I will be the first to admit I was never the best sports photographer, mainly because my reactions were not quick enough, but on this occasion I struck lucky because I suppose I anticipated the shot.

It was January 1997 and I had only been at the news agency for just under four months. At the time there were three north east football teams in the Premiership – Newcastle, Sunderland and Middlesbrough – and we covered every home game as well as European fixtures when they cropped up.

Needless to say sport was a big seller for the agency so we tended to send quite a few photographers to cover each game and luckily St James’s Park was just around the corner from the office so we could get the films back for processing.

It was New Year’s Day in 1997 and Newcastle were due to play Leeds United at home and I was called in to cover the match.

We usually covered each end – in case it went badly for Newcastle – but fortunately I was on the goal line which Newcastle was attacking.

I was sat next to Michael Steele, whose work I had followed in publications such as the Observer and the Independent during the preceding years, and we settled down to follow the game.

It turned out that Newcastle gained the upper hand in that particular game and were triumphant with a 3–0 victory.

But it was Shearer’s second goal that netted me this photo. Myself and Michael Steele were both in the perfect position to take it because of all the players surrounding him and I doubt the other photographers had quite such a good view – Michael Steele just turned to me after the shot and we both knew we had captured a good photograph of the goal.

And this was in the days before digital cameras, where you can now check your photos instantly, and you had to wait until the film was developed and scanned into the system so they could be viewed on the computer screen.

I like the shot because of the number off the Leeds players surrounding Alan Shearer and particularly the various poses adopted by the opposition.

And it turned out that the picture desks agreed and it was used quite widely with a number of publications in the following days.

PUBLICATIONS… The photo as it appeared in the Daily Star, Daily Express, the Journal, the Northern Echo and the Shields Gazette in January 1997…