A Newcastle fan broke down in tears on talkSPORT when paying a touching tribute to the late Kevin Keegan.
Keegan is idolised on Tyneside for his spell as a player and two times as manager and sadly passed away at the age of 75 on Monday after a battle with cancer.
And for Newcastle fan Kevin, who called Drive to reminisce about his hero, it was all a bit much.
“It’s a tough day. It’s really tough,” the fan began.
Presenter Andy Goldstein asked him if he was okay as it became apparent Kevin was struggling.
“I have supported Newcastle for 60 years. I have followed the Keegan journey from start to finish,” Kevin continued.
“When he initially signed for us, I couldn’t believe it and that was 40 odd years ago.
“We do the Great North Run every year, and one year, he was there. He had a Sunderland and Newcastle top on, split 50/50 pushing a young disabled kid from the start to the finish – that was Kevin Keegan.”
An emotional Kevin then broke down in tears, but he managed to say: “I just loved him, and I am really sad that he’s gone.
“I feel sorry for his family, and I am really sad he couldn’t come back to Newcastle and say goodbye properly.
“Here I am, a 60-year-old guy crying my eyes out about Kevin Keegan because I just thought the world of him.
“I watched so much good football under him, and he did so much for Newcastle. Keegan was just a special person.”
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Kevin continued: “I’ve followed Newcastle all over, and I was at every game Keegan played.
“For his last game [as player], I lived in Glasgow and was speeding down the motorway, doing 96mph.
“The policeman told us that if I had been doing 100mph, I wouldn’t have seen the game, but I got there, and at the end, a helicopter came down, and that was a fitting end.”
Kevin continued to cry, and Goldstein checked on him again.
“It’s tough. He was everything, and he turned Newcastle into a team that everybody loved to see,” the fan said.
“We played the best football ever. The ‘Entertainers’ was everybody’s second team, and that’s what he’s given to me. So, Rest In Peace, King Kev.”
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Tyneside legend
As a player, he joined the club when they were in the second division in what was a shock transfer having already won the Ballon d’Or twice in his career.
Keegan dragged the Toon into the first division and scored 48 goals in 78 games before retiring at the end of his second season with the Magpies in 1984.
He left St James’ Park on a helicopter after his final match, still wearing black and white.
Keegan returned as manager eight years later and saved the Toon from relegation to the third tier – it would have been the first time in their history they had dropped as low as that.
A promotion charge followed, and the Magpies were in the bright lights of the Premier League and quickly became one of the best sides.
Keegan’s Newcastle side was packed with attacking stars like Les Ferdinand, David Ginola, Rob Lee and eventually, Alan Shearer.
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This team became known as ‘The Entertainers’ due to their commitment to all-out attacking football.
They never won anything, bar the hearts of the nation, and Toon fans worshipped Keegan as much as he praised them.
The second spell was under Mike Ashley, and in the end, it went horribly wrong.
Signings were promised that never happened like Bastian Schweinsteiger with Keegan selling James Milner on the basis that the German international was joining.
And Newcastle were relegated the season Keegan resigned, and he didn’t manage again.
Thank you, King Kev
As a slightly younger Newcastle fan, I never got to see ‘The Entertainers’ in the flesh.
But my grandads insisted I watched them in some way, and they were absolutely brilliant.
It is why when Keegan returned to St James’ Park on a cold, miserable January evening in 2008, I was suddenly very enthused about my football club again.
I remember seeing on the TV that Keegan had been appointed and then there were queues to get in to watch Newcastle play an FA Cup replay against Stoke City.
The club felt alive again, and you could feel that connection to the fans once more.
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Of course, Ashley and his cronies, including Dennis Wise, messed it up, and Keegan resigned just a few weeks into the 2008/09 season, and that hope was extinguished.
But he never stopped fighting for the club, and he made a promise to all Toon fans, saying: “Don’t ever give up on your club. Keep supporting it, it’s your club and trust me, one day you will get your club back and it will be everything you wanted it to be.
“Newcastle United is bigger than anyone. It hurts I know, but just keep going. He is only one man we are a city, a whole population. Trust me.”
It was a message that resonated with me and showed to me that this man deeply and passionately cares about my football club.
I heard it from family, but to hear him say those words stuck, and he was right.
Ashley is no more, and Eddie Howe has delivered a trophy and Champions League football.
I am so thankful that King Kev got to see us lift the Carabao Cup and achieve something that he had always wanted.
Keegan is arguably the most important man in Newcastle’s history from saving it from potential doom to putting the Toon back on the map and making Newcastle a force.
He has no statue at St James’ Park, but there has to be one and there is one stand that doesn’t have a name.
A renaming of the East Stand to the Keegan Stand would be a fitting tribute to the great man.
It would ensure there is a permanent reminder of someone whose name will always be associated with Newcastle United.
Thank you, King Kev.
