KEEGAN KEVIN - MY LIFE IN FOOTBALL: the autobiography

For Jean

and dedicated in the memory of Bill Shankly.

Two people who have given me so much.

I want people to dream about their football club.

We should all be dreamers at heart. Some people are the opposite and say, We cant do that, but when you ask them why, they cant give a reason.

Well, I say, Why not?

CONTENTS

GOING BACK

Nobody has ever officially told me I am banned from St James Park. Sometimes, though, you know when you are not welcome, and it is almost a decade now since it became apparent that, as far as the people at the top of Newcastle United are concerned, I will always be persona non grata as long as the Mike Ashley regime remains in place.

The saddest thing is that I would not want to go back anyway after everything that happened in my second spell as Newcastle manager and, though my feelings for the club wont fade, that policy is set in stone until Ashley has gone, and more than a hundred years of proud football history is removed from his business portfolio.

The only time I have made an exception came after an invitation to a private function at St James Park one night when there was no football on. It was a leaving do for a lifelong Newcastle fan. My first response was to send my apologies and explain it would be impossible for me to attend. Then I started feeling bad because the guy was leaving for a new life in America and I knew everyone wanted me to be there for his send-off. I didnt want to let him down. And, besides, I have always loved a challenge.

I improvised. I put on a pair of glasses, I found a flat cap and I turned up the collar on my overcoat to complete the disguise. I found a quiet place to park my car, a safe distance from the ground, and then I walked in the back way, sticking to the shadows and avoiding eye contact with passers-by. It was dark and nobody had recognised me until I made it to the stadium entrance. Then one of the staff came over straight away. Hello, Kevin, she said, with one of those lovely Geordie welcomes. What are you doing back here?

My cover was blown, but at least it was a friendly face rather than a hand being placed on my shoulder. The problem was I didnt know if everybody in the building might be so hospitable and I didnt want to take any chances. I asked if she would mind keeping it quiet and then I took the lift to the top floor. I had rung ahead to say I was on my way. Everyone had been briefed that the operation had to be conducted in complete secrecy and, when I hurried down a corridor, lined with photographs of my old teams, they were waiting for me inside one of the executive lounges. I was in and, apart from one minor scare, Operation KK had been a success. Mission accomplished.

I know how absurd it must sound and, when I think about it properly, what kind of craziness is it that someone with my long emotional history with Newcastle now has to smuggle himself into the ground where the owner used to call me King Kev? But this is an extraordinary club, run by unconventional people, and perhaps the most charitable way I can put it, as Jesus said on the cross, is to forgive them for they know not what they do. These people dont know what a precious club this is. They dont comprehend that football in this big, vibrant city is about self-esteem. They have made a toy out of Newcastle United and, as much as it pains me to say it, I have no desire to be associated with the place for as long as that continues. I will gladly return when they have gone, and I am already looking forward to the day when Newcastle is free of the man who has lurched from one bad decision to another, run an empire of self-harm and handed money and power to people who deserved neither. Until then, however, Ashley and his associates dont need to worry about me making a habit of turning up incognito. I dont want to share my oxygen with these people, trust me.

The only other occasion I have ventured back to St James Park was for the unveiling of Alan Shearers statue but, strictly speaking, that was on public land, rather than the site of the stadium itself, and nobody can stop me walking the streets of Newcastle. That, again, was a bittersweet occasion. The statue, Local Hero, was paid for by the family of Freddy Shepherd, one of the directors who stood by my side in happier times. Newcastle didnt put in a penny and it was the city council that found a plot of land in the shadow of the Milburn Stand. Its all so very sad. The statues for Jackie Milburn and Sir Bobby Robson are directly in front of the stadium, but Shearer, Newcastles all-time leading scorer, has been bumped round the corner because he refuses to be a cheerleader for corporate incompetence. Newcastle didnt even put a few sentences on the clubs website and, plainly, it was too arduous for anybody from the club to walk the thirty yards up Barrack Road to attend the unveiling.

Perhaps I shouldnt be surprised when Alan, who is Newcastle through and through, has standards that surpass those of the clubs owner, and doesnt feel the need to sugar-coat the truth in his television and media work. I have, after all, experienced the full force of the Mike Ashley regime and, though I won my case against Newcastle for constructive dismissal, you can take my word that it wasnt a pleasant experience being engaged in a legal battle against a man of such power and immense wealth. That it was Newcastle at the centre of this litigation made it an even more harrowing experience. Indeed, the whole thing was so hideous it convinced me I never wanted to work in football again.

It was strange, though, when I returned to Newcastle on that undercover mission, how quickly I felt the place gnawing at my heart again. I had never actually been that high up inside St James before, and there was something very poignant about seeing the stadium catching its breath, so quiet and still, away from the bedlam of match-day.

The stadium always looked so elegant under lights and, gazing down from one of the corporate suites, I found myself lost in my own thoughts until another of the guests wandered over. For a few seconds he stood beside me and looked out on the same scene. You built this place, you know, he said quietly. None of this would have been possible without you.

Maybe he had seen a little sadness in my eyes. They were kind words, and later that evening I felt myself drawn to that view again. I didnt often get sentimental about football grounds, but St James had that effect on a lot of people and, as I looked at that rectangular stretch of grass, all the memories started flooding back. I found myself wondering whether the pitch still had its slant left to right, as you were standing in the dugouts and then I looked at the vertiginous stands behind each goal and it struck me that the stadium had grown with the team. The Leazes End, to my left, was now the largest cantilever structure in Europe. On the opposite side, the Gallowgate End, at the side of the ground facing the Tyne, was another magnificent presence on the citys skyline.

Locally, they will tell you this place is their cathedral, made for Saturday worship. Yet my association with Newcastle went back long enough to remember the days when it was two banks of rough, hard-faced terracing behind the goals, with police cells in the corner, four spindly floodlights and barbed wire on the perimeter walls. We didnt have a roof at either end, and it rained so hard that sometimes a puddle the size of a small lagoon would form by the side of the pitch. I can still remember the game against Sunderland when a duck came down to splash around beside the playing surface. Nor have I forgotten when the cranes arrived to start the transformation into what is now a 52,000-capacity stadium and only in Newcastle supporters took picnics to Leazes Park, just behind the ground, to watch the new stand going up. They would spend the entire day in their camping chairs with their rugs, their flasks of tea and packed lunches. Then, the following morning, they would be back again.