Former Blackburn and Liverpool boss Kenny Dalglish in dreamland as Rovers face Reds

Kenny Dalglish, seated across from the travelling hordes and among Liverpool's entourage in the directors' box for the FA Cup quarter-final, will feel inclined to join in.

It was on a sunny afternoon at Anfield back in 1995 that Dalglish saw Blackburn lift the Premier League and in doing so allowed Jack Walker to fulfil football's wildest fantasy.

When the clock reaches the point to pay tribute, and a minute has elapsed after kick-off for each of the years since that head turning coronation, memories of not only a bygone era, but what feels an old-fashioned style of ownership, will come flooding back.

"Everything you win is special," said Dalglish. "I am lucky there have been a few things and they all have their own meaning.

"The special thing about Blackburn was how it was built up from its infancy.

"It was pursuing a dream and accomplishing that dream, the dream of a man who was fantastically proud of coming from Blackburn and he put his money where his mouth was.

"It is not just an incredible story, it's a romantic one."

That it was to Ewood Park that Dalglish was enticed back into management in October 1991, nine months after leaving Liverpool, seemed ill-fitting.

The player and manager who had won it all, going to a club languishing in the old First Division even if it had Walker's grand designs underpinning their ambition.

"I went there for one reason and one reason alone: the people who were there.

"They were good people and I felt comfortable with them," said Dalglish, who turned 64 this week.

"There was no training ground up there, nothing, they built everything up. You were struggling to get a Sunday League player coming in at the start because the facilities were so poor.

"The club office was tiny – I had one half the size.

"The secretary was sat next door and you would hear, 'Go on, go on' through the wall. He had a TV in his office and he was into the racing!"

The belief that Blackburn bought the title has always been a spurious argument to Dalglish, who becomes more engrossed by the debate of whether someone like Walker, a fan of the club he owned, could now prevail in the modern game.

"The level of finance has moved on again from 20 years ago," said Dalglish.

"The difficult part for someone like Jack in today's game would be getting started because you need to sacrifice an awful lot.

"Clubs get £100m just for surviving next year, but Blackburn would have probably got £5m or £6m for winning the league.

"I don't think people would have the money to be able to do what Jack did. You would need to work out proportionally what he did then and what it would be worth today. If it was £3.6m for Shearer, what would that be worth 20 years on?

"It is a futile argument [that the title was bought]. Everyone spends money. Okay the transfer fee for Shearer was a lot of money then, but the wages weren't unreasonable. It was just a myth.

"The money was used to bring in players, but it wasn't a landslide of money and it was done constructively."

The pinnacle of that investment and clever management would come on May 14 when Blackburn arrived on Merseyside knowing victory would seal the title – but that defeat would open the door to Manchester United, who could wrestle the crown from their grasp if they overcame West Ham.

The build-up had been dominated by accusations Liverpool would simply roll over when confronted by one of their favourite sons in Dalglish rather than inadvertently play a part in helping United.

"Everything was perfect," said Dalglish. "Liverpool won the game, we won the title and Manchester United couldn't do what they needed to do.

"So nobody could be accused of any skulduggery. Everyone did their job except for the ones who had been accusing people.

"It was a fantastic day, perfect day, an unbelievable achievement for Blackburn Rovers and the guy who made it all possible was probably the most emotional of anybody there. He was in tears.

"Without him at the outset, genuinely wanting to put something back into the town where he had made his fortune, without him getting involved in Blackburn four or five years earlier, they would never have been near anything like that.

"It is amazing how football, or sporting achievements, can over-ride anything.

"There are people who have clubs now and winning something is more important to them than a multi-million-pound deal. It is about the achievement."