Alan Shearer, a former England international, has revealed that he almost returned to management in the Championship following his brief stint as interim manager at Newcastle.

Few other English players of the 1990s and 2000s received as much praise as Alan Shearer, who played over 700 games and scored nearly 400 goals. The striker won the Premier League title with Blackburn Rovers in 1995 and led England thirty times, and since retiring, he has established himself as a prominent television analyst.

However, Shearer had a very brief stint in management when it was announced on April 1, 2009, that he would be taking interim leadership of a Newcastle United squad that was on the verge of relegation from the Premier League. Shearer was unable to keep Newcastle up, and that unpleasant couple of months remains his only foray into management.

Although the striker returned to media work, he has since admitted that he nearly returned to management following Newcastle’s Championship defeat to Cardiff City.

Alan Shearer rejected the vacant Cardiff City managerial role after three interviews.

Alan Shearer, speaking to the BBC for their series The Football Interview, revealed that he almost accepted the Cardiff City manager’s job after leaving Newcastle United, but changed his mind after three interviews.

I always felt like I was going to go into it [management] again, and I wanted to, but then I had a couple of interviews,” he told them, “I went for one interview, another interview at the same club, a third interview, and got offered the job…”

When asked about the club involved, Shearer responded, “It was Cardiff,” but later explained that he did not accept the invitation to manage at The Cardiff City Stadium.Things changed in another interview, and then the last one went sort of… again, and I wondered,

“What am I doing here? If things are changing throughout the interview process, what will it be like when I get in?” He confirmed that after rejecting Cardiff’s approaches, he did not get any additional offers: “I didn’t get any more after that, and then I just thought, ‘You know what, I’m just going to get my head down and stick to the punditry.”

Alan Shearer’s stint with Cardiff City would probably have been eventful, if he took the role.

When Alan Shearer was appointed as Newcastle United’s interim manager at the start of April 2009, it felt like a last desperate gamble at the end of a turbulent season. Shearer was Newcastle’s fourth manager of the season, succeeding Kevin Keegan, Joe Kinnear, and Chris Hughton, and the club was in 18th position in the Premier League, two points from safety when he took over.

Shearer failed to keep Newcastle in the Premier League. They finished the season in 18th position in the table, a point behind safety, with only one win – against Middlesbrough in their third-to-last game – and two draws from their final eight League games. When it came time to decide who would lead Newcastle’s campaign to return to the Premier League, Chris Hughton was chosen over Shearer.

However, the former England captain’s stunning remarks shed additional light on his subsequent experiences. Shearer did not say when he was interviewed for the Cardiff City post, although it is believed to have been in 2011, when they were looking for a replacement for Dave Jones.

At the time, the club had been owned by Malaysian businessman Vincent Tan for a year, and Shearer’s account of the interview process matched Tan’s occasionally quirky ownership style.

Tan infuriated Bluebirds fans a year after Malky Mackay was appointed manager by altering the club’s colours from blue and white to red and black, but life at The Cardiff City Stadium under his ownership has always been a rollercoaster ride. Under his leadership, the club was promoted to the Premier League twice, in 2013-14 and 2018-19, but failed to stay there on both occasions.

Given Newcastle United’s status at the time they called on Alan Shearer in 2009, it’s impossible to blame him for their relegation from the Premier League, and Shearer has gone on to have a successful career in punditry that still continues today.

We’ll probably never know if he might have gone on to have a successful managing career, but one thing is certain: if he had accepted the Cardiff City job, it would have been eventful.