Stan Collymore has admitted he and Alan Shearer failed to hit it off during their time together with the England national team. The former Nottingham Forest, Liverpool, and Aston Villa striker made his England debut alongside Shearer in a 2-1 win over Japan in July 1995, but the pair never formed a close bond.
Speaking exclusively to the ECHO via William Hill Vegas, Collymore said: 'I remember being around England camps, and my England debut – I made my England debut with Alan Shearer. And we didn't really get on either. Didn't really speak, didn't really say much to each other.'
Collymore, who earned three caps for England without scoring, attributed the lack of rapport to the natural ego and rivalry among top goalscorers. 'I think that when you score goals, and goal-scorers have to have some sort of ego, I think that you're always thinking, 'I want to be better than them, and I'm going to do everything I can do to be better than them',' he explained.
Despite the tension, Collymore insisted that on-field success mattered more than personal relationships. 'So I think that that always provides a healthy tension, as long as there's goals going in on the pitch, it really doesn't matter if you get on with somebody on or off the pitch,' he added.
Collymore's club career included spells at Liverpool, where he scored 35 goals in 81 matches, and Aston Villa. After retiring in 2001, he became a pundit for talkSPORT and BT Sport. Shearer, who netted 30 times in 63 England appearances, went on to become the Premier League's all-time top scorer with 260 goals before moving into punditry with the BBC and co-hosting The Rest Is Football podcast.
