came even closer to securing a generational talent.

In the summer of that same year, the club passed up the chance to sign a 21-year-old Alan Shearer from Southampton.

The fee: £3.6 million. The cost of hesitation? Missing out on arguably the greatest English striker of the modern era - all over a reported £600,000.

Trevor Francis wanted Alan Shearer at Sheffield Wednesday - but the board refused

In his autobiography One in a Million, Trevor Francis - then player-manager at Hillsborough - revealed just how close Wednesday came to landing Shearer. Francis was convinced.

“I have never been more certain about a player,” he wrote.

“I told our chairman, Dave Richards, that if we spent £3 million on him, we’d double our money within a couple of years.”

Francis was not alone in his assessment. Shearer had already broken into the England squad and was widely regarded as one of the most promising forwards in the country, but Wednesday’s board refused to go above £3 million, balking at Southampton’s valuation.

Blackburn Rovers, fuelled by Jack Walker’s ambitious investment, stepped in and paid £3.6 million - a British transfer record at the time.

The rest, as they say, is history.

Alan Shearer became a Premier League icon after Wednesday passed him up

Shearer’s impact at Blackburn was immediate. Despite a serious knee injury in his debut season, he scored 16 goals in 21 games. When fully fit, he was unstoppable.

Thirty-one goals in 1993/94. Thirty-four in 1994/95 as Blackburn lifted the Premier League title. He won both the FWA and PFA Player of the Year awards in successive years, before moving to Newcastle United for a then world-record £15 million in 1996.

By the time he retired in 2006, Shearer had scored 260 Premier League goals - a record that still stands. He captained England, won the Golden Boot at Euro 96, and became a household name whose legacy is unmatched in English footballing history.

For Wednesday, the near-miss is especially poignant when viewed in context. The club had just returned to the top flight, finished third in the First Division under Francis in 1991/92, and would go on to reach both domestic cup finals in 1992/93.

It was a period of resurgence, but they fell short of major silverware. Had Shearer arrived at Hillsborough, that story might have been very different.

Francis even recalls an attempt by his business partner, Nick Rogers, to privately finance the deal.

“He wasn’t even a football man,” Francis said, “but he asked, ‘Can’t we just buy him between us?’”

It was not an option under the rules at the time. That avenue, famously exploited years later in the Carlos Tevez affair, was firmly closed.

It’s easy to be wise after the fact, but Francis’ certainty, and Shearer’s subsequent achievements, render this a case study in short-term caution trumping long-term vision.

A striker who would go on to torment the Owls with 14 goals against them in his career could have been wearing blue and white - had the club taken a calculated leap.