Kevin Keegan inspired more than just 11 men in black and white shirts on the hallowed turf of St James' Park. He instilled belief into a generation, an entire city and injected life into a region that was down on its luck in the early 1990s. Grown men around Newcastle are welling up at the news of Keegan's death. If you walk into the Percy Arms, Newcastle Arms or The Strawberry, you are walking into a shrine that celebrates the Entertainers. It's been like that for years.
There's a butcher's shop in North Shields with three framed pictures in the window: one of Keegan, one of Sir Bobby Robson, and one of Eddie Howe. You get it right with the people up here, and your legacy lives on forever. When people talk about Keegan being the Pied Piper of the Geordie public, they aren't wrong. The memories will never die, and the truth is we've never stopped remembering. Even after Newcastle won the Carabao Cup in 2025, you will still find United fans who say the Entertainers are their favourite team.
Keegan's Impact on Newcastle and the Region
Keegan brought passion, emotion and life, not to mention persuading some big names to play for the Magpies. But most of all, he brought us those memories. Whether it was unveiling superstars like David Ginola, Alan Shearer, Les Ferdinand and Tino Asprilla, standing on the steps of the Milburn Stand to explain Andy Cole's sale in 1995, or his brilliant 'love it!' rant at Leeds, every Geordie heart and soul was touched by the man dubbed the Messiah.
For me personally, I remember the day vividly when Keegan was appointed during a school lunch hour as kids gathered by an Evening Chronicle placard around the corner from George Stephenson High School in Killingworth, the day Ossie Ardiles lost his job after a 5-2 defeat to Oxford. Back on that chilly day in 1992, it read: 'Ossie out, King Kev in!' Long before the days of the internet and mobile phones, many asked 'is this true? Is it a wind-up?' However, as the newspapers flew off the shelf with Newcastle threatened by relegation to the old Third Division, it turned out it was true, and Keegan was unveiled ahead of a sell-out first game against Bristol City.
This was the start of a five-year journey that took council estates – that were singing their hurts out – around Europe as Geordies drank the continent dry. It was the start of a big change in Newcastle as it became a city everybody wanted a piece of. Keegan started that, and it's still going on now.
Keegan's Philosophy and Inspiration
For me personally, amid a government regime that was excellent at telling us what we couldn't do, there was now a strong public figure telling us what WAS possible. I can still hear KK's words that inspired me as a youngster now. Shortly after Keegan had guided Newcastle to the Premier League, he said: 'I've heard some people talk about consolidation, so we banned that word straight away.' Keegan would constantly talk about defying the odds, and his words made me think a bit differently about what was possible. Like his teams, he inspired people to dare to dream. He did that to an entire region.
Keegan did so much more than just put a team of Entertainers on the field at St James' Park; he changed the landscape of an entire city. I know because I grew up in it and witnessed what was there before and after. Walking up to St James' Park and seeing the glare of the old floodlights and on to the Gallowgate terracing for the first time was a special feeling back in the early 1990s. But it would soon be transformed to such an extent that it was hard to grasp if any of it was really happening at all.
Perhaps John Beresford summed that up best in a Chronicle interview in 2021 when he said: 'The first thing Kevin said was: "You'll sign for me today, we'll get promoted this year, then within a year we will get into Europe – oh and I'll get you in the England squad too." I was sat there thinking "he's crazy!" But you know what, in my first two years we did get up, we got into Europe and I was called up for England when Newcastle were still in the Second Division. Keegan said to me after my first year: "I told you John and you signed, thanks for believing in me." So Kevin was one of the greatest people I met in my life. That's not just as a manager, as a person as well.'
From Relegation Scrap to European Football
We all know the stories of Newcastle's near scrape against relegation to the old Third Division in 1992. But home games standing on the terraces against the likes of Grimsby, Oxford and Cambridge would be replaced by titanic battles against Man United, Liverpool and Arsenal. Newcastle went from scraping a win over Leicester on the final day of the 1991/92 season to qualifying for the UEFA Cup by the end of the 1993/94 campaign. That Newcastle did not lift the Premier League trophy in 1996 after going 12 points clear remains the sore point, but perhaps it was never meant to be any other way.
I got to interview Keegan during his second ill-fated spell as boss under Mike Ashley. You become immune to being star-struck around footballers and managers, but Keegan had that magic, aura and glint in his eye – and the ability to make you walk away feeling 10ft tall. Shortly after he'd been appointed as boss, the Press officer fixed up an interview with Keegan in the tunnel just as the reserves were walking out at St James' Park. You'd think Keegan would have seen it all before, but he waited a moment as Newcastle and Liverpool's second string walked down the tunnel, with that same glint, he turned to a colleague and I and said: 'This is what it's all about, eh, lads?'
Later that year, on pre-season in Majorca, I was interviewing Keegan for the Sunday Sun, and the then thorny subject of signings came up. With Keegan at odds with Ashley, and constantly being told what he couldn't do, it was obvious things weren't going well, and just weeks before he resigned at the end of the interview, he put his arm on my shoulder with a sympathetic look that indicated trouble was ahead. So it proved.
Keegan's Later Reflections and Legacy
Years after, I interviewed Keegan again on the after-dinner circuit. He spoke of that 12-point lead, but when challenged on whether he should have parked the bus for the final few matches to lift the title, simply said: 'What if we had changed and still didn't win it?' However, one thing Keegan told Chronicle Live back in 2019 was that he would look differently at the youth system compared to his first stint when the reserve team was abolished. Keegan said then: 'I think this time it has to start with youngsters coming through again. It has to be a different way. You won't get big-name players to Newcastle because the really big ones will now go to Man United, Man City or Liverpool, Tottenham or Arsenal or Chelsea, and then after that you are pitching in with the others.'
Keegan was on the right lines as ever, and just like his post-game TV interviews would bring entire pubs to silence as he spoke after big games at St James' Park, the people would hang on his every word. The last time I saw Keegan was at a dinner at Gosforth Park last year, when he thrilled supporters and had fans on their feet. That night he did not shirk the subject of the 12-point lead and contrasted the two clashes between Man United in 1996 and 1997, one lost 1-0 and the other won handsomely 5-0. The former Newcastle boss said: 'The 5-0 over Man United. I did enjoy that one. Fergie's face when he walked off. I have a picture of it, he didn't want to shake my hand that day. I honestly think the game where we battered them and lost 1-0 that we played better that day, and got beat.'
It was enough to have fans on their feet again, and while fans at other clubs may not have accepted that, the bond between Keegan and the Geordies was incredibly strong; everybody was on the same page. Talk of getting freedom of the city had been rife for a long time but to every Geordie, the truth is Keegan could already do whatever he wanted in Newcastle. He always said he didn't want a statue while he was still alive, but that statue should be built now – and a stand named after Keegan too.
