Flashback - When the Messiah Returned

Scott recalls a February day in 1992 when the Geordie world changed forever

BARCLAYS LEAGUE DIVISION TWO, FEBRUARY 8th, 1992.

NEWCASTLE UNITED 3 (Kelly 52, 61, O’Brien 55),

BRISTOL CITY 0 Att: 29,263.

NEWCASTLE: Wright, Ranson, Stimson, Neilson, Scott, O’Brien, Wilson (Roche), S Watson, Peacock, Kelly, Brock.

BRISTOL CITY: Leaning, Llewellyn, Scott, Bryant, Osman, Rennie, May (Shelton), Gavin, Bent, Allison, Dziekanowski.

They say it's the hope that kills you at Newcastle. Always has been, always will. Hope, however, keeps us all going. At this point neither Newcastle players or supporters had any.

As Kevin Keegan mentioned at the time, Newcastle were a massive club with a great history, but not very good at football. Keegan was accused of hyperbole throughout his career, but this was one of his understated moments. Newcastle were worse than “Not very good at football”. This was by far and away the worst team in our history and the Titanic was slowly sailing towards the iceberg of total oblivion.

We had lost 4-0 at Southend, lost 4-3 to Charlton with a last minute own goal, having been 3-0 up, then at a fog shrouded Manor Ground, we lost 5-2 to Oxford United. Newcastle were second bottom and going down to Division Three.

That would have almost certainly meant bankruptcy. A share issue had been a disaster and Sir John Hall admitted to Saint and Greavsie pre match we had debts of “around £6m”. In the early nineties that was some achievement. Hall was probably wishing he had stuck with yellow and red quadrants.

Newcastle, once the greatest team in the land, faced going bust and the worst thing about it? We felt we couldn't do anything to stop it.

Ossie Ardiles was likeable and great at giving youngsters a chance, but hopelessly out of his depth. Despite a vote of confidence post Charlton, Hall met with a man called Kevin Keegan in London while his wife bought some trees from Kew Gardens. That's Hall’s, not Keegan's.

Boosted by a kitty provided by Newcastle Breweries, Keegan was tempted off the golf courses of Spain to try and save the club he left as a player in a helicopter after an awe inspiring spell which started the love affair for all parties. Sixteen games to stop the unthinkable. Bristol City was first up.

15,000 watched the Charlton debacle. The buzz started for this game in the midweek. Usually the buzz for our games didn't start at all, nevermind the midweek.

It was all about one man. An older supporter with my Dad talked of wanting it to be exactly like his debut as a player. It was as if KK was playing instead of managing. It was blind faith of such a romantic kind. I've never known a public respond to positivity more than us with Keegan. Like a cult almost.

29,263 turned up. Newcastle's biggest crowd in two years. It was rammed and actually showed St James up for not being safe to hold capacity crowds anymore. At least this 12 year old was scared stiff, but buzzing with excitement in equal measure.

The ‘one more pint’ brigade missed out completely as the ground filled up quicker than an Istanbul derby. All seats sold out and 3,000 season tickets were sold in the build up to the game. The Keegan effect everyone. You couldn't give 3,000 season tickets away a fortnight ago.

The cameras flashed on the dug out. Like, really flashed. The world's media was focused on Keegan and his newly appointed assistant Terry McDermott, fresh from selling burgers at Racecourses and whose £12,000 wage was paid for by Keegan out of his own pocket. The man who won everything as a player was starting off his managerial career and he was doing it with us and Mark Stimson.

Keegan had watched two games ‘live’ in the six years since retiring, but knowing what we know now, imagine that pre match team talk. Players who were hopeless before, would have had hairs standing up on their necks. The man was infectious.

Keegan climbed under a roped off area separating media and dug out and took the adulation, having almost been forced into it by Terry Mac, like a shy child made to stand up and take credit at school.

From the off, the crowd was relentless and the sway of the terraces was like a stormy sea crashing into a harbour. Bristol City never stood a chance.

Newcastle piled forward, Kevin Brock missed three guilt edged chances. He would have got slaughtered the week before, maybe the biggest sign yet that we had been bitten by the bug.

It was goalless at half time, which in itself was progress, but Keegan wanted more from a group of players who were as far away from European player of the year as you could get.

However in nine spectacular early second half minutes, we had lifted off and it felt amazing. I hadn't celebrated goals like this in my life before. It was incredible.

First, yards away from the baying Gallowgate, David Kelly nodded in after Steve Watson hooked back across goal. Then Liam O’Brien poked in after the keeper saved at Peacock's feet after a Kelly flick on. The pandemonium hadn't died down between first and second goals.

Watch it for yourself. Look at the Gallowgate’s celebration and more importantly look at Keegan and Terry Mac, fist pumping and hugging each other like it was a FA Cup Final.

Intoxicating.

Players who were riddled with self doubt were doing Cruyff turns and backheels. We almost scored a third straight away, but that soon came on the hour, when Kelly swept in a low shot.

I'm not sure what happened after that, but I ended up in a different postcode. For a twelve year old used to Plymouth and Southend, this was electric.

Keegan said post match “We had a fifteen minute spell when we were as good as anything they've ever seen here”. That was, looking back, a load of bollocks, but it worked. Every fan who left that ground thought we would stay up and the players did as well

He had spent £6,000 cleaning up the ground in the week before and looked shattered, but Keegan had got the defibrillator out on my football club and saved us. He made us all stick our chests out again and do things like actually admit you supported Newcastle at school.

Within nine months we played City again, won 5-0 for a seventh straight win and became Champions. It's hard to underestimate how sensational a job Keegan did. Even now it seems so under-appreciated. This was the start of the ride and it was some ride.

Kevin Keegan. RIP. The greatest.

Scott Robson