Unlikely name in fastest Champions League hat-tricks list is forgotten Prem hero

On Oct 13, 2022

Mohamed Salah reminded football fans why he’s one of the best on the planet on Wednesday evening after he bagged a Champions League hat-trick in six minutes and 12 seconds.

Salah’s treble was the quickest ever recorded in Europe’s top competition – taking the record from Swansea icon Bafetimbi Gomis. And Gomis took the record from an unlikely source: Premier League cult hero Mike Newell.

Newell netted a Champions League hat-trick in just nine minutes – becoming the first British player to score a hat-trick in the Champions League era. Newell’s treble was even sweeter as he netted a ‘perfect hat-trick’.

Newell netted the match-winning penalty for Blackburn Rovers as they made their way back to the top flight after 26 years away in the play-off final against his former side Leicester – forever etching his name in Rovers’ folklore at Wembley in 1992.

However, the Liverpudlian was eventually pushed out of the starting side as the famous partnership of Alan Shearer and Chris Sutton ran riot in England’s top flight. Newell did make appearances off the bench as Blackburn claimed their historic Premier League title, earning him a winner’s medal.

But the former Everton striker’s crowning moment would come in 1995 against Rosenborg.

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Mike Newell held the record for over 15 years before it was broken by Gomis
(Image: PA)

Blackburn had failed to score a goal at Ewood Park during their maiden Champions League voyage, let alone win a game, when they welcomed the Norwegian side on December 6, 1995.

Newell netted his first as TV cameras were still showing Rosenborg’s equaliser, as he swept a shot into the far corner of the net with his right boot on the edge of the box. Six minutes later the scouser headed in a cross to put daylight between the two sides.

Three minutes after his second, a left footed strike saw Newell complete his hat-trick – in just nine minutes – after Shearer fed the prolific No.10.

Mike Newell remains Blackburn’s top goalscorer in the Champions League
(Image: ExpressStar)

Newell’s crowning moment on that December evening remains Rovers’ last game in Europe’s premier competition.

And, as a result, Newell is still Blackburn’s all-time top goalscorer in the Champions League – with four goals – while Shearer is second, as the only other Blackburn player to score, on one.