Paul Fennessy

A GLIMPSE AT Kevin Keegan’s long and distinguished career in football is an insight into a vanished world.

For people of this writer’s generation, Keegan – whose death at the age of 75 was announced today – will be best remembered as one of the leading characters in the burgeoning Premier League.

Yet there was also a refreshingly old-fashioned quality to the Newcastle and Liverpool legend, in contrast to the unprecedented glitz, glamour, endless millions and exotic foreign talent permeating the English game in the mid-1990s.

From his incredible 1976 appearance on the BBC’s Superstars, when he fell off his bike (see below), to stories of regular training ground melees with his players and Keegan’s refusal to punish them for showing how much they cared, the ex-England international was a man out of time.

There was a down-to-earth quality, a heart-on-the-sleeve mentality; the sheer lack of PR spin and unwillingness to ‘play the game’ may have hampered Keegan’s ability to thrive in an industry in which cynicism and savviness were often rewarded, but it earned him eternal respect from those who loved the game with a passion similar to that which he unfailingly showed.

Even though it earned him some criticism, Keegan’s famous “I will love it” interview highlighted why he was so beloved.

The former Newcastle boss emerged from an era when managers seemed to operate almost entirely unfiltered, when ex-Leeds United bosses would go toe-to-toe on television and converse as if no one was watching them at all.

This was the backdrop of the unforgettable Sky Sports interview at Elland Road with Andy Gray and Richard Keys, having just watched the Magpies’ 1-0 victory over Leeds.

There has also been some revisionist history when assessing Keegan’s now-iconic words.

Some view the controversy as a cautionary tale.

There is a retrospective tendency to regard it as the moment when the wheels came off Newcastle’s title race.

The then-Man United manager Alex Ferguson, this narrative implies, won both the footballing battle on the pitch and the psychological battle off it.

People who were not around at the time could almost be forgiven for suspecting Keegan’s interview was almost solely responsible for causing his side’s dramatic end-of-season collapse.

And it was a collapse. Between 21 February and 8 April, in eight matches, the Magpies lost five, won two and drew one. Such a scenario would be unthinkable for a modern title contender.

Still, the reality was far different from some of the myths that had since been propogated.

By the time they visited Elland Road on that fateful night, Newcastle had already surrendered the 12-point lead at the top of the table the team had established in January.

When the Sky interview aired, they were trailing United by three points with two games to play.

Had the conversation with Keys and Gray never occurred, it’s unlikely the outcome would have been any different.

Nonetheless, it provided a sense of theatre to proceedings, a few seconds of television electric enough to get football aficionados and the more casual fans the Premier League was still trying to win over off their seats. The incident forced you to pick a side one way or the other.

What had set Keegan off in the first place was a prior interview with Ferguson, after Man United’s hard-fought 1-0 win over Leeds.

The manager inferred that Howard Wilkinson’s men had tried harder than usual to stop the Red Devils from winning the title, and suggested that they would not expend as much effort when it came to playing Newcastle.

“Why are they not in the top six?” asked Ferguson of the side who eventually finished the season 13th in the table, before adding. “To me they’re cheating their manager. You wait and see the difference when they play Newcastle.”

There was a cinematic quality to Keegan’s subsequent defiance and righteous anger.

It is often referred to as “a rant,” but the manager had been clearly thinking about the Manchester United coach’s provocative comments for quite some time – there was a 12-day gap between the two fixtures.

Newcastle had started the game slowly, and Keys innocuously asked the manager whether “tension” was the reason for this uncertainty at the outset. 

“I don’t think you can discount it,” Keegan replied. “A lot of things have been said over the past few days, some of it almost slanderous.” 

He continued: “I’ve kept really quiet, but I’ll tell you something: he went down in my estimation when he said that. We have not resorted to that.

“You can tell him now, we’re still fighting for this title and he’s got to go to Middlesbrough and get something. And I’ll tell you, honestly, I will love it if we beat them. Love it.”

In a time before social media, the fact that these comments have remained etched in our collective mindset is a testament to their power.

“It had nothing to do with mind games,” Keegan told The Irish Examiner 20 years later. “It was just that Sir Alex Ferguson, I think, sometimes struggled to give teams credit and always looked for excuses. What he said was wrong, that teams like Leeds wouldn’t try as hard against us as they did against United. And that hit on something deeper: it was almost saying that football’s not straight. And it is. So that was my anger, if you like, at Sir Alex.

“I respect Sir Alex very much for what he’s done. But I think him and Arsene Wenger are the two least favourite managers of mine because they never give anyone else credit. If they lose, the shirt was the wrong colour, or it’s the referee. To say, ‘we lost today because they were magnificent’ — I think you’ve got to do that sometimes. Even if you’re a winner and you want to win everything, you’ve still got to give credit where it’s due.”

What also separated Keegan from Ferguson and Wenger was his phenomenal success as a player.

He is the only Englishman to win two Ballon d’Ors, yet was still humble enough to join Newcastle in 1982 back when they were a Second Division team.

As a result, the Doncaster native perhaps lacked that desperation and insecurity needed to succeed as a managerial great, having already proven himself as one of the top footballers of the 20th century.

The “I will love it” quip was not an aberration but a recurring theme. Throughout his career, brutal honesty was non-negotiable.

In later years, Keegan’s shock resignation as England manager famously came after a brief chat in a toilet cubicle with FA director David Davies following a 1-0 loss to Germany in a World Cup qualifier at Wembley.

Many in his position would have hung on, continued to collect the lucrative salary and waited to be dismissed, but Keegan had the integrity and self-awareness to admit he was not the right fit for the job.

“I’ve probably had a longer run than I could have expected,” he told Sky Sports in the immediate aftermath of the decision. “After Euro 2000, a lot of coaches who did a lot better than me [would have fallen] by the wayside.

“I just don’t feel like I can find that bit extra that I think you need at this level to find a winning formula.”

He continued: “I just want to go and spend some time with my family. In this job in particular, you do spend a lot of time away from them. I feel I’ve given it my best shot and I don’t want to go on and outstay my welcome. The fans today made me realise that, not only did they put me in the job, but with what they were saying, they feel it’s time for me to go, and that’s where the power should be.

“I came in under difficult circumstances, and I’ll leave under the same. It’s not what I wanted, but I look forward now to a life outside football, I think.

“I’m just not the man to take it that stage further, and I know that, and I’ve got to be true to myself first and foremost.”

The “I will love it” speech, however, remains his most iconic managerial moment.

Sceptics may mock him for a perceived loss of control. Yet for those who loved Keegan from near and afar, it encapsulated his innate decency, the in-built bullshit detector he was not afraid to use, and ultimately only added to his legend.

“I don’t think any of the players would say it put pressure on us,” Keith Gillespie, who scored the winning goal against Leeds, later told The Guardian. “I loved the passion Kevin showed. To me, it was an absolutely brilliant reaction.

“The fans loved Kevin’s response.”