‘We did too much entertaining’
Kevin Keegan on the heartache of Newcastle blowing the title
Kevin Keegan’s Newcastle entertainers led the Premier League by 12 points in January 1996, only to be pipped at the post by Manchester United. The Toon may have lost the title but, as King Kev tells FFT, they won the public’s hearts
Kevin Keegan: “On the final day of the 1995-96 campaign the Premier League trophy was at St James’ Park, though we never got to see it. The league brought a replica just in case we beat Spurs in our last game, and Manchester United lost at Middlesbrough. But we could only draw, while United won at the Riverside Stadium and were handed the real trophy on the pitch. We never got to have a look at the replica; it was hidden away deep in the bowels of St James’ Park, then whisked off without us ever catching a glimpse. For large parts of the season we had one hand on the trophy - we were 12 points clear of United at the top of the table and playing incredible football – but we couldn’t get both on it. When I look back at that season now, there is some pride, but I have nightmares about how we threw the title away.
In 1992, Newcastle had been in a very different position: bottom of the old Second Division, having won only six of their 30 previous matches under Ossie Ardlies, and with the worst defence in the entire league. There were even fears they could fold.
At the time, I’d only just returned to England after spending seven years in Spain following my retirement from playing in 1984. I almost completely forgot about football while living in Marbella. For all that time, I barely watched a game on television, and only went to see two matches live. To be honest, I felt I could live without it.
Instead, I played so much golf that my two daughters thought I was a pro and didn’t realise I had anything to do with football. But I soon discovered it’s possible to have too much sun and golf, and we came back to England for our girls’ education.
There was no grand plan beyond that, no intention to get back into football, until one day in early 1992 when I received a phone call from Newcastle chairman Sir John Hall out of the blue.
He asked me to become Newcastle manager. ‘The two people who can save Newcastle are talking right now – you’ve got the passion and I’ve got the money,’ he said. I hung up the phone and told my wife, Jean. ‘I know you’ll take it,’ she said. She was right.
Maybe if it had been another club I would have turned them down, but this was Newcastle. My father was a Geordie, who always talked about Hughie Gallacher and Jackie Milburn. I’d played for them as my last club, and knew what they demanded there.
I was excited about the club’s untapped potential, and what it would be like to be the guy to finally get it right there; to inspire those brilliant and loyal supporters who flocked to St James’ Park.
“THE TRAINING GROUND WAS FILTHY AND TERRY MAC CALLED IT A S**THOLE – SO I SPENT £6,000 OF MY OWN MONEY On IT”
For all the romanticism, I still got a terrible shock when I walked back into the club and found it in a right mess.
The training ground was in a state of disrepair and Terry Mcdermott, who I’d brought in to be my assistant manager, called it a ‘shithole.’ It was absolutely filthy; everything was covered in a layer of dirt – the dressing rooms, the gym, the baths and showers.
There wasn’t even a washing machine. The players took their own kit home to wash, and to save money on hotels, the club wouldn’t travel to a game the night before, only on the actual day.
The players didn’t feel valued, so I spent £6,000 of my own money refurbishing the training ground. We basically fumigated it, cleaned it up and gave everything a lick of paint, and soon the players began to train and play with a sense of pride again.
When I arrived back at Newcastle I didn’t know many of the players, only really Micky Quinn and Ray Ranson, and I knew virtually none of the other players in the Second Division.
On our first day of training I said to Terry Mac, ‘Wow, they aren’t that good!’ Some of the players had ability, but a lot were a long way short. The truth is that even though I hadn’t played for seven years, myself and Terry Mac were the best two players in training!
But I just had a sense that I could get the best out of them and keep them in the Second Division, which we confirmed on the final day of the season with a 2-1 win at Leicester. We finished just four points above the relegation zone.
The following season I wasn’t interested in mere survival again, and on the eve of the campaign announced I’d be taking Newcastle up into the Premier League. I’m pleased to say I kept my word.
We were now a more confident side, and with better players like Rob Lee, John Beresford, Scott Sellars and Andy Cole, we won our first 11 league games and finished eight points clear as champions.
On entering the Premier League in 1993-94, I wanted to throw down a gauntlet to the big clubs, particularly champions Manchester United and their manager Alex Ferguson.
‘Watch out, Alex, we’ll be after your title,’ I wrote in my programme notes, and I meant it. You can’t do that now. A team coming up from the Championship has no hope of challenging for the Premier League title, but back then you could really have a go.
We knew that we were better than the bottom half of the division, and should just aim to finish as high as possible. I set high standards and it rubbed off on the players, and even on the directors.
So much so that our deputy chairman Douglas Hall felt emboldened to fly to Turin to sign Roberto Baggio from Juventus, who was arguably the best player in the world at that moment. He said, ‘Do you want to come with me? We’re going to sign Baggio.’
I said, ‘Are you just going to knock on the door?’ That was basically the plan! Unsurprisingly he got no joy in Italy. When he came back he said, ‘Can you believe they didn’t even see me?’ Yes, I could believe it, because we would have done the same!
But we did very well without Baggio, as I already had a dream strike partnership in Andy Cole and Peter Beardsley, who scored 55 league goals between them to help us finish 3rd.
We were like a juggernaut by that stage – once we’d got going, we were powerful and picking up speed. We chipped away, improving the squad as much as we could. We were never going to get the very best players – they would always go to London or Manchester United – so we had to be smart and find players to improve us.
The following season, in 1994-95, we stalled a bit and finished 6th, but halfway through I decided to sell Andy Cole to Manchester United. It came as a big shock, but I had this instinct that we’d seen the best of him. We’d had a few problems with him in training and he wanted a move. Maybe he’d been tapped up. When you have someone who doesn’t want to be there, you have to let them go.
I NEVER ARGUE WHEN PEOPLE SAY I WASN’T INTO TACTICS – IT’S TRUE
In the summer of ’95 we strengthened the squad again to prepare for a full-out assault on the Premier League title.
We brought in Les Ferdinand from QPR, who was 28 but still hungrier than ever. I loved Philippe Albert, a Belgian centre-back at Anderlecht who we thought we had no chance of signing, but we convinced him to come and join us, too.
David Ginola was a wonderful crosser. At first some people doubted if he was better than Scott Sellars, but they needed just one training session to realise he was and we were lucky to have him at Newcastle.
It was like one of those kaleidoscopes – you move a piece and then it all comes into focus. We won nine of our opening 10 league games at the start of 1995-96 to go top of the league, where we stayed for the next eight months.
We played some wonderful attacking football, and I loved to sit back and watch them from the bench. In many ways this team was an act of selfishness, because I’d created a team I wanted to watch. I could never set up a team to get a 0-0 draw, that’s not football.
The players were enjoying it. There was a positivity flowing through the club, because we knew we could beat anyone.
My team talks were quite simple. I never argue with people who say I wasn’t that into tactics, as it’s true. We had all these great players, so I didn’t want to restrict them – my mantra was just let them play.
We looked at how we could cause problems for the opposition – that was my coaching style. We gave them freedom, a licence to play and be themselves. I would just say, ‘We’ve got so much ability, if we lose against this lot today, the game’s gone!’
Our attitude was it was all about us – it was about attacking. When I played for Liverpool, Bill Shankly was a huge inspiration for me and said, ‘Go out and drop hand grenades all over the place.’
I played a 4-4-2 formation with two strikers. We didn’t go anywhere with a defensive mindset. It might sound a little bit gung-ho, and not all the players were happy – my centre-back Darren Peacock even said to me, ‘Gaffer, is there any chance you could sign another defender?!’
By the middle of January we were 12 points ahead of Man United in 2nd place, and inevitably started to believe that we could win the title. Everyone wanted us to win the league, too, and we got clapped on and off the field at many grounds.
On March 4, 1996, when United came to St James’ Park on a Monday night, our lead was down to four points after losing 2-0 at West Ham and drawing 3-3 at Manchester City. That meant a victory at home to United would give us a lovely seven-point cushion, but defeat would cut our lead to a single point. It was a huge game.
In the first half we absolutely battered them, ripped them to bits, but couldn’t find a way past Peter Schmeichel, who saved everything we threw at him. We couldn’t believe it was still 0-0 at half-time. Six months later we’d thrash them 5-0 at St James’ Park, but I honestly think we played better in this game but just couldn’t score, and in the second half Eric Cantona knocked one in to secure a 1-0 win [right]. That hurt so much.
It was a stark reminder that United knew how to win high-pressure games, and we didn’t. Until you’ve won something you’re never sure you can finish the job, and they’d already done it over and over again, so they didn’t panic. We didn’t have that quality. If you look through our team, what had they won between them? Not much at all.
We beat West Ham 3-0 at home in our next game, before losing 2-0 at Arsenal and then suffering the heartache of the 4-3 defeat against Liverpool on that famous night. On a terrible pitch, we should have won it twice over, but came away with nothing.
Stan Collymore scored Liverpool’s last-gasp winner by beating Pavel Srnicek at his near post, which I felt he should have saved. Pavel never thought I completely trusted him, and he was probably right.
I always felt I could have had a better goalkeeper at Newcastle, but never got one. We didn’t ever have a truly great goalkeeper during my time there. That’s not an insult to Pavel Srnicek, Shaka Hislop or any of the others, it’s just the way it was. If we had Peter Schmeichel in goal we would have won the league, even though he might have been a bit busier playing for us.
There’s no use pretending we didn’t mentally collapse towards the end of the season. We played under incredible tension. Chances were dropping to players you’d expect to finish them, but we were snatching at them and missing them.
SIR ALEX CROSSED A LINE, AND THAT’S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN US
What would I have done differently? I can honestly say nothing. I’m often told I should have been more defensive in the run-in, but I didn’t have the players to play another way. We were built to attack and had done that for three years.
What did people expect me to say to my players, ‘OK guys, we’re 12 points clear and playing fantastic football, but do you know what? I’m going to change our style, leave David Ginola out and just pick another defender.’ I mean, come on! That was never going to happen.
Of course, if someone said to me now I could turn the clock back, put two more defenders in and play a few shit games, then you probably would just to win a trophy for Newcastle.
We had one way of playing that had got us to there, and were stuck with it. We were the entertainers. Maybe history will judge that we did too much entertaining and should have shut up shop more often, but I didn’t have the players to do that.
“MAYBE WE DID TOO MUCH ENTERTAINING AND SHOULD HAVE SHUT UP SHOP MORE, BUT I DIDN’T HAVE THE PLAYERS FOR IT”
In February, I’d bought Faustino Asprilla from Parma for £6.7 million to help us win the league. Some people have suggested his arrival was a reason for us falling short, because we started to lose matches soon after. But that’s not fair, that’s simply looking for a scapegoat. He also won us games we would have otherwise lost.
By the end of March, United had overtaken us at the top of the table so we were forced to play catch up. They cemented their lead over us in April with a 1-0 win at home to Leeds, who annoyed Alex Ferguson with their battling performance.
My understanding is that a furious Fergie actually asked Leeds boss Howard Wilkinson if he could go to the press and more or less admit that Leeds should be ashamed of themselves, because they should be playing like that every week.
The sole reason he did that is because he knew we still had to go to Leeds, so he was suggesting they wouldn’t try as hard against us and wanted to challenge them and their commitment, throwing down the gauntlet to them to beat us.
This really annoyed me, as I thought he was having a go at football and suggesting players wouldn’t try hard enough. The implication was they only tried hard against Man United. I wasn’t buying it – everyone tries hard against everyone. That’s what made me so angry.
On April 29, after we won 1-0 at Leeds, I faced the Sky cameras for an interview and let it be known just how much he had annoyed me. It became known as my famous rant.
This is what I said: ‘When you do that with footballers, like he said about Leeds… I’ve kept really quiet but I’ll tell you something, he went down in my estimation when he said that. We haven’t resorted to that. I’ll tell you, you can tell him now if you’re watching it, we’re still fighting for this title and he’s got to go to Middlesbrough and get something, and I’ll tell you, honestly, I will love it if we beat them. Love it!’
I don’t regret that even now. What he’d said really annoyed me and I just let it all out – it was pure emotion. The interview was done down the line with cans on my ears, and people always talk loudly with them on – you don’t realise how loud you’re speaking. I got on the bus after, saw the interview and couldn’t believe I was shouting.
What irritates me is the myth that’s built up that I lost Newcastle the title due to this rant and that it made my team nervous and unsettled, which simply isn’t true.
United were three points ahead of us with one match to play, and while we still had two games to play, their goal difference was worth another point. The title had effectively already gone.
On the final weekend they had to go to Middlesbrough, managed by former United great Bryan Robson, and get a win, whereas we had to hope they lost that, and also beat Nottingham Forest and Tottenham in our last two games. It was never going to happen.
Sir Alex crossed a line, and therein lays the difference between us. That’s how he won 13 Premier League titles and I won none.
I don’t hold a grudge against him. I wouldn’t say we’re friends – we don’t go out for dinner, we’ve never been close – but there’s a mutual respect there. He’s since asked me to do a favour for a charity that his friend runs, which I did.
People say we lost that title, but United won it. Look at their record after Christmas – they just kept winning. They won 3-0 at Boro on the final day, while we drew with Spurs to finish four points behind them.
The whole mood was different that day, as we knew it was gone. At the final whistle I hated doing a lap of honour, as I didn’t think it was justified. I get you have to thank the fans at the end of the season, but the disappointment was so intense that I didn’t want to walk around.
At the time we had nothing to show for a fantastic season, as back then you didn’t even get a Champions League place for finishing 2nd, but on reflection I’m still proud of what we achieved.
They say no one remembers the runners-up, but people remember us that season. We were everyone’s second favourite team. They will always remember the entertainment, and the way we played.”