The love affair is now over

8:48am Friday 5th September 2008

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IT is a love affair that has lasted more than 25 years, and survived two lengthy separations, but as of this morning, it is surely one that is at an end.

Having turned his back on Newcastle United for a third time, Kevin Keegan’s relationship with the club is over. This time, there will be no going back.

Like all divorces, it will be difficult for both parties to take. The club will feel that, not for the first time, Keegan’s emotional volatility has got the better of him.

Keegan, with considerable justification, will claim that his affection and devotion has been spurned.

The supporters, caught in the middle like the children of a failed marriage, will initially side with their hero.

Keegan’s name will reverberate around St James’ Park during next weekend’s home game with Hull, while Mike Ashley and Dennis Wise will be criticised as the villains of the piece.

But, in time, the vitriol will subside and only the memories will remain.

Memories of a youthful Keegan scoring the goals that carried Newcastle to the Second Division title in 1984.

Of a middle-aged Keegan guiding the Magpies to the First Division title in 1993, and to within a whisker of the Premier League crown three years later. And of an older Keegan battling valiantly to restore the club’s fortunes during an ill-fated eight months on Tyneside.

Those memories will ensure that he is always revered as a Newcastle hero.

He might not have achieved all he wanted during three separate spells in the North- East, but he provided a plethora of thrills and spills as he tried.

BORN in Armthorpe, South Yorkshire, Keegan was already regarded as a footballing legend when he made a £100,000 move to Newcastle in August 1982.

He had won three league titles and three European trophies with Liverpool. He had won a European Cup and a World Player of the Year award with Hamburg.

He had even made the top 40 with his single, “Head Over Heels In Love”.

He was, in short, a bone fide superstar of the type Newcastle fans had not really experienced since Malcolm Macdonald left Tyneside for Arsenal in 1976.

And despite Newcastle’s problems in the lower reaches of Division Two, he was coming to St James’ to offer salvation.

Yet if his arrival promised much, the events of the following two years were to be even more remarkable than his reputation suggested likely.

A sold-out crowd of 36,000, including England manager Bobby Robson, watched Newcastle beat QPR 1-0 in Keegan’s debut. Thrillingly, inevitably, it was Newcastle’s number seven who scored the winner.

He went on to score 20 more goals during the 1982- 83 season, but a run of one win in eight games either side of Christmas forced Keegan to come out in public support of his under-fire manager, Arthur Cox.

Newcastle eventually finished the campaign fifth in Division Two. A decent enough outcome, but in the days before the play-offs, not enough to earn a return to the promised land.

Twelve months later, however, and United were back in the top-flight. A side that also included Peter Beardsley and Chris Waddle won promotion, with Keegan claiming 27 goals from his 41 games.

He scored in the final game of the season at home to Brighton, and made his farewell appearance in a friendly against Liverpool.

The manner of his departure went down in Newcastle folklore, with Keegan leaving St James’ in a helicopter that landed in the centre-circle.

Less than eight years later, though, he was making an equally unforgettable return.

With the Magpies on the verge of a catastrophic drop into Division Three, Sir John Hall tempted Keegan to turn his back on the golf courses of Spain and set about restoring Newcastle’s fortunes.

Again, more than 30,000 supporters turned out for his first game in charge, again Newcastle were successful, cruising to a 3-0 win over Bristol City.

There were problems along the way, with Keegan twice threatening to resign amid accusations of broken promises from the Hall family – threats that have a peculiar resonance given this week’s events – and only securing Newcastle’s Division Two status at Leicester on the final day of the season.

But by the time the following season began, the Keegan bandwagon was ready to roll. The Magpies won 11 out of 11 in the first three months of the campaign and eventually celebrated the award of the First Division title with an incredible 7-1 victory over Leicester.

Andy Cole had already been signed at that stage and, with the redeveloped St James’ Park rapidly taking shape, Newcastle assumed the air of a club that was going places.

Even at that point, though, it was impossible to imagine how far they would progress.

With Cole scoring a recordbreaking 41 goals, Newcastle finished third in their first season in the Premier League. Players like Beardsley and Robert Lee revelled in a free-flowing formation that earned the club the nickname of “The Entertainers”, and the newly-formed Sky Sports never tired of describing Newcastle as everyone’s “second favourite team”.

A sixth-placed finish followed 12 months later, but it was to be the 1995-96 season that represented the apex of Keegan’s first managerial reign.

With the likes of Beardsley, Les Ferdinand and David Ginola to the fore, Newcastle established a 12- point lead over their closest rivals, Manchester United.

However, March’s 1-0 defeat to United cut their advantage, and when the Magpies slipped to a thrilling 4-3 defeat at Anfield in April, their title challenge was unravelling before their own eyes. So too, unforgettably, was Keegan’s composure.

“I’ll tell ya – you can tell him (Sir Alex Ferguson) now, he’ll be watching it –we’re still fighting for this title, and he’s got to go to Middlesbrough and get something,” said Keegan, in an infamous interview on Sky Television in the wake of a 1-0 victory over Leeds. “I’ll tell you honestly, I will love it if we beat them, love it!”

The outburst was to be the beginning of the end, both in terms of Newcastle’s title challenge and Keegan’s tenure at St James’ Park.

When Manchester United beat Middlesbrough on the final day of the season, Newcastle’s hopes of a first league title since 1927 were dead and buried.

By the following January, Keegan’s first Newcastle reign was also over. Alan Shearer arrived for a club record fee of £15m in the interim, but the writing was effectively on the wall when Keegan tendered his resignation before the start of the 1996-97 season.

He was eventually persuaded to stay, but on January 8, 1997, he left St James’ Park for a final time.

There were suggestions he was ill, but the truth was that he had simply had enough of the PLC board.

Eleven-and-a-halfyears later, and the situation was repeated with a different boardroom cast.

Keegan’s second managerial coming will be chiefly remembered for its brevity, but there were plenty of memorable incidents along the way.

Few who attended the home game with Stoke City on January 16 will forget the tumultuous reception that accompanied Keegan’s arrival, and while it was to be two months before the 57- year-old recorded his first victory, the club’s supporters were happy to give their hero time.

April’s Tyne-Wear derby win over Sunderland ensured the season ended on a high, but a fraught summer also guaranteed that Keegan’s honeymoon was well and truly over.

Joey Barton’s prison term provided an unwanted distraction and, as the season began in August, it became clear that backroom tensions were overshadowing everything that happened on the pitch.

Those tensions exploded spectacularly on Tuesday, with a furious Keegan challenging both Wise and managing director Derek Llambias over their recruitment of players he did not want, and their attempts to sell those that he did.

Two days of talks failed to engineer a solution and, feeling that his position had become untenable, Keegan ensured that history would repeat itself as he resigned once more.

Football being football, it is not entirely impossible that he will turn up at St James’ for a fourth time. But given his age, and the way in which the sport is changing, this would appear to be the end of the road.

The journey along it has been unforgettable, and no matter what he does or does not do in the future, Keegan will forever be remembered in black and white.