He did not need much convincing.
Blackburn had finished runners-up to Manchester United the previous season and, after adding Gale and Chris Sutton to a squad containing Alan Shearer, Tim Sherwood, Colin Hendry and Tim Flowers, the veteran defender immediately believed Kenny Dalglish's team could go all the way.
"I didn't think a lot of people thought it was anything other than a fluke that Blackburn had finished second," Gale tells Football Presse.
"But when they came in for me and I had a look at that squad and trained with them for the first time, immediately I said to the chairman, Robert Coar, 'We'll win the league this year.'"
Coar wanted to know whether Gale was serious.
"He said, 'Do you really think?' I said, 'Yeah, we'll win the league this year.'
"He said, 'Why?' I said, 'Because you've signed me.'"
It was a typically Gale answer, but there was genuine belief behind the joke.
Blackburn had already finished fourth in 1992-93 and second in 1993-94, while Dalglish had built a team that Gale felt was capable of taking the final step. The arrival of Sutton from Norwich for £5 million gave them another dimension alongside Shearer.
"The fact that they'd signed Chris Sutton as well, probably one of the best young strikers in the Premier League, was massive," Gale says.
"So he became the axis of the team with Shearer. That was the SAS. They scored 50 goals between them."
They actually finished with 49 league goals between them, with Shearer scoring 34 and Sutton 15 as Blackburn collected their first Premier League title.
For Gale, however, the brilliance of the pair was only part of the story.
"I really fancied us strongly. We had a very good team."
And at the centre of it was Dalglish.
The Scot had already won league titles as a player and manager with Liverpool and had taken Blackburn from the second tier into the Premier League before guiding them to successive top-two finishes. In 1995, he became only the third manager to win the English top flight with two different clubs.
"He was brilliant," Gale says simply.
The dressing room also benefited from having a mixture of northern and southern players, something Gale remembers fondly.
"I couldn't understand a word the locals were saying, and they couldn't understand me, but that made it all better.
"I made so many friends up there because they loved my London accent, and I loved their Blackburn accent. I was trying to get hold of the language sometimes where they'd miss words out, and they were trying to keep up with me."
Fortunately, there were plenty of familiar voices.
"Within the squad, we had quite a few southern-based players — Tim Sherwood, Chris Sutton, Ian Pearce, Tim Flowers. So those boys you kind of connect with straight away, and then the other lads, they were all good lads, the northern lads.
"We had a great mix."
That chemistry helped produce one of the most remarkable title wins of the Premier League era.
Blackburn eventually finished one point ahead of Manchester United, despite losing to Liverpool at Anfield on the final day. United could have stolen the title with victory at West Ham, but could only draw 1-1.
Gale still believes the team has never received quite enough credit.
"There wasn't enough credit given to that Blackburn side. They said, 'Oh, Blackburn won the league, it was Jack Walker's money.'
"Look, I was a free transfer. Graeme Le Saux cost £700,000. Ian Pearce only cost £300,000. Henning Berg cost £400,000. Colin Hendry was £700,000.
"It was only Shearer and Sutton where we paid big money."
Gale's argument is not that Blackburn did not have financial backing. They did. But he rejects the idea that money alone explains what happened at Ewood Park.
"Manchester United and Liverpool had been doing it forevermore. They had the best players, they had the best salaries.
"This was a team that was given competitive salaries. You could compare Blackburn's salaries to Manchester United and Liverpool's and we were on an even keel — and we won the league."
The achievement was even more remarkable because Blackburn did not possess a dressing room full of title-winning experience.
"We didn't really have any experience of winning leagues like Liverpool and Manchester United," Gale says.
"The only experience we had was our manager, Kenny Dalglish, who had won loads of leagues."
And then there was Shearer.
Gale had already identified him as the best player he played with at Blackburn, having previously named George Best at Fulham and Alan Devonshire at West Ham.
"Three totally different players, but three world-class players, real top talents in different respects."
Shearer was at the centre of everything Blackburn did.
"He was a top player. He was world class."
The title-winning season would ultimately be Gale's only year at Ewood Park. After more than a decade at West Ham, Blackburn gave him what he had thought might never arrive: a league winners' medal.
"It was a great year," he says.
"It was like an Indian summer. It came at the end and people say, 'Oh, feel great.' And I thought, blimey, it's given me something at the end of my career which I thought I might never have.
"I'd gone close in other competitions and the league with West Ham, but no, I hadn't glossed over it. It was just that there was far, far more to write about the other teams because I'd been there so long."
For one season, though, everything came together: Dalglish's experience, Shearer's goals, Sutton's arrival, a dressing room that mixed personalities and a group of players who believed they could beat anybody.
Gale had told Coar they would win the league before a ball had been kicked.
Then Blackburn went and proved him right.
Tony Gale's book "That’s Entertainment" is from Reach Sport - which is available here.
