Kevin Keegan - Believe!

Kevin Keegan is the most important figure in the modern history of Newcastle United. He transformed Newcastle United on and off the pitch but more so in the minds of those who support it.

Kevin Keegan has died.

Lots of us are saying the same thing - Kevin Keegan is the most important person in the modern history of Newcastle United - certainly in my sixty odd years on the planet. And he is … without question the man who altered the course of our club over its history and for decades after he left us. He instiled something within the club and within our hearts … the latter by far the most important and most valuable - belief.

Belief we should be better, to yearn and dream of greatness for our maddening, infuriating football club. If we ever lose the belief Kevin gave us, then just switch off the lights, its over.

The word “transformational” is thrown around nowadays in all walks of life. A lot of it is pretty meaningless corporate mumbo jumbo. But I also hear it in the context of football … a “transformational transfer window” … they seldom match up to the hype.

But not in the case of Kevin Keegan when it came to Newcastle United.

It remains astonishing forty-four years after he signed for Newcastle United, that Kevin Keegan didn’t laugh the club out of the room when it made its approach in the August of 1982. Kevin was one of the most recognisable footballers on the planet, England captain, a two time Ballon D’or winner and able to sign for most of the top clubs in Europe … certainly Arsenal, certainly Manchester United, certainly Barcelona, Real Madrid or Juventus. The aristocracy of European football.

KK was of course at Southampton. Modern supporters might wonder what a player of Kevin’s profile was doing at The Dell under the management of Lawrie McMenemy.

But football was different then … the likes of Forest under Clough and Ipswich under Robson were allowed to compete. Hell, Aston Villa were even allowed to build a team that could win the First Division title and go onto win the European Cup. The likes of Chelsea, Man City, Spurs … three of the current cartel who have stolen English football, looked up to Villa as they did to Everton and had done to Leeds.

Not that anyone was doing any looking up to Newcastle United bar those who had good memories of the 1950s, Jackie Milburn and three wonderful FA Cups. At the end of the 1981/82 season, Kevin Keegan’s Southampton had finished fifth in Division One and qualified for the UEFA Cup. Newcastle United had finished ninth in the Second Division. On the last home game of that season we’d attracted a paltry 9,419 for a 4-2 win over Wrexham at a sun-drenched SJP. I watched from the West Stand Paddock with my younger brother who I’d taken to his first ever United game. Sorry, mate.

The only comparison I can make for the younger supporter reading this is Harry Kane signing for Sheffield United in the next couple of weeks. Actually, KK had a far better playing career than Kane - which is not meant as any disrespect to the current England skipper. But he did. Facts speak for themselves.

How KK came to sign for Newcastle United - a club starved of success, playing in a depressing, ramshackle stadium in a region devastated by Thatcherism never ceases to amaze me all these years later.

I won’t go over the details of how it came to pass … that tale has been oft-told. But I will say something about the impact KK had upon those of us daft enough to still be clicking through the turnstiles of St James’ Park. It was immediate and total frenzy. Quite simply it was the greatest thing to have happened at Newcastle United since Bob Moncur had held the Inter Cities Fairs Cup aloft in Budapest thirteen years previously. Maybe it was bigger than that.

KK’s first ever appearance in a B&W shirt came on 28/Aug/1982 v QPR. You know he scored and you know we won 1-0. They are the bald facts. Something flipped in our minds however. We became absolutely fanatical about Newcastle United again and treated KK as a messiah like figure. Its a football cliche that no player is bigger than their club. That wasn’t true when it came to Newcastle United and Kevin Keegan in 1982.

On the pitch Keegan was inspirational, omnipresent, brave, tough, unselfish and a force of nature. Of course he was always the best player on the pitch in every league game he played for us. Those brilliant two seasons culminating in promotion under Arthur Cox’s management are my favourites as a fan - young, carefree, travelling the country watching Kevin Keegan play for Newcastle United.

But off the pitch as he discharged his duties to Scottish & Newcastle Breweries (who were pivotal in making the finances of KK’s transfer work), meeting supporters, posing for photos, signing autographs and generally being the football deity that walked amongst us. On the terraces, Newcastle United became one of the best supported clubs in the country - perhaps only Man Utd and Liverpool drew bigger crowds on a regular basis than us. And we were in Division Two. Belief, belief, belief.

Then there were his TV interviews when he spoke with quiet, determined conviction about the greatness that awaited Newcastle United if it could only show ambition and belief. He would reference the size and ferocious fantaticism of our support. Part of it was tickling our bellies of course but he spoke the truth … the potential of our great club was unlimited - just waiting to be tapped.

If Kevin Keegan believed in Newcastle United then we should too.

Kevin’s words, his passion and his sheer force of personality had a profound impact upon supporters … particularly those in our formative football fan years. Kevin’s words and belief as a player have formed my enduring view of Newcastle United as a great club just waiting for a switch to be flicked. I still believe that and I believed it every soul destroying day of Mike Ashley’s years at the club - a man KK exposed as fundamentally rotten.

But not just on supporters.

It is impossible to believe without Kevin Keegan at the club, Chris Waddle, Peter Beardsley and perhaps even Paul Gascoigne would not have emerged as the genuine world class footballers they did. Who else did they learn from in their formative years at Newcastle United? Who did they watch train, prepare and who put the belief inside them that they could reach the absolute top of football? Joseph Kevin Keegan.

Of course the fools that owned Newcastle United squandered his legacy in the years between 1984 to 1992 and his return. That holy trinity of Geordie talent were sold off and the club lost its way and inevitably relegated … ending up in a worse position than KK had found us in 1982.

KK’s first match back as manager in a 3-0 win over Bristol City at SJP came with all of the passion he drew from us a decade earlier. Again, KK spoke of ambition, belief and dreams. We were all believers again.

But KK was up to far more. He would force his credo on those in the boardroom and he wasn’t afraid of confrontation and borrowed tactics from his managerial hero, the great Bill Shankly. KK raised standards … insisting the changing rooms, showers were spotless and everything was in order. This seems preposterously small beer now, but thirty-four years ago getting the Benwell training ground spick and span wasn’t a given. You can imagine how training sessions improved, how standards were raised, how far more was demanded from players and how much KK stretched himself and his great friend and ally, Terry McDermott.

Not just players and staff of course. KK was not going to be taken for a ride by those running the club … who I always felt he kept on their toes and insisted they met his demands. “Not what it said in the brochure” is the line used to fire a shot across John Hall’s bows when promises for new players were not kept. Hall knew the unexploded bomb he had in his hands with KK. Not giving his manager what was promised was not tenable. KK made Hall believe. And stump up.

That period from KK’s arrival to the end of the season in 91/92 remains, for me, amongst the most intense and visceral I’ve ever felt following Newcastle United. I’ve mentioned Bristol City at home but also Derby away (Brian Coddington and all of that), the Portsmouth game (Kelly’s goal at the Gallowgate) and Leicester City away (a sensory overload).

Keegan had a support around Newcastle United that was more unified, committed and unrelenting than at any time over the fifty odd years I’ve followed our club - or I suspect it ever will have again.

You know the story over the next few years …barely putting a foot wrong in the transfer market … Rob Lee, John Beresford, Barry Venison, Paul Bracewell, Brian Kilcline, Kevin Sheedy, Andy Cole, Peter Beardsley, Keith Gillespie, Warren Barton, Darren Peacock, Phillipe Albert, David Ginola, Les Ferdinand and of course his piece de resistance, Alan Shearer - an audacious transfer that still echoes down the Stretford End with bitterness thirty years later. And the players he inherited and turned into legends … David Kelly, Gavin Peacock, Steve Watson, Lee Clark, Steve Howey.

Kevin’s integrity was something we intuitively recognised. He wasn’t going to deceive us by pretending all was well, just to keep his salary coming in when he could see things at the club had changed for the worse. As it did when Hall and Shepherd took the club onto the stockmarket. He wanted none of that if it meant a PLC would be calling the shots over players he could sign, retain and do as he wished.

That integrity was something Mike Ashley, Derek Llambias, Dennis Wise and the other spivs catastrophically failed to understand when they reappointed him in 2008. That was an ill-conceived attempt at conning us they wanted to succeed at Newcastle United. KK wanted nothing of that sham and despite the shameful dissembling from some in the media, proved their dishonesty by memorably winning his court case against them. They never recovered and the lack of trust in the stands was the open wound of fourteen years of Ashley. If Kevin Keegan doesn’t believe in them then why should we?

Of course KK took us so close to winning the Premier League title. That 1995/96 season has been and will be discussed whenever Black & Whiters share a pint. Tactically flawed? Emotionally fragile? Whatever. Tell me, I dare you, that you wouldn’t want to see Andy Cole running onto a slide rule pass from Peter Beardsley? Tell me you don’t want to see David Ginola turning a full-back inside out and crossing from the byline onto the magnificent head of Les Ferdinand?

You’d rather watch an over-coached team with metronomic tedium sending us to sleep as that latest World Cup Final did? And indeed so much of the Premier League has done in recent years. Xg, possession stats, assists, turnovers and all of that MNF gobbledegook. Get a Newcastle United team on the park prepared by Kevin Keegan, sit back and understand why you love football.

Has there ever been better times to support Newcastle United than in those two blessed periods 82-84 and 92-96? Thousands of kids watching training at Maiden Castle - not tolerated or resented by KK - encouraged - come along - believe in us.

Kevin has died. He told us he was terminally ill but his appearance what seems only weeks ago at the Tyne Theatre & Opera House in front of a houseful of his believers suggested things weren’t as bleak as we first feared.

The first fixture of the season ar SJP between Newcastle United and his other love, Liverpool, seemed exquisitely timed for everyone in attendance to pour our love and thanks towards him. Its not to be. We have missed the opportunity to sing those old songs and celebrate the son of a Durham pitman with the same coal in his DNA as other beloved sons of this corner of the world … Milburn and Robson.

Now there will be talk of memorials … renaming the East Stand the Kevin Keegan Stand and/or a statue - perhaps near the steps he memorably asked us for our trust in 1995 after the sale of Andy Cole to Man Utd. I don’t know.

But nothing is a greater legacy at Newcastle United than retaining our belief that our club can and should be amongst the greatest in the land, that is the target, not bumping or ticking along.

Thank you Kevin.

Kevin Keegan - 1951 to 2026.

Michael Martin, @TFMick1892.bsky.social