Remember When... Four minutes and 33 seconds of Robbie Fowler brilliance
Four minutes and thirty-three seconds.
It’s really not a very long time but it was enough for Robbie Fowler to achieve the unthinkable.
It was August 1994 and Fowler was 19 years old. He’d broken into Liverpool’s first team the season before but 1994-95 marked an acceleration in development that highlighted him as a special footballer; a player brimming with brio and imagination and, above all, goals.
He surpassed the 30-goal mark in three consecutive campaigns – and three of his tally of 31 in 1994-95 were plundered inside five minutes on a glorious late-summer afternoon at Anfield when Arsenal were, not for the last time, tormented by the Toxteth lad wearing No.23 on his back.
Goal one is that of a penalty-box predator as Fowler showcases the knack all great strikers seem to share – being in the right place at the right time – to dispatch the loose ball from close range following a set-piece.
His second is vintage Fowler. He peels away as Steve McManaman surges forward with the ball from deep, he’s found by a pass from his accomplice-in-chief, and he then finishes precisely and unerringly with that dream of a left foot.
There is an element of fortune about the third as the ball breaks kindly after he tries to lift an effort over David Seaman, but history has been made.
Fowler has scored a Premier League hat-trick in just four minutes and 33 seconds, a time that will stand as a record for nearly 21 years.
Until, that is, a man who would ultimately join him in Liverpool’s Hall of Fame – a certain Sadio Mane – broke it while playing for Southampton.