Kevin Keegan

[Scoot]

Happy birthday King Kev.

[Altamullan]

What a diamond. Man, player, manager. Hope he’s having a great day.

[Robster]

Happy Birthday Kev.

Will always be my greatest hero 

[Disco]

 

Only a special man would seal promotion in that tie.

[Carlito]

What a man. Happy birthday, Special K.

[Guest firetotheworks]

One of my favourite people. Totally fitting that he was born on Valentine's Day.

[TheGuv]

Happy birthday to my hero!

[JCONA]

Loved his adidas jackets. Always wanted one. Never got one.

[WarrenBartonCentrePartin]

Happy birthday God xxx

[afar]

Will always be my biggest hero, hope he has a great day.

[LV]

An absolute hero. Happy Birthday.

[frankpingel]

No1 most important person involved with my club during my years ( and years) supporting NUFC. Hope he's enjoying doing exactly what he wants.

[HaydnNUFC]

Probably the most important person in the club's history. Revitalised the club on two occasions, the second time preventing it from perhaps going bust. Absolute hero.

 

Happy birthday King Kev!

[summerof69]

Absolute legend

[Guest Howaythetoon]

The man 

[Mr Logic]

Kevin Keegan’s influence at Newcastle United changed the landscape of an entire city as both a player, then a manager - according to former physiotherapist Paul Ferris.

 

The iconic former Toon star illuminated a bleaker looking Newcastle back in 1982 to spearhead the charge to the top-flight before dramatically returning to Tyneside as boss a decade later to save the club from relegation to Division Three, and then haul the club to the Premier League. Ferris feels that the feel-good factor in the city in the early 1990s was largely down to Keegan putting the Toon back on the map, and he feels its regeneration was inspired by the man fans called the Messiah.

 

Incredibly, for all Keegan’s achievements as player and boss, there is still no monument to celebrate the greatest days in the club’s modern history.

As we sit in the Malmaison hotel, Ferris told the Chronicle: “I believe Kevin kick-started the regeneration of the city - I honestly do. My own view is that what Kevin achieved as a player is underestimated.

 

“He took the football club from 11,000 people in a dilapidated stadium to a sell-out in his first game against QPR.

It was like somebody had rubbed out the football club and started again. That’s what he did. Then he came back as a manager and did it all again.

The city was bleak at that time when he arrived. The city was on its knees. We’re sitting here now on the Quayside and it’s a different city.

I come in over the bridge and look down at the Quayside and I can see people marvel at it.

If you came down here in 1981 it was a different city entirely.”

 

Ferris doesn’t like seeing Keegan’s managerial career pigeonholed into that one clip of the ex-Newcastle gaffer telling the world he’d “love it” if the Magpies had “beat” Manchester United to the title in 1996.

 

Ferris said: “To watch him now be caricatured as an emotive guy who didn’t think about tactics is disingenuous. Kevin did a remarkable job and grabbed the football club by it’s bootstraps and took it on his shoulders.

That is a remarkable thing to do and I hope I have conveyed that in the book. One his strengths were that when I was a physiotherapist was that he didn’t make me feel any less than the centre-forward.

You were part of the football club with him. He put people around you. Arthur Cox was my manager as a boy and Kevin bought him back. It was a wise move because Arthur was a wise counsel.”

 

Ferris sums up the mood back in 1982 when Keegan arrived as a player, it was a moment that had the city bouncing with sheer excitement and anticipation.

 

Ferris said: “Any boy of my age, I’m 52, knew what Kevin Keegan was. I was a Liverpool fan and in the 1970s it was all about Kevin, English football was all about Kevin.

Kevin Keegan was the first superstar that entered my psyche as a boy. As a teenager, which Ferris speaks about in his superb new book The Boy on the Shed, he then found himself sitting next to Keegan in the dressing room.

 

He went on: “To have that privilege of being next to him at 17 was something else. I almost got lost in his shadow as I sat next to him in the dressing room.

When he came in he was a world superstar who had won the golden boot. We were in Madeira on pre-season and somebody came in and said we’d signed Kevin Keegan.

You couldn’t imagine that happening anywhere else apart from here. Newcastle Breweries paid some of his salary.

He grabbed the city and people around him, people like Chris Waddle and Peter Beardsley became great players because of his presence.

That’s not taking away their obvious talent. But that team that got promoted, look back at it, Beardsley on one side, Waddle on the other and Keegan through the middle.

I used to wonder why I couldn’t get in that team, now I know, they were all world superstars. What Kevin achieved is probably under-rated.”

[Vivian Darkbloom]

Probably the most important person in the club's history. Revitalised the club on two occasions, the second time preventing it from perhaps going bust. Absolute hero.

 

Happy birthday King Kev!

 

Hear, Hear...

 

KK's second spell at Newcastle is vastly under-appreciated. Fat Sam's depleted overpaid tossers were sinking like a stone when Kev came in. It took a while for him to get us into the groove, but once he did, we were a pleasure to watch. That 4-1 win at Tottenham still stands out. Hero.

[Paully]

https://twitter.com/total_nufc/status/966351452879884288

[Guest Howaythetoon]

Kevin Keegan’s influence at Newcastle United changed the landscape of an entire city as both a player, then a manager - according to former physiotherapist Paul Ferris.

 

The iconic former Toon star illuminated a bleaker looking Newcastle back in 1982 to spearhead the charge to the top-flight before dramatically returning to Tyneside as boss a decade later to save the club from relegation to Division Three, and then haul the club to the Premier League. Ferris feels that the feel-good factor in the city in the early 1990s was largely down to Keegan putting the Toon back on the map, and he feels its regeneration was inspired by the man fans called the Messiah.

 

Incredibly, for all Keegan’s achievements as player and boss, there is still no monument to celebrate the greatest days in the club’s modern history.

As we sit in the Malmaison hotel, Ferris told the Chronicle: “I believe Kevin kick-started the regeneration of the city - I honestly do. My own view is that what Kevin achieved as a player is underestimated.

 

“He took the football club from 11,000 people in a dilapidated stadium to a sell-out in his first game against QPR.

It was like somebody had rubbed out the football club and started again. That’s what he did. Then he came back as a manager and did it all again.

The city was bleak at that time when he arrived. The city was on its knees. We’re sitting here now on the Quayside and it’s a different city.

I come in over the bridge and look down at the Quayside and I can see people marvel at it.

If you came down here in 1981 it was a different city entirely.”

 

Ferris doesn’t like seeing Keegan’s managerial career pigeonholed into that one clip of the ex-Newcastle gaffer telling the world he’d “love it” if the Magpies had “beat” Manchester United to the title in 1996.

 

Ferris said: “To watch him now be caricatured as an emotive guy who didn’t think about tactics is disingenuous. Kevin did a remarkable job and grabbed the football club by it’s bootstraps and took it on his shoulders.

That is a remarkable thing to do and I hope I have conveyed that in the book. One his strengths were that when I was a physiotherapist was that he didn’t make me feel any less than the centre-forward.

You were part of the football club with him. He put people around you. Arthur Cox was my manager as a boy and Kevin bought him back. It was a wise move because Arthur was a wise counsel.”

 

Ferris sums up the mood back in 1982 when Keegan arrived as a player, it was a moment that had the city bouncing with sheer excitement and anticipation.

 

Ferris said: “Any boy of my age, I’m 52, knew what Kevin Keegan was. I was a Liverpool fan and in the 1970s it was all about Kevin, English football was all about Kevin.

Kevin Keegan was the first superstar that entered my psyche as a boy. As a teenager, which Ferris speaks about in his superb new book The Boy on the Shed, he then found himself sitting next to Keegan in the dressing room.

 

He went on: “To have that privilege of being next to him at 17 was something else. I almost got lost in his shadow as I sat next to him in the dressing room.

When he came in he was a world superstar who had won the golden boot. We were in Madeira on pre-season and somebody came in and said we’d signed Kevin Keegan.

You couldn’t imagine that happening anywhere else apart from here. Newcastle Breweries paid some of his salary.

He grabbed the city and people around him, people like Chris Waddle and Peter Beardsley became great players because of his presence.

That’s not taking away their obvious talent. But that team that got promoted, look back at it, Beardsley on one side, Waddle on the other and Keegan through the middle.

I used to wonder why I couldn’t get in that team, now I know, they were all world superstars. What Kevin achieved is probably under-rated.”

 

SJH who himself was instrumental in helping to regenerate Newcastle said KK and his NUFC team shone a torch on Newcastle and helped bring in investment. At the time we were getting like 1,000 plus Scandos coming over to watch us and people would travel from Scotland in their thousands as well to watch us.

 

That whole era was special and it has to be said, it coincided also with a Labour government or the rise of Labour under Blair... who ironically was an NUFC fan at that time, who wasn’t... special days and a special era for club and City. Today I feel the investment coming in is the wrong kind and it’s all geared towards students and restaurants.

[Guest Howaythetoon]

I love KK, but I would only put him as the most important person in the club’s history post WW2. Stan Seymour Jnr was a huge figure for us and although later disliked, he played a massive role as player and director. SJH cannot be discounted also and even someone like Freddie Fletcher. Frank Watt is the man, however. He was an Edwardian KK almost. He declared NUFC will be the best team in the land when he arrived, 4 league titles, 3 FA Cups and 4 times finalists in his stint as secretary, director, manager, trainer and also physio. 37 years he gave our club and in that time we were as he declared, the best team in the land. Responsible for Hughie Gallacher signing who for me is the greatest player to ever represent us.

[Guest Howaythetoon]

We should start a crowd funding page to get a statue or monument of KK made, Sir Bobby has one plus a garden and as great as he was, his achievements are nothing compared to KK’s. Would love SJP to be lined with key players and people in our history in some form of recognition be it a statue, a plaque or whatever.

[STM]

We should start a crowd funding page to get a statue or monument of KK made, Sir Bobby has one plus a garden and as great as he was, his achievements are nothing compared to KK’s. Would love SJP to be lined with key players and people in our history in some form of recognition be it a statue, a plaque or whatever.

 

Definitely.

[Guest Howaythetoon]

One day if I ever owned NUFC, SJP would be a shrine to all our former greats...

[UncleBingo]

We should start a crowd funding page to get a statue or monument of KK made, Sir Bobby has one plus a garden and as great as he was, his achievements are nothing compared to KK’s. Would love SJP to be lined with key players and people in our history in some form of recognition be it a statue, a plaque or whatever.

 

Totally agree, he did far more for the club than SBR.

 

And that's in no way a dig at Robson.

[bigfella]

We should start a crowd funding page to get a statue or monument of KK made, Sir Bobby has one plus a garden and as great as he was, his achievements are nothing compared to KK’s. Would love SJP to be lined with key players and people in our history in some form of recognition be it a statue, a plaque or whatever.

 

Totally agree, he did far more for the club than SBR.

 

And that's in no way a dig at Robson.

 

I've been saying this for years; everyone loved Sir Bobby, but KK's achievements here eclipse  Robson's and are surely worth some sort of monument. Unfortunately we'll have to wait till the fat man goes to have any chance of that. A top five of the most important figures in our history would consist of: Frank Watt, Stan Seymour (sen), Colin Veitch, Joe Harvey and Kevin Keegan IMHO.