Shearer was born in
Birmingham, and began his football career as a schoolboy with
Coventry City. When he left school in 1983 he joined
Birmingham City as an apprentice, and signed professional forms two years later. He made his first-team debut as a 17-year-old, on 3 November 1984, as a
substitute in a goalless draw at home to
Shrewsbury Town in the
Football League Second Division. He played four more first-team games that season, at the end of which Birmingham were
promoted to the top flight, but made no further appearances, and in April 1986, he was one of several players released with the club in financial difficulties. Moving on to
Rochdale of the
Third Division, Shearer played only one league game before dropping into
non-league football six months later with
Nuneaton Borough. A year with Nuneaton and a successful spell with
Cheltenham Town, during which he was
capped for the
England's semi-professional representative side, Shearer's form at Bournemouth impressed sufficiently for a £500,000 move to
First Division club
Wimbledon to be projected, but a knee injury spoilt his plans. In December 1992, after the player's return to fitness, Cheltenham manager Lindsay Parsons predicted that Shearer would "be a Premier League player in a month"; Cheltenham Town would receive a third of any fee paid to Bournemouth for such a sale. After trials with Coventry City and
Dundee, Initially he failed to settle, and was soon made available for transfer, but in the
1994–95 season he came into his own. He made a major contribution to the club's winning the Second Division title and the
Football League Trophy both with his tenacity and his goalscoring An operation on his
Achilles tendon prevented him playing in the last two games of the season, when the club clinched the title, and he never played for the club's first team again. Shearer had a trial with
Notts County in 1997 before joining
Peterborough United as
player-coach. He played for Peterborough's
reserve team, but his only appearances for the first team were three outings as an unused substitute. ==Honours==