Peter Shearer
Personal information
Full name Peter Andrew Shearer[1]
Date of birth (1967-02-04) 4 February 1967
Place of birth Birmingham, England
Position(s) Forward / Midfielder
Youth career
Coventry City
1983–1985 Birmingham City
Senior career*
Years Team Apps (Gls)
1985–1986 Birmingham City 4 (0)
1986 Rochdale 1 (0)
1986–1988 Nuneaton Borough
1988–1989 Cheltenham Town
1989–1994 AFC Bournemouth 85 (10)
1994–1996 Birmingham City 25 (7)
1997–1998 Peterborough United 0 (0)
International career
– England National Game 1 (0)
*Club domestic league appearances and goals

Peter Andrew Shearer (born 4 February 1967) is an English former professional footballer who played as a forward or midfielder for a number of teams in the lower divisions of the Football League in the 1980s and 1990s.

Club career

Shearer was born in Birmingham, and began his football career as a schoolboy with Coventry City. When he left school in 1983 he joined Birmingham City as an apprentice, and signed professional forms two years later.[2] He made his first-team debut as a 17-year-old, on 3 November 1984, as a substitute in a goalless draw at home to Shrewsbury Town in the Football League Second Division. He played four more first-team games that season, at the end of which Birmingham were promoted to the top flight,[3] but made no further appearances, and in April 1986, he was one of several players released with the club in financial difficulties.[4]

Moving on to Rochdale of the Third Division,[5] Shearer played only one league game[6] before dropping into non-league football six months later with Nuneaton Borough.[7] A year with Nuneaton and a successful spell with Cheltenham Town,[8] during which he was capped for the England's semi-professional representative side,[2] brought him an £18,000 move back to the Second Division with Harry Redknapp's AFC Bournemouth.[9][10]

Shearer's form at Bournemouth impressed sufficiently for a £500,000 move to First Division club Wimbledon to be projected, but a knee injury spoilt his plans. In December 1992, after the player's return to fitness, Cheltenham manager Lindsay Parsons predicted that Shearer would "be a Premier League player in a month"; Cheltenham Town would receive a third of any fee paid to Bournemouth for such a sale.[11]

After trials with Coventry City and Dundee,[2] Barry Fry brought Shearer back to Birmingham in January 1994 for a fee of £50,000.[12] Initially he failed to settle, and was soon made available for transfer, but in the 1994–95 season he came into his own. He made a major contribution to the club's winning the Second Division title and the Football League Trophy both with his tenacity and his goalscoring[2] – ten years later, the Birmingham Evening Mail, discussing the young Darren Carter, suggested that "Blues have not had a player capable of scoring goals in that manner from central midfield since Peter Shearer".[13] An operation on his Achilles tendon prevented him playing in the last two games of the season, when the club clinched the title,[14][15] and he never played for the club's first team again.

Shearer had a trial with Notts County in 1997[16] before joining Peterborough United as player-coach. He played for Peterborough's reserve team,[17] but his only appearances for the first team were three outings as an unused substitute.[18][19]

Honours

Birmingham City

References

  1. ↑ "Peter Shearer". Barry Hugman's Footballers. Retrieved 27 August 2015.
  2. 1 2 3 4 Matthews, Tony (1995). Birmingham City: A Complete Record. Derby: Breedon Books. p. 123. ISBN 978-1-85983-010-9.
  3. ↑ Matthews, p. 220.
  4. ↑ "£250,000 for City". The Times. 23 April 1986. Retrieved 9 March 2009 – via NewsBank.
  5. ↑ "Rochdale". Football Club History Database. Richard Rundle. Retrieved 9 March 2009.
  6. ↑ "Peter Shearer". UK A–Z Transfers. Neil Brown. Retrieved 9 March 2009.
  7. ↑ Newman, Paul (15 November 1986). "Telford poised to savage Burnley". The Times. Retrieved 9 March 2009 – via NewsBank.
  8. ↑ "History". Cheltenham Town F.C. 21 May 2008. Retrieved 27 August 2015.
  9. ↑ "A F C Bournemouth". Football Club History Database. Richard Rundle. Retrieved 9 March 2009.
  10. ↑ "Tinnion on the move to Bradford City". The Times. 8 March 1989. Retrieved 9 March 2009 – via NewsBank.
  11. ↑ Gammie, Walter (7 December 1986). "Wye revives Woking's hopes". The Times. Retrieved 9 March 2009 – via NewsBank.
  12. ↑ Shaw, Phil (10 February 1996). "Fry ready to put heat on Leeds". The Independent. London. Archived from the original on 26 May 2022. Retrieved 9 March 2009.
  13. ↑ Tattum, Colin (30 December 2004). "Carter out to impress". Birmingham Evening Mail. p. 70. Retrieved 21 July 2021 – via Gale OneFile: News.
  14. ↑ "Birmingham City midfielder Peter Shearer is to have an Achilles tendon operation". The Independent. 1 May 1995. Archived from the original on 4 November 2012. Retrieved 30 September 2010 – via Highbeam Research.
  15. ↑ Matthews, p. 230.
  16. ↑ "Forward thinking Cox sparks goal spree". Bolton Evening News. 21 July 1997. Retrieved 27 August 2015.
  17. ↑ "End of United's nightmare". Oxford Times. 20 August 1998. Retrieved 27 August 2015.
  18. ↑ Swann, Alan (24 January 2009). "S: Posh midfielder scored a hat-trick of penalties but we still lost". Peterborough Evening Telegraph. Retrieved 9 March 2009.
  19. ↑ "1997/98 Playing Records: Most Times as an Unused Substitute". UpThePosh.net. Retrieved 9 March 2009.
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