Words alone can’t do justice to the depth of sadness felt on Tyneside at the devastating passing of Kevin Keegan.
By early evening at a sun-kissed St James’ Park, supporters young and old were beginning to arrive, bearing flowers, scarves and shirts to be laid at the stadium’s South West Corner. One had left a bottle of Newcastle Brown Ale, a touching tribute to a man who understood how intoxicating a successful Newcastle United was for a city whose heart beats for football.
Keegan earned his stripes at Scunthorpe United and graduated into greatness with Liverpool and England. But it was Newcastle where the supporters fell maddeningly in love with a man who just seemed to get it, changing the profile of the club and city forever in a spell where – Keegan would often remind them – anything felt possible.
I was only around for his second, fractious spell as manager at St James’ Park when it often felt like Keegan’s heart was breaking week by week. This was no longer the club he recognised, nor even a sport that he seemed to understand.
His eventual divorce from the Mike Ashley institution had been coming for weeks and Newcastle never forgave the owner for the way he treated Keegan. But even in that messy, moribund time I can recall one Friday press conference – after the great man had met his new signing Fabricio Coloccini and looked genuinely enraptured by the prospect of him and compatriot Jonas Gutierrez playing in black and white – when the spark returned.
