325: Brian Deane, Middlesbrough, Merlin’s F.A. Premier League 2000, Millennium Edition Sticker Collection

It’s Mat Jolin-Beech at the helm today and he attempts to tackle the deep existential questions of a life being summed up in a single moment. If anyone’s interested Mat’s a United fan and yet he has chosen to focus on a moment where his team conceded a hugely significant goal and a player who spent a decent chunk of his career at Leeds. In fact this is his second post about a Leeds player. I do worry about him sometimes.

Whether a blessing or a curse, many players’ careers are often boiled down to one moment. Think Solskjaer in the ’99 Champions League final; Baggio’s penalty miss in 1994; Waddle’s penalty miss in 1990; Gerrard’s slip in 2014; Peter Crouch and the robot; or John Terry joining Chelsea’s celebrations in 2012.

For a player who will forever be etched into the Premier League history books the rest of his career will remain anonymous. So, time for a test.  Who scored the Premier League’s first goal? Yep, Brian Deane. 15 August 1992. Bramall Lane. Against Manchester United. 15:05. Sorry John Williams. You missed out on historical immortality by four minutes.

Deane rounded off the day by scoring the second from 12 yards out, racking up the Blades’ first win of the season (and since the birth of football courtesy of Sky), rounding off a 2-1 win. However, there is much more to the man we all know as the history maker. For instance, he is one of the first players to score a Premier League hat-trick. He came in fifth, with Eric Cantona, Mark Robins, John Hendrie and Andy Sinton ruining what would have been a neat statistical brace.

After his goal grabbing exploits were enough to keep the unfancied Sheffield United (they still are, aren’t they?) in the top flight, he swapped Uniteds in June 1993. Sheffield for Leeds in a £2.9m move, which made him not only Leeds’ record signing, and the record sale for the Steel City club, but also one of the most expensive players in English football history. Who knew? Deane settled in at Elland Road, grabbing 32 goals over 138 games, as well as gracing Europe in the UEFA Cup, and claiming a 1995/96 League Cup runner’s up medal. A return to Sheffield was on the cards in 1997, as the then new manager Nigel Spackman prepared to build a promotion winning team and splurged £1.5m on his new spearhead. A total of 11 goals followed in this spell, before the start of Deane’s lesser-known nomadic period.

Now aged 94 (ok, ok, he was actually only 30 but he’d been around forever), he graced the exotic fields of continental Europe, lighting up the Estadio de Luz for Benfica. This foreign foray did not last long (18 games in which he plundered 7 goals), with a return to the UK coming within 9 months. He changed Benfica’s red shirts for those of Middlesbrough. Before too long, Deane was on the move again, after struggling on Teesside, dropping down the divisions to join Leicester City, where he claimed another page in the footballing history annals. By putting one (technically it was two, but one was first – he’s not a magician) in the onion bag against Watford, Deane was the first to score competitively at the brand new crisp cathedral that was the Walker’s Stadium (now the King Power – Lineker must cry himself to sleep at night amidst packets of Cheese and Onion and Roast Chicken crisps after those naming rights got away).

The latter career club carousel continued, with further, relatively unsuccessful, stints at West Ham United, Leeds (again), Sunderland, and a foray Down Under with Perth Glory. Fittingly, his playing days came to end in 2006, at the ripe old age of 38, with a couple of appearances back with the Blades.

So, after all of this, who is Brian Deane? Well, he is the guy who scored the first goal in the Premier League, and did some other things in his career too. But basically he is the guy who scored the first goal of the Premier League era.