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Twenty years ago today something happened in English football that we will never see again. On May 14 1995, Blackburn Rovers won the Premier League title.

The final whistle blew and the fans waited in fear before news from afar filtered through that despite late, late defeat they had indeed done enough. Tim Sherwood held the famous trophy aloft and a town – and a very special old man – rejoiced.

Jack Walker was a one and only. While a team “buying a title” – as the ill informed still routinely label Rovers’ title triumph – will continue to be seen, a league win like the one realised at Anfield two decades ago never will.

This wasn’t just about money.

Sure the likes of Alan Shearer and Chris Sutton arrived for British record fees but to dismiss what that team achieved all those years ago as just being down to pounds and pence is disrespectful and a disservice.

Can you imagine a team climbing from the bottom of the second tier all the way to the Champions League spots in just two years? Can you then imagine that same team going on to win the title just two years after that?

Of course not, that would be impossible – but that’s what Blackburn did.

Such a meteoric rise came at a price, of course, but lost in the passage of time is that Manchester United, the team outlasted by Rovers’ in ’95, spent vastly more on their team than Blackburn did on theirs. Indeed, Liverpool spent more on defender Phil Babb than Rovers did on their entire back four.

These weren’t high-priced mercenaries shipped in for the short-term fix and a quick buck, either. These were hard-working, blue collar, tried and tested pros.

(Image: Getty)

Left-winger Jason Wilcox was no Eden Hazard, but he toiled and tried and hustled and harried and gave everything he had week in, week out. The same can be said for Batty, Kenna, Ripley, Atkins. The list goes on.

These weren’t foreign fancies, they were carefully considered acquisitions. And not from all corners of the globe but from Britain. This was home grown talent not buying into a payday but a dream.

That last day at Anfield saw only one non-British player, Henning Berg, involved in blue and white. Such a landscape would scarcely be believable to anyone born after 1990.

This was a title born and bred on these shores and in a small northern town. In a town hitherto starved of such success. A town that had no reason to dare to dream until Jack made it a reality.

(Image: Getty)

Because that is where the difference lies. Walker was no Abramovich or Mansour. He was no oil oligarch or Arab billionaire. He was the local boy done good who wanted to give something back.

This wasn’t a blueprint or a masterplan or a project, it was a dream. A dream of a local man who wanted nothing more than to see his beloved football team get one shot at the big time.

Modern financial fair play rules make any recurrence impossible. The same FFP rules that, ironically, have 2015’s Rovers under a transfer embargo.

Blackburn will never again see the highs of that one fairytale day on Merseyside. And neither will the Premier League.

(Image: Getty)

Others have made their own rises up the league pyramid – the likes of Swansea, Hull and most recently Bournemouth have made it all the way from the ground floor to the top table.

But they will never win the Premier League title. Not by a long chalk. That particular glass ceiling remains unshattered and will always be.

Kenny Dalglish, the man who so masterfully made one man’s vision a reality, described his team as “the people’s champions”. While others will scoff at such sentiment, a town and their club and their fans never will.

Uncle Jack’s story is one that should be remembered forever. For we will never see it’s like again.