TWENTY years ago today Rovers proved, beyond all doubt, they had the ‘bottle’ to win the Premiership.

Going into their final home game of the campaign against Newcastle United on Monday, May 8, 1995, Alex Ferguson, manager of title rivals Manchester United, had done his best to unnerve Kenny Dalglish’s table-topping side.

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Having already stated that ‘Blackburn will have to finish like Devon Loch to give us any chance’, Ferguson tried to ramp up the pressure by questioning whether Rovers had the ‘bottle’ to claim the club’s first top-flight crown in 81 years.

But, on an unforgettable evening at an electric Ewood Park, when the home supporters in the capacity 30,545 crowd were put through the wringer, Rovers, and one man in particular, showed they most certainly did.

A match that marked the tragic passing of Noel Brotherston two days earlier, and which fell on the 50th anniversary of VE Day, was one which Newcastle dominated, especially in the second half.

But it was one which Rovers won 1-0 thanks to talismanic top-scorer Alan Shearer’s 36th goal of the season.

The striker soared above John Beresford to head home heroically from a magnificent cross from Graeme Le Saux, who would later re-enact the goal, ‘Phoenix from the Flames’ style, long after he thought the last fan had left the stadium.

He was wrong – but more of that later.

More so than Le Saux and Shearer, however, the real hero of the most nerve-jangling of nights was goalkeeper Tim Flowers.

He made save after superlative save to keep Newcastle at bay and then produced an equally Herculean performance after it, live on Sky, when questioned about those remarks from the supposed master of mind games.

Flowers famously told the nation: “Don’t talk to me about bottle. Don’t talk to me about bottling it, because that’s bottle out there.

“That’s quality players out there, giving their all. We’re going to fight to the death because we’ve got bottle.

“All we can say is we’ll give exactly what we’ve given today, exactly what we’ve given all season, and that’s 100 per cent bottle.”

Rovers, of course, lost their final match at Liverpool, but United’s failure to beat West Ham United at Upton Park ensured the win over Newcastle proved decisive.

“The pressure on us was massive that night but thankfully we managed to get over the line,” said Flowers.

“It was surreal really. We were battered from pillar to post by a fantastic Newcastle side that played wide open, attractive football. They were awesome – we couldn’t get the ball off them.

“When you’re playing against a team like that you’re expecting to have quite a bit to do. Fortunately for me, the ball hit my hand and stayed out!”

For left-back Le Saux, it was the match he remembers the most from the championship-winning season.

“The biggest game for me was Newcastle at home,” said Le Saux.

“They were a very good side but we beat them 1-0 in what I remember as being a really intense game in the best atmosphere I’d experienced at Ewood Park.

“They threw everything at us but one time I managed to break down the wing and got to the byline.

“I knew if I could get the ball over the keeper there was a chance as I didn’t have to look – I knew Shearer would be there at the far post steaming in as normal.

“So I got the sand wedge out and clipped it up, and he just steamrollered in and headed the ball in.

“I remember the feeling in the dressing room afterwards. We got a sense we were really going to win the league and, in a way, it was a good thing and a bad thing because you didn’t want to think, ‘we’ve won it’. But we knew we were just one step away.

“We’d had a bit of a bad run but that was by far the toughest fixture we had in that period – apart from the last game at Anfield obviously – and I just felt ecstatic.”

So much so that Le Saux could not stop himself from going on to the pitch one final time to act out the goal that ultimately won Rovers the title.

“I had a good friend of mine over from Jersey, a school friend of mine, who I’ve known since I was 15,” remembers Le Saux.

“We were walking by the side of the pitch to go back to the cars and it was in the days of Baddiel and Skinner’s Fantasy Football League show.

“She watched it with her husband and I used to watch it and she said, ‘Phoenix from the Flames, we’ve got to do it’.

“The stadium was empty but the floodlights were on and I said, ‘right, you’re me, and I’m Alan Shearer’.

“She went running down the wing, crossed this imaginary ball, and I jumped up and headed it into the net. And we did the same celebration that Alan and I had done, running behind the goal, to the fans!

“We were laughing our heads off as we walked to the corner to get to the cars when all of a sudden I heard this banging and I thought, ‘what’s that?’

“I looked up the main stand, where the executive boxes were, and there were about three of them still full of people, and they’d obviously seen us, realised what we were doing, and they were bashing the windows and laughing at us.

“I was so embarrassed. I was walking off with my head down, hoping maybe they didn’t think it was me. But it was all part of a great night.”