Common pitfalls and Daley dread

Stephen Brenkley discusses the issue of value for money after the Shearer deal

Both the brewery representative and the former car-saleroom employee were in agreement last week. Alan Shearer, they asserted almost casually, will make light of the pounds 15m transfer fee which has been paid for his services and simply continue to be the most prolific goalscorer in the country.

"He knows what he's got," the retired Jackie Sewell said. "He knows what he's done and what he's capable of. There won't be any problems." Steve Daley was still more straightforward: "The fee doesn't matter. This guy has the lot."

These views should not be dismissed. Sewell and Daley, while paying due regard to Shearer's singular gift for finding the net, know the pitfalls which lie in wait for footballers who have been traded for vast amounts of money. Before they took up somewhat less-glamorous occupations later in life they, too, had set transfer-fee records in Britain. They also attracted the opprobrium of those who were convinced the game was going money mad, a regular fate at such times.

This procedure began in 1905 when Alf Common, amid much moralistic hand- wringing became the first pounds 1,000 transfer, from Sunderland to Middlesbrough. Common, later to be a publican in Darlington, scored in his first game and kept Middlesbrough in the First Division. So it went on through David Jack, the first pounds 10,000 player in 1928 ("no player in the world is worth that," Sir Charles Clegg, the Football Association president, said), and Tommy Lawton, the first to go for pounds 20,000 19 years later. Both remained effective.

Sewell moved from Notts County to Sheffield Wednesday for pounds 34,500 in March 1951. This was pounds 4,500 higher than the previous record between British clubs and was not overtaken for seven years. The fee was paid only months after a Ministry of Labour Tribunal had suggested football would benefit if a transfer cap of pounds 15,000 was imposed.

Such limits - Alan Ball went for the first six-figure deal between British clubs in 1966 - had been long left behind by the time Daley was in his prime. He had played 191 league matches for Wolves but was still approaching his peak when Manchester City paid pounds 1,450,277 for him in September 1979. This made him some pounds 270,000 more expensive than Trevor Francis, who became Britain's first pounds 1m player eight months earlier, and Francis cost pounds 500,000 more than David Mills just a month before that.

Daley's record lasted only three days when Wolves spent his fee and pounds 19,000 more in signing Andy Gray from Aston Villa. Dire warnings were again issued about the fate of the game.

"I remember the Bolton chairman appeared on television and said it was silly money, nothing would come of it and disaster loomed," Daley said. "I watched this thinking about the winning goal I'd got against his team the previous Saturday."

For Daley, however, there were not enough winning goals in a career which remained unfulfilled. He and City parted company acrimoniously 18 months later. He was never again a star.

"The fee wasn't anything to do with me as it isn't anything to do with Alan Shearer, and I was determined it wouldn't affect me," he said. "But it obviously did. I got flak, I wasn't necessarily playing badly but I was the one who'd cost the money."

Sewell, 69, was not aware of his fee until he read it in a newspaper accompanied by the usual "Game Goes Crazy" headlines. He immediately sought advice from his erstwhile Notts County colleague, the pounds 20,000 Lawton.

"Tommy just told me it wasn't my fault, just to go out and do what I did best. So I did. I scored in my first game for Wednesday." But he had been bought to help to keep them in the First Division. They went down. "I don't think I was bothered but opposition fans often told me I wasn't worth 3s 4d let alone pounds 34,000," he said. "I got paid pounds 20 for signing on so I suppose a few good home gates took care of the fee."

Similarly, a few thousand more shirt sales, a few more season tickets (300 were released at pounds 1,500 each at Newcastle last week) and Shearer's pounds 15m may be accumulated sooner than you might think.

Sewell played for another nine years after his record deal, then coached in Zambia before returning to find there was nothing for him in football. He got his garage job and retired four years ago. He now lives on a small pension back in Nottingham.

Whatever happens to Alan Shearer, he will never need to work in a car showroom or in a brewery.