HE'S done it again!
The seemingly unstoppable Alan Shearer (pictured) has once more rewritten the Ewood history books.
Shearer's three goals, which clinched a dramatic victory for Blackburn Rovers at White Hart Lane on Saturday, mean he now has five Premiership hat-tricks to his credit this season - with seven games still to go!
And not a single Rovers player has ever scored more than four League hat-tricks in a season for the club since the organised game began way back in the last century.
Top men for "trebles" were John Southworth, who hit four in the Football League season of 1890-91 (plus one in the FA Cup), and Andy McEvoy, who had a similar record in the 1963-64 First Division campaign.
But now they have been eclipsed by the awesome Shearer who just seems to get better and better.
All Shearer's hat-tricks for Rovers have been scored in the Premiership and he now has nine in the bank, having left some Ewood scoring legends in his wake.
Simon Garner, Tommy Briggs, Ted Harper...none of them can match his happy habit of walking off with the match ball.
Only Southworth now stands in front of him, with one more in the League, plus three in the FA Cup, 13 in all.
Shearer's latest threesome also took him to 34 goals for the season, within reach of last winter's personal best of 37.
And, solely on the League front, he now boasts 28 - in sight of the Premiership record of 34 he shares with Andy Cole.
The ultimate team man, however, always puts points before personal targets.
"I won't get carried away," he says when you ask about his phenomenal scoring record.
"As I have said before, sometimes the rest of the lads make it very easy for me."
The goal that brought Shearer's record-breaking hat-trick was typical, as he raced onto a through ball from Chris Sutton and smashed it past a helpless keeper.
"To Spurs' credit other teams would have led down and given us the points at 2-0 but that third goal was always going to be decisive and we managed to get it," he said.
"They pushed us all the way and the game seemed to be petering out for a point each. But sometimes they are the best type of balls, just over the shoulder.
"Chris has come on and done that and I managed to stick it away.
"It would have been disappointing to get a two-goal start and then throw it away but we always believed we could take the three points and if only we could have got two or three more results away from home, we would be up there challenging."
Shearer's third goal not only brought Rovers' second away win of the season, and his record-breaking feat, it was also significant in the club's all-time scoring charts.
The stoppage-time goal took Shearer to 109 League goals, past Jack Bruton (108) and it leaves just three players ahead of him - Simon Garner (168), Tommy Briggs (140) and Ted Harper (121).
Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.
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