During the summer holidays of 1982 and at a loose end for something to do, me and my pal Paul Burdis decided to walk up to the Newcastle United training ground in Benwell to watch them training.
This was a short trip as being Benwell lads it was one we had made many times.
We had stood and watched the likes of Carney, Martin, Wharton, Waddle etc. many times train on what was the coldest, windswept, training ground known to man and boy.
Training finished, we were just about to leave when a Jaguar pulled into the car park, me and Paul looked at each other in disbelief, a Jag in Benwell, you don`t see one of those every day!!
It slowly pulled into the car park and the occupants got out, first Arthur Cox, and then Kevin Keegan…KEVIN KEEGAN man!! Captain of England, Superstars Legend, poster on my wall and quite possibly the most famous man in England at that time.
There he was standing in the training ground car park in Benwell, in real life, looking every inch the superstar he was, and then he looked at us and said hello, KK had just said hello to us. Shaking like a dog on the toilet we summoned up the courage to ask for autographs from the great man, to which he duly obliged.
He left to go into the training rooms and we legged it home to tell everyone we knew, no one believed us, I mean, would you? In those pre internet days and not being able to afford a TV that had Ceefax (like us) the only you got to hear stories of this magnitude was when it was on the news or in the newspapers.
News broke that night and it was official, Kevin Keegan signs for the Toon. Unless you were around at the time and had watched the Newcastle United team of that era struggle to fill St James’ Park, the absolute scale of this signing was unheard of.
The next day we returned to the training ground only to find half the population of Newcastle had the same idea, it was absolutely heaving, everyone wanted to see Keegan, and everyone wanted his autograph. After training he was surrounded by what seemed to be about ten thousand kids. He stood and signed everything, the aura of the man was unbelievable. Every time he spoke all of us listened, hanging on his every word.
The next time I saw him I was in the Gallowgate end sucking the ball in as he scored on his debut against QPR. It took two seasons but we did achieve promotion at the second time of asking. And then he was off, only to return and save the club once again from utter oblivion, I would hate to think what would have happened if Sir John Hall had not had the vision to ask him to return as manager.
I don’t have any claim to fame other than being the first Newcastle United fan to get Keegan’s autograph after he’d signed, it’s not Nobel Peace Prize worthy but I’ll take it.
Monday’s news hit hard, the term ‘legend’ gets bandied about a lot but for me he is Newcastle United’s number one.