Keegan: Managing England is soulless and I'd tell Harry not to do it

[Tooj]

Another great read.

 

Kevin Keegan is sitting in a TV studio before they go live with a Saturday match and he’s off and talking as if the cameras are already rolling. ‘I can go anywhere in the world and be recognised,’ he says.

 

‘A few years back we went to Disney and I was being bothered there.

 

‘My daughters got fed up with it and said that if we were going back the next day I’d have to get a disguise. So they bought me a hat with a grey ponytail, and big mirror glasses. I was wearing a big flowery Hawaiian shirt as well. We stopped to get water from a supermarket and some guy said, “Kevin, can you sign this for me please?” “How do you recognise me?” I asked him. “Your voice”.’

 

Today, Keegan declares himself happy with life at 60: golf and working for ESPN, under the studio lights chewing over the day’s live action with presenter Ray Stubbs and a guest pundit. He has no intention of following Kenny Dalglish back into the Barclays Premier League bull ring.

 

Here, though, he is being asked to turn analyst on his own career: the journey from Scunthorpe to Bill Shankly’s Liverpool in 1971, his transfer from Anfield’s new European Cup winners to Hamburg in 1977, where his perpetual energy made him twice European Footballer of the Year and won him his ‘Mighty Mouse’ legend, before he provided the heartbeat for Southampton’s Harlem Globetrotters of a team under Lawrie McMenemy.

 

He ended up at his father’s hometown club, Newcastle United, prior to retirement at 33. All that and a stellar England career.

 

‘I have no regrets,’ Keegan says of his playing days. ‘You can’t have regrets. You do what you think is right. And you have to live or die by it. I’ve always been my own boss, certainly pretty much from when I got to the top.

 

‘I didn’t have to leave Liverpool but I was fair to them. I gave them a year’s notice that I would be leaving. I went for £500,000 — a fee fixed in advance — and they bought Kenny Dalglish for £440,000.

 

‘They had the money there to buy him. They had time to sort out what to do. It was fair to them. Sometimes clubs don’t have a day’s notice now.

 

‘Moving to Hamburg proved right. I went on to win the German championship and European Footballer of the Year in 1978 and 1979. I just would not have won those things if I hadn’t moved.

 

‘Most people who come up to me now remember me for falling off my bike in Superstars; they can remember the quote with Fergie (telling Sir Alex in a live interview that he would ‘Love it if we beat them’ during the 1995-96 season run-in). They can remember I made the Brut advert and a record. I say, “Do you not remember any of the goals I scored?”

 

‘I scored quite a lot — 100 for Liverpool, but only 56 of those can you see again because if Match of the Day wasn’t there, they are lost.

 

‘I retired at 33. People asked why. “Because I’m not getting any better”. Everybody’s different. Some play on until they are 40. I don’t criticise them for that. I just thought that, at 33, I’d run my best races. I’d only be going downhill.’

 

It was a sign of the upwards-or-quit mentality that would later prove the leitmotif of Keegan the manager.

 

‘I would not say that I’ll never be back in management now,’ says Keegan. ‘It never dies in you but I don’t feel the urge. I remember Sir John Hall phoning me when I came back from Spain to live in Hampshire in a farmhouse I had from my Southampton days. I was going to breed horses.

 

‘It was a Thursday night when he rang. I’d only been back for two days. He said, “Only two people can save Newcastle United. They are talking to each other now. You’ve got the passion; I’ve got the finance”.’

 

It was sentimental stuff from one romantic to another. And for more than four years, including promotion from Division One as champions, Keegan was the Geordie Messiah. The football was swashbuckling, the city was alive. And Keegan was in his element.

 

Then he walked away on a January day in 1997 those of us there on a mournful Tyneside will never forget. Keegan said he had taken the club as far as he could. 

 

He reinvented himself as manager of Fulham, took them up, before England asked him to take them up too, following Glenn Hoddle’s demise in 1999.

 

He has rarely spoken about his managerial career with England. His comments make for fascinating reading.

 

‘I didn’t enjoy it,’ he says. ‘Simple as that. It was not a job I applied for. I was at Fulham and took over part-time. It was probably me getting carried away on an idea. If Harry Redknapp phoned me up and asked me what I thought about him taking it, I’d say, “Don’t take it unless you want a lot of free time”. I really would.

 

‘I would go to Highbury and see Aime Jacquet (manager of France) watching about 15 players of his and I would have one. I wouldn’t mind if I could have gone to see Paris St Germain v Nantes and watched 15 English lads. But it wasn’t like that.

 

‘I found the job soulless. It was hard to fill in the time. I found myself going and training the blind team, the deaf team, working with the ladies’ team.

 

‘It’s very difficult and it saddens me to say it but it’s a better job for a foreigner than an Englishman at the moment.’

 

Under Keegan, England qualified for Euro 2000 but did not progress beyond the group stages. A 1-0 defeat by Germany in the 2002 World Cup qualifying campaign saw him resign in the toilets of Wembley before the old stadium was demolished.

 

He was wounded by his treatment at the hands of the press.

 

‘The media are the media,’ he sighs. ‘The one who had the easiest ride was Terry Venables, because they were all his friends. I never had one friend in the press. Nobody was getting inside information from me. I don’t have that sort of relationship with any press guy.

 

‘That’s because I don’t trust the press. Some of the guys are OK. But if they ask me something off the record, I won’t tell them anything. There is no such thing as “off the record”. If there was, why would they ask?

 

‘I’ve worked with them all. I’ve worked with some of them since they were young lads, so I probably know more about them than they do about me. But trust them? No.

‘I don’t need a press man to do me a favour. That’s where I am in the game. It’s annoyed some of them. I know how the press work: they’ve written the story and they just want you to give them the headline.’

 

Seemingly happy to oblige, or at least try to, he adds: ‘When you’re England manager, it’s like being Prime Minister. They are trying to get a certain answer out of you.’

 

Keegan returned to management at Manchester City less than a year later, in May 2001. He spent four years there — leading the wobbling club to the Premier League and stabilising them — but finally he was unhappy that the owners did not invest enough to combat the team’s performance ‘levelling off’.

 

‘They were not spending enough to move up,’ he bemoans. ‘We were fighting for between seventh and relegation. We had run our race.’

 

Now that City are rich beyond belief, he says: ‘They will win the title in the next four years. It is inevitable.’

 

It was three years before he would watch football again. Instead, he put his energies into creating a Soccer Circus. His eyes fizz with magic when he talks of that ambition, even though it impacted unfavourably on his bank balance.

 

Self-styled as ‘the world’s first interactive football attraction’, it has been franchised out and spread to Dubai.

 

‘It does work very, very well,’ he says of the skills and fitness concept. The Circus, he says, fights obesity, keeps kids off the streets and is educational.

 

Every school, he decides, should have one. He talks about taking the Circus to India. Keegan the evangelist is at his full-flowing best.

 

Its impact on his bank account saw him return as Newcastle manager; the best example of why you should never go back.

 

His relationship with the new board who appointed him did not work out as well as before. Keegan put up with it for eight months because he needed the cash, but he ultimately parted company and successfully sued them for £2million.

 

He now says: ‘All my other chairmen were great. But at Newcastle — I don’t need to call them liars because that’s what the courts called them.’

 

Now he is watching the man who replaced him as a Kop idol at Liverpool so gloriously, and as manager of Newcastle less favourably, succeed at Liverpool: Kenny Dalglish. It neither stirs Keegan into pulling on his tracksuit nor makes him recoil at one day returning to club football.

 

‘They have a long way to go to make it to the top four,’ he says of Liverpool, currently fifth and resurgent. ‘Steven Gerrard will come back. You assume that Luis Suarez and Andy Carroll — raw but the best header of a ball I’ve ever seen and I don’t say that lightly — will be back. And you have to fit Dirk Kuyt in, so he’ll have to play on the wing, and he’s not a winger.

 

‘Then you start to think if Liverpool scare people as they used to. No. You would respect them totally. But not be scared by them. They have to build a new stadium and that means finding £300m. On top of that they have to rebuild the side.

 

‘Kenny will be telling everyone not to be fooled by this run. It’s come at a time when there’s no real pressure. He deserves the job 100 per cent, 110 per cent if that’s possible.’

For himself, the ‘Liverpool era is written. I don’t look back. I do not want the Liverpool job. They ask me to go back to Hamburg every month, but I don’t. I just don’t like to dwell on the past. I’m 60 now and I am still looking forward.’

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-1386473/Kevin-Keegan-Managing-England-soulless-Id-tell-Harry-Redknapp-it.html

[Interpolic]

Interesting read.

[Jack Flash]

"Its impact on his bank account saw him return as Newcastle manager"

 

"Keegan put up with it for eight months because he needed the cash"

 

 

He's right about the "Soulless" thing. The players, the manager, the stadium etc are all soulless and depressing.

[mrmojorisin75]

'I know how the press work: they’ve written the story and they just want you to give them the headline.’

 

Sho 'nuff.

[WarrenBartonCentrePartin]

managing England on FM is dull enough, can't imagine how boring it would be having to do it for real.

[Guest BooBoo]

Keegan put up with it as he needed the cash. Hmmm.

 

Good article though. I still wish he'd said "no" when the current board rang him up to offer him the job. I always felt it was like a Pet Cemetary esque Keegan, something fundamentally changed in the man after we lost the title in 1996 and he was never the same bloke again who was with us in his previous two spells at St James'. That ultra positive thinking seemed to take a colossal hit and although there were glimpses of the old Kev (his pre Man Utd match interview was vintage KK), he was also prone to navel gazing. Its impossible to imagine an in-his-pomp KK coming out with that "million miles away" comment that ultimately seemed to kickstart his resignation.

 

Personally I hope he stays out of his management. For all the gags, I think his Soccer Circus project sounds fantastic for kids and hope it goes from strength to strength.

[Guest BooBoo]

One more thing, it's mad to think that KK is now 60!

[Guest Howaythetoon]

"Its impact on his bank account saw him return as Newcastle manager"

 

"Keegan put up with it for eight months because he needed the cash"

 

Myth and the opinion of the article writer and not the words of KK himself. If he needed the cash that badly why leave a job that was paying him 3.5m a year and no doubt bonuses on top. KK is a rich man. He partly funded Soccer Circus along with several business partners, but the vast majority was funded by banks and although the business isn't making any money, it isn't losing any either.

 

Listening to KK these days and reading various things about him it seems he now resents the modern game and has become quite bitter about it to the point you get the impression he doesn't really like it any more and I think that is mainly down to his time as England manager. It would have hurt him more than anything the way that particular episode of his carreer panned out. He is a proud Englishman and a former England Captain.

 

Losing out on the title back in '96 obviously dented his passion for the game but he showed at Man City and breifly at Newcastle on his return he still had more than most have for the game.

 

The straw that broke the proverbial came's back however... Ashley and Co.

 

It sickens me knowing a man like KK who I have huge respect for and indeed love (I don't care how corny that sounds, I love the man) is bitter and twisted about a game he gave so much to and a game that badly needs people like him if it is to return to the game it was once -  a peoples game. The fans' game. Now its a game of money, agents, spoiled brats with zero loyalty and big business. Oh and contemptable cunts who couldn't blow a football up with a pump never mind kick one - cunts like Ashley who know fuck all.

[AyeDubbleYoo]

I hope he does tell Harry not to take the England job, and I hope Harry listens.

[Dave]

It sickens me knowing a man like KK who I have huge respect for and indeed love (I don't care how corny that sounds, I love the man) is bitter and twisted about a game he gave so much to and a game that badly needs people like him if it is to return to the game it was once -  a peoples game. The fans' game. Now its a game of money, agents, spoiled brats with zero loyalty and big business. Oh and contemptable cunts who couldn't blow a football up with a pump never mind kick one - cunts like Ashley who know fuck all.

 

:clap:

 

Agree.

[Cronky]

He recently gave a radio interview in which he talked about the England job - I don't know if the journo has taken some of his material from that.

 

On the radio, he said he didn't have enough to do as England boss, but then complained that the FA would only give him a part-time assistant, rather than full-time, which doesn't make sense.

 

After his England team were knocked out of the Euros in the first round, Keegan went straight back home. All the other managers whose teams had been eliminated stayed on to watch the other games, suss out potential opposition, study tactics etc. Everyone was astonished that Keegan missed the opportunity.

 

When he says he didn't have enough to do, I think that's only half the story. I think the sort of observational work and detailed planning that the England manager has to do didn't interest him, or it's an area where his limitations as a thinker / analyst got exposed.

 

I think that's what he's getting at when he says a foreign manager would be better suited to the role. That does make the assumption that Continental managers are theoreticians, and English managers are hands-on Mr Motivators.

 

I don't know how Redknapp would cope with the England job, but he's got more brains than that rough-and-ready image of his might suggest.

[Tooj]

It sickens me knowing a man like KK who I have huge respect for and indeed love (I don't care how corny that sounds, I love the man) is bitter and twisted about a game he gave so much to and a game that badly needs people like him if it is to return to the game it was once -  a peoples game. The fans' game. Now its a game of money, agents, spoiled brats with zero loyalty and big business. Oh and contemptable cunts who couldn't blow a football up with a pump never mind kick one - cunts like Ashley who know fuck all.

 

I couldn't agree more.

[Guest Howaythetoon]

He recently gave a radio interview in which he talked about the England job - I don't know if the journo has taken some of his material from that.

 

On the radio, he said he didn't have enough to do as England boss, but then complained that the FA would only give him a part-time assistant, rather than full-time, which doesn't make sense.

 

After his England team were knocked out of the Euros in the first round, Keegan went straight back home. All the other managers whose teams had been eliminated stayed on to watch the other games, suss out potential opposition, study tactics etc. Everyone was astonished that Keegan missed the opportunity.

 

When he says he didn't have enough to do, I think that's only half the story. I think the sort of observational work and detailed planning that the England manager has to do didn't interest him, or it's an area where his limitations as a thinker / analyst got exposed.

 

I think that's what he's getting at when he says a foreign manager would be better suited to the role. That does make the assumption that Continental managers are theoreticians, and English managers are hands-on Mr Motivators.

 

I don't know how Redknapp would cope with the England job, but he's got more brains than that rough-and-ready image of his might suggest.

 

Some good points. I don't think KK is one to analyse video and study tactics etc. I personally believe, however, that the politics of Team England and the FA and the whole side issue of the Media are the things that KK couldn't manage if you like. He is a person's person who works best out there on the training pitch with players on a daily basis so naturally an environment that is the antithesis of that isn't going to work with a man like KK.

 

I doubt it would work with Harry Redknapp either, a similar type of manager to KK.

 

What KK needed was an assistant who could do the analysis, tactics etc. and the FA weren't willing to provide him with one.

 

Going back to that time when he was England manager, I don't think he was that bad myself and he was having to manage during a time when England were in transition, a time when the spine of that side like Seaman, Shearer, Adams, Ince et al were getting old and needing replaced. He didn't just have to qualify for tournaments and bloody win them and win them in KK Newcastle type style but he also had to rebuild a whole new side. That was a task no-one could have achieved and still cannot today. Results, performances and tournament finishes could have been better of course but the ultimate goal of winning tournaments in style is something England and any manager will always struggle to achieve. KK or Cappello. Cappello or Redknapp. That is a wider issue to our national game than KK's inabilities as an England manager.

[AyeDubbleYoo]

I just get the feeling KK is an idealist, and gets disillusioned quickly with things that other people might work through.

[Guest Howaythetoon]

Ironically England need a character like KK or Redknapp at the helm if not nescacarily as managers per se. Men who can give players confidence and freedom to express themselves in the way their ability and skill best allows them as KK did at Newcastle. England are not Italy or Germany, we cannot play the game the way the rest of the world do just like the rest of the world cannot play the way England players play. We are best playing fast direct attacking football, using the flanks and pressing play. It amazes we do not play this way. We have the players and we know the players can play like that and play like that well. Whether it would defeat Spain at there best who knows but it would surely be better than suffering a similar fate to the 4-1 defeat by Germany who ironically played more like a Premiership side that game, fast, direct, gung-ho and using the flanks with high pressing.

[AyeDubbleYoo]

Think you're totally right about the style of play we need HTT.

 

For me the most important thing for an England manager is having the balls to pick players that fit into that Premier League style of play, and the right players in the right positions.

 

That means leaving out some of the big names.... I've yet to see an England manager that even thinks about doing that.

[Guest Howaythetoon]

Think you're totally right about the style of play we need HTT.

 

For me the most important thing for an England manager is having the balls to pick players that fit into that Premier League style of play, and the right players in the right positions.

 

That means leaving out some of the big names.... I've yet to see an England manager that even thinks about doing that.

 

Exactly. What is all this about Lampard on the left with Gerrard in midfield or vice versa just to have the two in the same side. Stuff that. Get a proper winger wide and drop one of the two. Same up top. Stuff having Gerrard playing off whoever, stick two forwards up there, get in two wingers and play attacking direct football. By direct don't confuse me with the long ball. Think Sir Bobby's NUFC direct. That's what we need and the next England manager needs to be chosen very carefully on that basis as someone who can pick the right players and play a system that said players know and can play and can play well. Me, I'd try and tempt Sir Alex Ferguson who I think could well retire his post at Man Utd should he win the Premier League and Champions League. Although he would probably want to make it 6 European Cup's to Liverpool's 5.

[Hanshithispantz]

"Its impact on his bank account saw him return as Newcastle manager"

 

"Keegan put up with it for eight months because he needed the cash"

 

Myth and the opinion of the article writer and not the words of KK himself. If he needed the cash that badly why leave a job that was paying him 3.5m a year and no doubt bonuses on top. KK is a rich man. He partly funded Soccer Circus along with several business partners, but the vast majority was funded by banks and although the business isn't making any money, it isn't losing any either.

 

Listening to KK these days and reading various things about him it seems he now resents the modern game and has become quite bitter about it to the point you get the impression he doesn't really like it any more and I think that is mainly down to his time as England manager. It would have hurt him more than anything the way that particular episode of his carreer panned out. He is a proud Englishman and a former England Captain.

 

Losing out on the title back in '96 obviously dented his passion for the game but he showed at Man City and breifly at Newcastle on his return he still had more than most have for the game.

 

The straw that broke the proverbial came's back however... Ashley and Co.

 

It sickens me knowing a man like KK who I have huge respect for and indeed love (I don't care how corny that sounds, I love the man) is bitter and twisted about a game he gave so much to and a game that badly needs people like him if it is to return to the game it was once -  a peoples game. The fans' game. Now its a game of money, agents, spoiled brats with zero loyalty and big business. Oh and contemptable c***s who couldn't blow a football up with a pump never mind kick one - c***s like Ashley who know f*** all.

exelent post

[Guest sicko2ndbest]

Love kk

 

But he is sounding one bitter man these days

[Hanshithispantz]

Think you're totally right about the style of play we need HTT.

 

For me the most important thing for an England manager is having the balls to pick players that fit into that Premier League style of play, and the right players in the right positions.

 

That means leaving out some of the big names.... I've yet to see an England manager that even thinks about doing that.

Tbf the man you speak of is probably Harry Redknap.

[johnnypd]

He recently gave a radio interview in which he talked about the England job - I don't know if the journo has taken some of his material from that.

 

On the radio, he said he didn't have enough to do as England boss, but then complained that the FA would only give him a part-time assistant, rather than full-time, which doesn't make sense.

 

After his England team were knocked out of the Euros in the first round, Keegan went straight back home. All the other managers whose teams had been eliminated stayed on to watch the other games, suss out potential opposition, study tactics etc. Everyone was astonished that Keegan missed the opportunity.

 

When he says he didn't have enough to do, I think that's only half the story. I think the sort of observational work and detailed planning that the England manager has to do didn't interest him, or it's an area where his limitations as a thinker / analyst got exposed.

 

I think that's what he's getting at when he says a foreign manager would be better suited to the role. That does make the assumption that Continental managers are theoreticians, and English managers are hands-on Mr Motivators.

 

I don't know how Redknapp would cope with the England job, but he's got more brains than that rough-and-ready image of his might suggest.

 

I don't think it's accurate to say he's not good at analytics or tactics, or that he is saying british managers aren't good at that. I think, as you say, Keegan is a very hand's on manager, he is highly strung, energetic and lives the job every second he's awake. he builds relationships with players, builds up a good mood in the camp over time and so on. It's not that he's crap at being a thinker or analyst, if anything the opposite may be true - he's an incredibly involved manager who works on every aspect of his craft.

 

Problem is with England you get to see players for a couple of days every couple of months. It's the exact opposite style of management to what Keegan is used to. Being an international boss is more like being an overseer than a hands on gaffer. I think he means you have to be detached in the role rather than engaging, which suits a non-english manager. the english style of management is one of complete control, whereas on the continent it is more about rule by committee, where the manager is just one cog in a machine. also helps that they're psychologically distant, whereas for an English manager, it's the role of a lifetime and comes with an unbelievable amount of added pressure and expectation. This also helps when you get to the tournament scenario - Keegan's more involved than 90% of managers and in that intense environment where there is no escape it just adds to his tension and mania. whereas a more distant or emotionally cool boss may be able to get over that.

 

Basically it's a role that limited the extent to which he could use his undoubted strengths, but also one that exposed some of his undoubted weaknesses.

[M4]

I just get the feeling KK is an idealist, and gets disillusioned quickly with things that other people might work through.

 

Definitely.

 

Saying that, I had huge respect for him after the Germany game at Wembley. One time where leaving was the best decision and he did it with great humility and courage.

[Guest Howaythetoon]

When you think about it, crafting relationships with players, building a good confident camp etc., is an extremely difficult thing to do and is more important to winning games and getting players to perform than any tactic or analysis. KK is probably as astute as any manager when it comes to tactics and analysis but such things just don't feature in the way he manages players and builds a team. I have a book (KK the last romantic or something) and in it Tony Adams said KK would create some amazing drills and games for the forwards that were really inventive while England manager that had the defenders jelous of all the fun the forwards would have while they got "you're Tony Adams, the best centre-back in the world for me, you'll have no problem marking Ronaldo", that's what KK would say to him

 

Adams also said KK was like a big kid in training, taking active part in 5-a-side games and that his relationship with the players was more of a mate or team-mate than a boss.

 

That's not to say KK couldn't play that role.

[Guest Howaythetoon]

I just get the feeling KK is an idealist, and gets disillusioned quickly with things that other people might work through.

 

Definitely.

 

Saying that, I had huge respect for him after the Germany game at Wembley. One time where leaving was the best decision and he did it with great humility and courage.

 

Same here, it was so sincere and you could tell how hurt he was yet he got stick for it and it still haunts him to this day with the media refering to that moment as a 'quitter' moment. KK wasn't and never has been a quitter. He just wont put up with any shit (Mike Ashley) or kid himself (England manager).

[JH]

Think you're totally right about the style of play we need HTT.

 

For me the most important thing for an England manager is having the balls to pick players that fit into that Premier League style of play, and the right players in the right positions.

 

That means leaving out some of the big names.... I've yet to see an England manager that even thinks about doing that.

 

Exactly. What is all this about Lampard on the left with Gerrard in midfield or vice versa just to have the two in the same side. Stuff that. Get a proper winger wide and drop one of the two. Same up top. Stuff having Gerrard playing off whoever, stick two forwards up there, get in two wingers and play attacking direct football. By direct don't confuse me with the long ball. Think Sir Bobby's NUFC direct. That's what we need and the next England manager needs to be chosen very carefully on that basis as someone who can pick the right players and play a system that said players know and can play and can play well. Me, I'd try and tempt Sir Alex Ferguson who I think could well retire his post at Man Utd should he win the Premier League and Champions League. Although he would probably want to make it 6 European Cup's to Liverpool's 5.

 

Couldn't agree more with both posts.

 

England managers recently have been all talk and no balls. Pick the players in-form, in their right positions and play to their strengths.

 

Too many have picked based on reputation, have tinkered and twisted to fit those players in (Lampard/Gerrard) and have tried to play like other international teams.

 

The Premier League is different, the English playing style is different. It's about time we adopted a fresh and innovative system than try to be like everyone else (and fail miserably at it).