When Kevin Keegan was on the foothills of his international career in 1972, Sir Alf Ramsey called him into an enlarged England squad.
To say that he was not best pleased when this country’s only World Cup-winning manager designated him to the Under 23s match on the night before the senior game is something of an understatement.
Keegan packed his bags in anger and had to be stopped from storming out of the hotel by urgent warnings that he would be jeopardising his England future.
In common with most Fleet Street football reporters, I denounced his prima donna tantrum. A year or three of strained relations with the press ensued.
Once, upon the conclusion of a football awards dinner in London, I took a few of my guests on to the members’ club Morton’s for late-night drinks. The all-time greatest gossip columnist Nigel Dempster among us.
We were merrily ensconced in the bar overlooking Berkeley Square as Kevin arrived with a couple of his pals. When he saw I was there, he pulled over the manager and told him: ‘I’m not comfortable with that journalist being here, invading my privacy.’ The reply: ‘I’m sorry Mr Keegan, but Mr Powell and Mr Dempster are founder members of this club so we won’t be asking them to leave.’
Kevin Keegan was all heart in the end – brimming with energy, flooded with adrenalin, full of fun and an arch competitor
An hour or so later he departed, with a cursory nod in our direction. A thaw, then? Maybe. I was told he appreciated that both Nigel and myself refrained from embarrassing him in print about that awkward incident.
Fast forward to his transfer to Hamburg and to some surprise he agreed to an interview about his new life in Germany. Our lunch of the world’s largest and purest beefburgers washed down by steins of pilsner lingered until it seemed likely I would miss my flight back to London. ‘Don’t worry,’ said Kevin. ‘I’ll drive you.’
He called the restaurant valet to bring his racy German car, while the Mail settled the bill. We went bouncing down cobbled streets and then hurtled onto the autobahn at well over 100mph. Speed limits back then in the Fatherland were virtually non-existent.
A mile or two from the airport, a British Airways plane loomed into view a few hundred feet above us on a flight-path which tracked the motorway. Keegan rammed his foot even harder on the accelerator and we undertook the plane. After screeching to a halt in front of departures we jumped out of the car, laughing. High-fived as he said: ‘Yes, we beat it here. That must be your return flight home. Looks like you made it.’
That was Kevin Keegan. Oh so feisty if he felt wronged. All heart in the end. Brimming with energy. Flooded with adrenalin. Full of fun. Arch competitor. Raging with ambition yet eager to help others. All of that. Off as well as on the pitch. How on earth has this irrepressible 5ft 8in human dynamo died so young at 75? Curses on the cancer which has taken Mighty Mouse, as he was affectionately nicknamed.
Mine was just one of many such rollercoaster experiences. At Wembley in the infamous 1974 Charity Shield game between Liverpool and Leeds, he and Billy Bremner were sent off for punching each other, in the brawl which followed him being hacked down by Johnny Giles. After the match, Keegan joined the hysterical criticism of Leeds as a brutal side urged into mischief by their genius manager Don Revie.
A few years later, Revie made Keegan the captain of England. Not only was all forgiven, but it was not long before Kevin hailed the Don as ‘my mentor and like a second father to me’.
Actually, he should have said third father.
While he was a Liverpool legend, his England achievements took him to just one World Cup quarter-final
Of all the moves during his football lifetime, the one which launched him towards the football stratosphere was gifted unto him by the immortal Bill Shankly.
The founding father of Liverpool FC as we have known and loved that bastion of the game in recent decades was told about a little kid making waves at Scunthorpe United down in the depths of the old Fourth Division.
One cold wet midweek night in 1971, Shankly’s idea of how best for him and his beloved wife to celebrate their wedding anniversary would be to make that tortuous 240-mile round-trip drive over the Pennines and back to watch the boy Keegan in action.
One £33,000 transfer, 323 matches, 100 goals, three English championships, one FA Cup, one European Cup, two UEFA Cups and six years later, Shanks said: ‘Best wedding anniversary me and Nessie ever had.’
There would have been many more Liverpool goals had it not taken a while for Shankly to transform Keegan from an orthodox midfield player into a second striker. A quite passable imitation of Maradona in that free-rein role.
Hamburg were next to benefit from that transition with a ratio of more than a goal every three games (40 in 113) after signing in 1977. Thus Keegan led them to their first German championship in 19 years and their first European Cup final.
His additional personal reward for those efforts was to be voted into the pantheon of only 10 players ever to be voted European Footballer of the Year twice. To go with his English Footballer of the Year honour in his penultimate season at Anfield.
Then, at both Southampton (42 in 80 games) and Newcastle (49 in 85), he averaged better than a goal every two games. But the vibrant essence of the man ran even deeper than those impressive statistics. They were the product of that impulsive instinct for the game, the fizzing speed off the mark, the instant eye for the perfect space to sprint into, the defence-splitting pass recognised before all around him were aware, the non-stop stamina. The never-say-die optimism.
He admitted the England management job wasn’t for him – but he was raging with ambition yet eager to help others
In the more rarified challenge presented to England he scored precisely once every three games – 21 in 63 – and the first England captain he played under articulated his value. Bobby Moore would say: ‘Loved Kev. Terrific player and best of all he drove the opposition crazy.’
Circumstances, including injury and under-achievement by the national team, limited his World Cup impact to one quarter-final. Which starved him of much of the wider recognition his brilliance deserved. Perhaps his quirkiness, too. He simply did not care when that bizarre perming of his thick growth of hair invited comedians to do their worst.
Nor did he bother to respond to scurrilous rumours which followed him being set upon while caught sleeping in his Range-Rover on the side of the M25 in Surrey. Simply leaving it to his assailants to explain in court that they saw him as a potentially wealthy target to rob, without realising it was Keegan.
When retirement from playing led to management he became embroiled in heated rows with directors. Not that his start-stop first spell in charge at Newcastle ever cooled the adoration poured onto him by the second of two of the most passionate communities on the planet. First Merseyside, then Tyneside. An idol on both shores of the northern powerhouse of English football.
If anything the Geordies massed behind him all the more loudly when first-season promotion from the Second Division was followed by the losing of a 12-point lead over Manchester United and with it the title.
If anything they loved him all the more when the paramount manager in the history of English football, Sir Alex Ferguson, beat him at the mind games which characterised that race for glory. ‘I will love it if we beat them. Love it.’ That was not to be. Nor was success as manager of England.
When his one year as successor to Glenn Hoddle ended in a 1-0 home defeat by Germany which set up England for failure to qualify for the 2002 World Cup, he retreated into a lavatory in the Wembley dressing room. In that sanctuary he sadly and quietly told the FA’s media chief David Davies that he was resigning immediately ‘because I’m not right for this job’.
Keegan was lampooned for that by some critics, who preferred not to acknowledge the honesty within the personal anguish.
Wistful nostalgia surrounds the loss of idol Keegan – he is survived by devoted wife Jean and their two daughters
After retirement he shied away from public scrutiny, other than when boosting his several charities, and into the bosom of family life with devoted wife Jean and their two proud daughters. One consequence is that he is not recognised fully by new young football fans and partly neglected by forgetful older generations.
Wistful nostalgia always surrounds the loss like this of an idol. Personally, I for one regret not responding with alacrity on one of the occasions when I pondered organising a reunion in Berkeley Square. If it is any excuse, Mr Dempster also died too young and Morton’s closed some time ago.
