IT is hard for a single match to epitomise an entire season, particularly one as memorable as the one Blackburn Rovers enjoyed 20 years ago.

Yet for Chris Sutton, one of the key figures of Rovers’ glorious Premiership title triumph, one match comes close to doing just that.

And that match was the 2-1 victory over a relegation-threatened Everton team at a raucous Goodison Park on April Fools’ Day 1995.

It would be the fifth and final time in the campaign that the SAS would feature on the score sheet in the same league game.

However, it is what happened in the 84 minutes after Alan Shearer doubled the first-minute lead given to Rovers by his strike partner, which leads Sutton to believe that the events of that nerve-shredding afternoon on Merseyside not only sum up the indomitable spirit that coursed through the veins of Kenny Dalglish’s famous side, but the very ethos of the club and town.

An ethos, the former Rovers forward feels, is being embraced again by the club’s current manager Gary Bowyer.

“I think the Everton game would sum up the mentality we had at the time,” said Sutton, whose goal at Goodison that day, after just 13 seconds, was at the time the fastest in the Premiership’s history.

“We went 2-0 up early on and then had to hang on for dear life.

“But we managed to get over the line and that, for me, really summed up the club and the area.

“Blackburn was an industrial town, it’s a hardened town with hardened people, and they respected the players because we worked hard for their club.

“As long as we were giving it a go, they would always get behind the team, and that’s how we felt – and we certainly had to work that day.

“You have games when you don’t play well but you just have to get over the line.

“But I think we took it to the extreme that day.”

Everton, featuring a then 18-year-old Tony Grant, Rovers’ current first-team coach, laid siege to Tim Flowers’ goal after Graham Stuart reduced the deficit midway through the first half.

Yet they could find no way through a team who, on the day, were the absolute embodiment of resolute.

“The older I get the more I realise the importance of character, not just in football and in sport, but in life,” continued Sutton, now 41.

“I know it’s easy to say now that we had a team full of winners, as we ended up winning the league, but we really did.

“We had hardened players with real drive and belief – players who just wanted to get over the line no matter what it took.

“I think a lot of that came down from Kenny Dalglish and the way he backed the players. He would never criticise the players publicly and what went on in the dressing room would stay there.

“He was somebody who all the players looked up to and he was somebody who had been there and done that and won titles.

“It was a big help him being at the helm and it would have been interesting to see if we had ever got over the line if he hadn’t been.”

Listening to Sutton reel off his memories from the never-to-be-forgotten 1994-95 season, you would be hard pressed to imagine just what a major part he performed in bringing the top-flight crown back to the town for the first time in 81 years.

Following a British transfer record £5m move from Norwich City, the then 21-year-old striker went on to score 21 goals in 48 games in his debut Ewood Park campaign, 15 of which came in the league.

However, despite the contribution he made, the one-capped England international would prefer to talk up the role played by legendary boss Dalglish and the team he and the late, great Jack Walker built.

“When I moved to Blackburn for £5m all of a sudden I went from a place where I couldn’t do anything wrong to a place where everybody would be scrutinising my game,” remembers Sutton, who scored 59 goals in 161 appearances for Rovers before being sold to Chelsea for £10m in the summer of 1999.

“I was under pressure in that respect, under pressure to score goals, but fortunately for me I went into a team with two great wingers in Jason Wilcox and Stuart Ripley, clever players like Tim Sherwood and Mark Atkins, who was really underrated, and of course a strike partner as good as Alan Shearer.

“I’m not saying something could not have gone wrong but with the supply line I had, and playing alongside someone as talented as Alan, it helped me and I settled in straight away.

“I liked the people, I liked the area, and that was really important to me and my wife.

“Robert Coar was very welcoming to us, as was Kenny Dalglish, so I felt at home there.

“And it was important to hit the ground running, both for myself and the club, and I think we did that.

“We were a big, strong powerful team, one which we did not have to apologise for the way we played. We played with wide men, got crosses in, and were extremely effective.

“So we had a good blend but we also had a team full of characters. We had players like Colin Hendry, a stalwart of the club, a fighter and over-my-dead-body type of player. Then you had the likes of Henning Berg and Ian Pearce, who was young at the time but he really proved his worth after starting the season behind Tony Gale. And Tim Flowers was an outstanding goalkeeper.

“We had a will to win and also an ability to win thanks to the players we had and the way we played.

“Teams feared us. They may have been able to set up against us, and in many ways they knew what was coming, but a lot of teams couldn’t deal with us.

“We had goals and the goals Alan scored – he was a phenomenal goalscorer – played a big part in us winning the league.

“But if you speak to Alan and all the other players, I’m sure they’d say our resilience got us there too.”

Yet you can equally be sure that those same players would concede that Rovers would never have been able to knock Manchester United off their perch had it not been for the goals of Sutton and Shearer.

The SAS shared 58 between them in 1994-95 with Shearer contributing an incredible 37.

From the moment the dynamic duo linked up to create Rovers’ equaliser in the opening day draw at The Dell against Southampton, Shearer and Sutton developed a telepathic partnership.

However, it is often suggested that the prolific pair were nowhere near as close off the pitch.

Speaking two decades on, Sutton shows nothing but warmth for his former strike partner.

“I got on great with Alan, as I did with everybody else,” said Sutton, who went on to enjoy great success with Celtic after an ill-fated season at Chelsea.

“From my point of view I felt a slight awkwardness because I knew he was big friends with Mike Newell and I effectively took Mike Newell’s place.

“I got on with him. I haven’t seen him for a while but we get on.

“It was wonderful for me to play with someone who helped my game. I learned a lot from him.

“He just didn’t miss. He had this incredible, low backlift and his shots were just so powerful. Keepers just couldn’t get set.

“He used to hit the ball so hard and he was superb in the air for somebody who wasn’t the tallest.

“And when we talk about leaders, he was a big leader for everybody.

“We were lucky to have the likes of him, Tim Sherwood, Colin Hendry and Tim Flowers – the backbone of our side was made up of real men.

“I look back on that season with real pride.”