Shearer's old right hand is very much his own man

It is as well that Mike Newell does not possess a fragile ego. The Liverpudlian has travelled widely since those halcyon days he spent in tandem with his close friend Alan Shearer at Blackburn Rovers and has just entered his third month of management at the Third Division leaders, Hartlepool United. Yet there persists a widely held assumption that when the former England captain finally decides that the nation's goalkeepers have suffered enough and that it is the appropriate moment to enter management – at Newcastle, inevitably – the obliging Newell will be there at his side.

Newell has heard it all before, together with the suggestion that Shearer actually conspired to win him the appointment at Hartlepool through links with the club chairman, Ken Hodcroft. Newell disputes that vehemently, claiming: "It's certainly not true to say that Alan got me the job." But the overriding question needs asking, anyway, as we sit in the office he shares with his assistant, the former Everton midfielder Kevin Sheedy, at the club's ground, Victoria Park, a half-mile or so from the new marina in the Victorian town: will it ever be Shearer and Newell Inc – management team?

"You can never say never to anything in football, but it's not something I've thought about," Newell insists. "Me applying for the job here has absolutely nothing to do with what may happen with Alan in the future." He adds mischievously: "Who says Alan's going to be a manager? He might get to the stage where he says, 'Right, I've had enough now'. But if I was a betting man I'd say, 'Yes, he's going to be the next manager of Newcastle'. It's a big job, but I think he'd do well. As for myself, I wanted to get into management as quickly as possible. I would have gone anywhere."

Management has been his objective virtually since he started out with his boyhood club, Liverpool, in the Bob Paisley era. "I got as far as the youth team, but knew I wasn't going to get a contract. I was a late starter because I didn't fill out until I was 19, 20. There were people ahead of me like Paul Jewell, Gary Ablett and Steve McMahon." Curiously, many years later he ended a playing career, which has embraced 12 clubs, at Blackpool, managed by the latter.

"Management has been ambition ever since I was a kid, from the minute I got into the game," he says. "I used to take note of how the managers acted in different situations, how they dealt with questions from the media. I've watched them and studied them and criticised them." He adds: "Not publicly, of course."

For a man who has journeyed as far and wide as a previous frequent visitor to these parts, John Wesley, Newell could scarcely have landed in more auspicious circumstances. Hartlepool used to be a perennial joke. One of the places to avoid before you're 30. Yet steadily they have improved to an extent that one website detailing a history of the town proclaims almost mournfully: "It pains me to say it but Hartlepool's normally appallingly bad football team are actually doing rather well..." Hartlepool is becoming known for more than Peter Mandelson and hanged monkeys.

Newell, 37, arrived with the club already four points clear. He has improved that advantage and last week was named Manager of the Month. He inherited a "footballing side" from his predecessor, Chris Turner, and hasn't rushed to strengthen it. Could he do so? "It's not been an issue yet, because I haven't asked," Newell says. The club is owned by an Aberdeen-based oil company, which perhaps bodes well.

Newell, a devout admirer of Arsène Wenger – "intelligent and meticulous" – has assimilated much knowledge from his travels. "As a player I never had tunnel vision. I was always a watcher. And I've never suffered fools gladly. If someone was letting us down on the pitch, or off it, I'd have to tell them. I'll be like that as a manager. It's a team game and I won't tolerate anyone dragging the others down."

Newell was always going to make some managerial short-lists. An engaging character, he is one of football's more cerebral participants, a player whom Shearer reputedly once described as the most intelligent striker he's ever played alongside. "They say he said this and that about me, but if you couldn't play up front with Alan Shearer you couldn't play. He'd make any striker look good."

You speculate how Newell would have fared in today's environment. "I didn't have electric pace, but I had stamina. If you put me in the Premiership now, even at my best I couldn't have lived with it. Players like Thierry Henry are absolutely frightening."

So how can one explain the enduring phenomenon of Shearer? "Bobby Robson's been very clever because he's surrounded him with pace, the likes of Dyer, Bellamy, Jenas, and he knows that Alan's one of the most naturally strong fellas you'll find and still has that belief that if he gets the ball in the box he'll finish. But Alan also looks after himself and trains to his maximum.

"They'll hope to squeeze another year out of him. He's always said he'd quit at 32, 33 and he's 33 in August. I won't be surprised if he goes another year, but I doubt if he'll go any longer than that."

The pair forged a friendship off the pitch, and an almost telepathic relationship on it when Shearer arrived at Blackburn. "We roomed together on a tour and we hit it off straight away," says Newell. "We had similar lifestyles, both having families, shared the same values, both thought the same way. At one time we were living 400 yards away from each other and drove to training together. We probably spent more time in each other's company than we did with our respective missus. When we roomed together we even had man and wife rows, like who was going to answer the phone."

Will they develop a partnership, this time at St James' Park? That probably insults the potential of Newell to make it as his own man. He may just be a large fish in a small pool.