Today, October 9, can of course be written 9-10 – traditionally, the numbers used by the strikers in a classic English 4-4-2. For Newcastle United, Les Ferdinand ended up wearing both – one more willingly than the other.
In the summer of 1995, Kevin Keegan signed Ferdinand from Queens Park Rangers for £6m, a club record purchase at the time.
Having sold Andy Cole to Manchester United for a British record of £7m that January, a statement was needed and Ferdinand settled well into the famous Newcastle number 9 shirt (though the pictures at his launch featured an upside-down 6) – he scored 25 goals in 37 league games in his debut season on Tyneside.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough to fire the Toon to a first league title since 1927 – despite holding a 12-point lead over Manchester United in January, they finished four points behind the Red Devils.
A new transfer record had been set during the campaign as the club paid Parma £6.7m for Faustino Asprilla but Keegan had another attacking reinforcement on his wanted list ahead of 1996-97 – Alan Shearer joined his hometown club from Blackburn Rovers for a world-record £15m.
While Shearer had worn 10 on his England debut in 1992, he was a true number 9 and had worn it in every club game he had played since 1990-91, when he was still with Southampton. Not surprisingly, being able to don 9 for Newcastle was one of his conditions for signing, along with taking penalties.
In his autobiography My Life in Football, Keegan outlined the man-management involved.
“I had to keep my part of the bargain and that wasn’t straightforward when Les Ferdinand was the proud owner of Newcastle’s number 9 shirt…the shirt in Newcastle was iconic. Les had grown attached to it and, in that position, I would have felt exactly the same.
“We were due to fly to Bangkok on a pre-season tour when I took him to one side in the airport to explain I would not be boarding the plane because I was in the process of signing Alan Shearer.
“I quickly assured Les that I had no intention of removing him from the team, let alone selling him, but when I mentioned we needed his shirt he was taken aback.
“Typically, his first reason was to agree, but when I slipped away, leaving him with a long flight to think about it properly, his views hardened. By the time I joined everyone in Bangkok he had decided he was not going to let it go without a fight.
“That was the only time Les and I crossed swords before common sense prevailed and he agreed to take the number 10 shirt.”
There were reports in the press at the time that Ferdinand had suggested he wear 99 but the Premier League refused to entertain such notions.
Instead, it could be argued that the biggest loser was Lee Clarke. The midfielder had had number 10 since the introduction of squad numbers in 1993 but, with Ferdinand moving to 10, he had to shift to 20.
Incidentally, Ferdinand wasn’t the only player to move up one number for 1996-97 – centre-back Darren Peacock had worn 4 the previous season but his preferred 5 had become available when Ruel Fox moved to Tottenham Hotspur. That in turn allowed David Batty to drop from 23 to 4.
Newcastle would finish second again in 1996-97, though by the end of the season Kenny Dalglish was the manager, having taken over following Keegan’s Christmas resignation.
Ferdinand’s time at the club came to an end in 1997, making the same move to White Hart Lane that Fox had. As it happened, the only suitable 1-11 number free for him to wear was 10, with 9 held by winger Darren Anderton.
However, following a major numbers overhaul by George Graham in 1999, he would get to reverse the move had had made at Newcastle three years previously.
