ALAN SHEARER has left Blackburn Rovers' young supporters a £100,000 going away present.

The £15 million striker, who jetted off to the Far East last night, left, to link up with his new club Newcastle United, is to sponsor the classroom used by Ewood's "Learning Through Football" programme for the next five years.

Rovers invested a lot of money in the purpose-built facility, in the Blackburn End stand, and Shearer is to finance it as a way of saying thanks for his four years with the club.

Before leaving to join his new team-mates, he said: "I wanted to think of a practical way of thanking Blackburn Rovers and the fans for their kindness towards me.

"It's important for everyone connected with football to remember that the youngsters of today are the supporters of tomorrow."

Last year, more than 14,000 primary school children experienced Ewood's "Learning Through Football" programme, an education facility run by Terry Gennoe, with all the lessons linked in some way to football.

I understand the deal involves a six-figure sum and the room will be called the "Alan Shearer Classroom".

Ironically, there has been a life-size model of the striker in there for some time.

It is envisaged that there will be an official ceremony, performed by the striker himself, to mark the deal and "open" the classroom when Newcastle visit Ewood on Boxing Day. While the tills were ringing today at merchandising outlets on Tyneside, Blackburn fans were still heart-broken at the departure of their idol. The club shop yesterday swapped recently-bought shirts bearing the striker's name but others who had got their shirts from town centre sports shops weren't so lucky.

Gibsons Sports, in New Market Street, offers a free name and number printing service but manager Joanne Murray said: "We warned people and gave them the chance to bring their shirts back at a later date to be printed.

"But a lot insisted they wanted Shearer. They are not faulty so there is nothing we can do now.

"Fans put their trust in Blackburn Rovers and they feel let down. They said he was staying, now he has gone and the fans feel let down by the way the matter has been handled.

"This is not about Alan Shearer, it's about parents who have worked hard to buy shirts for their children who now feel they have wasted their money."

Ahmed Khalita, manager at Allsports, Lord Street, said the shop sold six Newcastle shirts yesterday - but no Rovers shirts.

He said: "We normally order shirts with names and numbers already on. But because of the speculation, we purposely left Alan Shearer's name off."

Odds on Rovers winning the title have changed dramatically since news of the transfer.

The team's odds went from 18-1 to 33-1 at one nationwide bookmakers and lengthened from 16-1 to 25-1 at local firm Bradlow Darwen, which has branches through East Lancashire.

Managing director Alan Jefferson, a Rovers fan, said: "We are still getting a bit of money on them but Newcastle have gone from 100-30 to 9-4."

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