Kevin Keegan

[Rocker]

Oh it's not daft at all.

 

100%.

[Greg]

Big run of 'Premier League Years' no SS3 right now. Currently 3/4 of the way through 1994/95.

 

1995/96 starts at 3pm.

[Paully]

What a man! It's a tragedy that he's not involved at our club in some format! I'd have him back as manager any day!

 

Some canny commentary by Roger Thames too! Ben Johnson on the magic pills!

[Ronaldo]

Big run of 'Premier League Years' no SS3 right now. Currently 3/4 of the way through 1994/95.

 

1995/96 starts at 3pm.

 

They're all On Demand fwiw.

[Mistle17]

KK's whole philosophy stemmed from his dad who when KK was a bairn playing, never shouted at him to do this or that, he simply encouraged him to enjoy himself. KK transferred that kind of mentality into his own coaching RE players. Anelka said he was the best man manager he has ever worked with and that training and football was such a joy under him. This from a known misery guts.

 

To KK football is a simple game and it really is. Its 11 players vs another with the object to score enough goals to win the game. His sides were set up to score goals and to win games with his players given absolute freedom to express themselves. With KK plying them with confidence and boundless self belief even some of the less talented players would perform wonders and excel.

 

Second time around here, we were losing game after game, but he didn't change from his philosophy, he knew if they kept trying to pass it around, get at the opposition and expressed themselves, things would change and it did, we started to play some really nice stuff with the likes of Owen excelling in an unorthodox position/role.

 

KK did the same with Lee, he didn't have the pace or crossing ability to be a winger, so he converted him into a box to box attacking midfielder.

 

KK should be head of grassroots football in this country because kids playing the game at 6 and 7 or so on don't need coaching, the game is the greatest coach. They just need to be allowed to express themselves more than anything. Maybe then we would start producing capable players at the highest level.

 

Woah woah woah, slow down.

 

You make a good point.

[Jack Flash]

I'm doing something which requires me to knock up a few pages of lesser known quotes from, and about, Keegan. I've posted a couple of these recently but here's a few more...

 

Rob Lee

 

To be honest, I wasn't so sure when we signed Ginola. He was a Frenchman who was supposed to be quite moody and a primadonna and at first I thought there would be problems. We trained a few times and had a few practice games and the rest of the players seemed to be doing all his running, especially fullback John Beresford. I started having a moan during the training session and after it, Keegan pulled me in. He left me in no doubt how he felt. "Look, I know he's got his faults and I understand what you're saying about his work rate but he could win us the league! So if you've got to do a bit extra, then you've got to do it."

 

Kevin really made me the player I hope I am today. I was probably an average first division player when I went to Newcastle - Kevin made me into an International player. He changed the position I played to benefit both myself and the team. After only a week at Newcastle, he said "You can play for England. If you want to then I believe you can". It was a wonderful thing to be told, a great boost, though at the time I thought "I bet he says that to everyone!"

 

One thing I will never forget is Kevin telling me when I signed "The fans bought you. The fans coming through the gate have generated the money and managed to buy you, Rob"

 

Les Ferdinand

 

Gerry Francis is the best tactician I've ever worked with, he worries about the opposition and how to stop them. Kevin was only worried from a tactical point of view about his own team. He felt if we played the way he wanted us to play, there wasn't a side in the country who could touch us. He never specifically sat us down in pre season to tell us this, it was just at his team talks and general chats that his philosophy and way of approaching things came across

 

Kevin always made us feel a million dollars every time we went out. He was just how I imagined him to be. He got me really motivated and when he spoke, you just wanted to play football. Out on the training ground he was the same, his enthusiasm came shining through. He had Terry McDermott with him and he was a terrific sidekick for him. They would laugh and joke with the players and join in the training sessions and that made it really enjoyable and created a great atmosphere

 

Peter Beardsley

 

He put forward the deal and said "I'll understand if you feel we're not offering you enough and that you decide you want to go elsewhere but obviously we want you to come to us".

 

I knew straight away that there was no other club for me. We parted company without any final decision as I wanted to talk to my wife before committing myself. I had a lot of respect for Kevin as a player but you could multiply that by a hundred when you measure the regard I have for him now as a man and a boss. I wanted to play for him. I knew he had pushed the boat out to spend so much money on someone nearer 33 than 32. I knew there were doubters not only at Newcastle but within football in general. A few eyebrows were raised when the deal went public.

 

But I felt inspired by the challenge. I wanted to respond to the faith the boss was putting in me, not only for my own ambitions, but because I felt that exciting times were just around the corner at Newcastle and I wanted to be part of them

 

David Ginola

 

Keegan was the main reason I signed for the club. For a year and a half it was great in training every day. It was a joy. He really was the man for the job, because the people are so passionate.

 

"From the kids to the grandmas. I learned a lot from him about how to respect the fans and everyone at the club which is why he was so loved and appreciated by so many people

 

"We should have won the championship and deserved to. The whole of the country wanted us to be crowned champions because of the brand of football we played. We were refreshing, a team brimming with great attacking players under a manager obsessed with playing in the right manner. We were almost like Brazil at times. It was scary. We didn't mind how many we conceded because we always felt we could score one more than we let in"

 

Keegan On Signing Asprilla

 

"I've seen what other people say about him. They think he's a good player and warn about his temperament. But if I had signed players on the basis of what I heard about them, David Ginola and Andy Cole wouldn't have come to this club and the fans would have missed some great players."

 

"You've got to have the courage to look at what you need and get the very best available. That's what I did. What other people think of players has never worried me. You listen to the talk, but you've got to make your own decisions. It's on the field where it really matters."

 

"The crowd will love him. He's a match-winner, he's a goalscorer and he's an entertainer. He's a real Newcastle player - quick, works hard and has flair. Faustino's the sort of player that Geordies love. The players they talk about are just like him. They should sit back and watch this fellow."

 

Steven Gerrard

 

http://i.imgur.com/pBtbzdo.jpg

 

http://i.imgur.com/dSW903D.jpg

 

http://i.imgur.com/h4e97kx.jpg

 

John Burridge

 

http://i.imgur.com/c6PgOfM.jpg

 

Robbie Fowler

 

http://i.imgur.com/BTpK5TL.jpg

 

Forgot about this. Here's a few more.

 

The inquests as to why Kevin quit carried on endlessly. Surprisingly, so did the arguments about whether he had been good for the club. There were some people who felt he had not been totally successful because he had spent an incredible amount of money and still had not brought a major trophy to St James' Park.

 

His detractors reckoned his style of play was too cavalier and Newcastle blew the chance of winning the league by being too reckless. They claimed he didn't have the bottle to see the job through when the going got tough.

 

To all of those people I say this. Ask any of the Newcastle supporters who lived through Keegan's five years here whether they enjoyed it. Ask them whether they preferred the fabulous entertainment and the quality football he brought to the club or the years in the doldrums before he arrived. They were in danger of dropping into the old Third Division when he came and when he left they were one of the biggest clubs in the world.

 

There was a gap of almost 14 years from the day I saw him score with a diving header against QPR to the day I joined up with him at Newcastle. It was a long wait and even though I only played for him for five months, it was well worth it. I wouldn't have missed it for the world.

 

 

From Keegan himself...

 

From my previous experiences with Newcastle United I knew it was a massive club. It wasn't just a sleeping giant, it was scarcely breathing. But I knew, because of those incredible supporters, that it could be turned around. I am not talking with the benefit of hindsight. You only have to look at my programme notes after we were promoted to the Premier League, in which I warned Alex Ferguson that we were after Manchester United's title. We always set targets but they were realistic. If your ambitions are merely to consolidate - a word I despise - that is simply an excuse for accepting mediocrity.

 

Since I had made it clear I had no interest in club management there had been no serious offers. Anyway, who would want someone who had been out of the game as long as I had? The answer, of course, was Newcastle United - the only club which could have made me change my mind. I would not have even contemplated turning to management with Liverpool, but the whole ethos of Newcastle triggered something in my mind. The sheer energy bubbling below the surface gave St James' Park more potential than anyone had dared to dream. All that untapped potential, pent up passion and the willingness of the supporters to really get behind the side made it a frustrating club to play for, but managing it would be something else. There was a strong chance of success. Everything that had gone before had been so mediocre that it could be attained very easily.

 

My first programme notes for that season summed up how we felt and the optimism circling the club "The Premier League must be our number 1 priority this season". To some it seemed an outrageous statement, after all we'd just avoided relegation by only 4 points, but we wanted to tell everyone at the club - not just the players - that we were a massive club with ambitions to match. Our aim, I added, was to become another Liverpool and dominate football. We tried to turn all the past events at Newcastle on their head by thinking and talking positively. I'd spend hours reading books on positive mental attitude, management skills and the advanced thinking of experts like Vince Lombardi, and I still read them now.

 

At last I had the chance to put all this theory into practice. I was not promising the supporters a false dawn, what I was saying was that promotion was our main target and it was achievable. If we fell short of that, like a good politician, we'd address that at the time. We couldn't expect to win every match, but we'd try.

 

Reporters said they looked forward to covering our games because it felt like the good old days. It was new to the fans however as they had seen so much mediocrity on the pitch over the years that they had forgotten what it was like to get excited, and this team was really exciting them.

 

The Geordies like to see a good game. They don't want to see their team win by playing boring football. They are very unusual in that respect. My job as manager was to put on the pitch what they wanted to watch. In the end this quest for attacking perfection became a noose around my neck because I stuck with it throughout, even when the Title was at stake. Many critics said that was a big mistake. As we finished 2nd in the table when we should have won the title  in 95-96, they can now claim to have been proven right. But I wasn't going to change the philosophy that had got us to where we were and when it came to a toss up between a really skillful player or one who would do a job, I always went for the exciting option, whatever the risk. I worked on the principle that if we scored 3 the opposition would have to score 4, which is exactly what Liverpool did in that massive game which probably cost us the title.

 

At the start of the 94-95 season, it was a two horse race between ourselves and Man Utd. We were creating something unique in English football. Children all over the country were buying Newcastle shirts and it wasn't because we were winning lots of trophies like Man Utd, it was because of the way we were playing. I had to ask myself whether I should listen to those who said we should revise our approach or carry on with more of the same. To change it would have been to betray not only my philosophy, but many of the players who joined us did so because they liked our style. We bought Phillipe Albert instead of a rugged defender because we wanted someone

to come out of defence with the ball. The more I was told to change things, the more stubborn I became. I decided that I wasn't prepared to compromise.

 

On his day, there is no more skillful player in the league than David Ginola. Yet after his brilliant start, he produced his form only in odd flashes. I left him in the side hoping he'd come good. Deciding whether a player like this is worth his place overall is a delicate balancing act. I always came out on his side because I like talent and attacking football. You can't have a player of his age sitting on the bench. You either play him or sell him.

[Kanj]

Keegan is simply the greatest.

[hakka]

KK's whole philosophy stemmed from his dad who when KK was a bairn playing, never shouted at him to do this or that, he simply encouraged him to enjoy himself. KK transferred that kind of mentality into his own coaching RE players. Anelka said he was the best man manager he has ever worked with and that training and football was such a joy under him. This from a known misery guts.

 

To KK football is a simple game and it really is. Its 11 players vs another with the object to score enough goals to win the game. His sides were set up to score goals and to win games with his players given absolute freedom to express themselves. With KK plying them with confidence and boundless self belief even some of the less talented players would perform wonders and excel.

 

Second time around here, we were losing game after game, but he didn't change from his philosophy, he knew if they kept trying to pass it around, get at the opposition and expressed themselves, things would change and it did, we started to play some really nice stuff with the likes of Owen excelling in an unorthodox position/role.

 

KK did the same with Lee, he didn't have the pace or crossing ability to be a winger, so he converted him into a box to box attacking midfielder.

 

KK should be head of grassroots football in this country because kids playing the game at 6 and 7 or so on don't need coaching, the game is the greatest coach. They just need to be allowed to express themselves more than anything. Maybe then we would start producing capable players at the highest level.

 

[Kanj]

Wish I could meet the man. He literally oozes everything I love about football and this club. He's just a dreamer and believer and still sickens me that he SHOULD still be the manager of this club. And that's no slight on my other football hero in SBR.

[Kanj]

Quite sad that the two greatest men in modern times for this club were pushed out in the manner that happened. SBR Has a statue but I'd support a stand named after him or a football academy or something. As for Keegan the dreamer in me believes his time being with our club is far from over and one day he'll be back some way.

[hakka]

Yes it's a disgrace really, even more insulting that we have brought in some horrible cunts to replace them and in places, supported them either through worse situations or with more money.

[BottledDog]

Fitting tribute to the man at the end of this History of the World Cup video.

 

[Guest neesy111]

What an utter twat you are bottled dog, thankfully everyone knows on this forum you are a WUM.

[Ronaldo]

[Interpolic]

What an utter twat you are bottled dog, thankfully everyone knows on this forum you are a WUM.

 

thup tbh

[Incognito]

What an utter twat you are bottled dog, thankfully everyone knows on this forum you are a WUM.

 

thup tbh

He's a:

Cultivator of

Unnecessary

Newcastle based

Tripe.

[Super Duper Branko Strupar]

What an utter t*** you are bottled dog, thankfully everyone knows on this forum you are a WUM.

 

[BottledDog]

Well that's a remarkably acerbic reaction to a comedy vid with a fairly odd Keegan based ending. Cheers.

[PineBarrens]

Well that's a remarkably acerbic reaction to a comedy vid with a fairly odd Keegan based ending. Cheers.

 

In the interests of fairness, would you care to elucidate as to as the reason behind your 'comedy' Keegan video, lest you join the likes of Cronky and Ozymandias as filthy heretics.

[BottledDog]

Well that's a remarkably acerbic reaction to a comedy vid with a fairly odd Keegan based ending. Cheers.

 

In the interests of fairness, would you care to elucidate as to as the reason behind your 'comedy' Keegan video, lest you join the likes of Cronky and Ozymandias as filthy heretics.

 

Ah give over, you reckon the guy that did the video is taking the piss, or did it because he actually thinks Keegan is awesome. I'm pretty sure it's the latter, but either way I found it funny. Sorry if that makes me a cunt. Tetchy buggers.

[BottledDog]

 

What an utter twat you are bottled dog, thankfully everyone knows on this forum you are a WUM.

 

Neesy on the rampage

 

Rich light.

[Belfast Mags]

 

What an utter twat you are bottled dog, thankfully everyone knows on this forum you are a WUM.

 

Neesy on the rampage

 

Rich light.

 

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ZWQ3YOMtJaM/UEsnJKgjdkI/AAAAAAAACo0/miO-N7XEaFA/s320/black-kid-oh-snap.gif

[PineBarrens]

Well that's a remarkably acerbic reaction to a comedy vid with a fairly odd Keegan based ending. Cheers.

 

In the interests of fairness, would you care to elucidate as to as the reason behind your 'comedy' Keegan video, lest you join the likes of Cronky and Ozymandias as filthy heretics.

 

Ah give over, you reckon the guy that did the video is taking the p*ss, or did it because he actually thinks Keegan is awesome. I'm pretty sure it's the latter, but either way I found it funny. Sorry if that makes me a c***. Tetchy buggers.

 

It's a certifiable hanging offenc...nah, nowt wrong with that BD.

[Guest firetotheworks]

Neesy, you're great, but I do get the impression that one day you'll turn on me.

[kingxlnc]

When I have a bit of spare time, I do a bit of blogging about business and leadership predominantly.

 

I've started a short series of articles looking at lessons in leadership from my time supporting Newcastle - with the three part series looking at Keegan, Robson and Shearer.

 

Here is Part 1, on Kevin Keegan: http://threefproject.com/2014/09/08/keegan-robson-shearer/