Kev era love is all gone

REMEMBER Kevin Keegan’s Entertainers, everyone’s second team, and the last time Newcastle were real Premier League contenders?

Back then the nation loved the mid-Nineties Geordies for their attacking football, goal-scoring swagger and ability to punch the established elite on the nose.

That’s a scenario the new Saudi owners want to recreate. They may get there one day on the pitch, just give it a few years, hundreds of millions spent, and this current relegation scare negotiated.

But the new Newcastle will never spark the kind of love Keegan (above) and his title challengers bathed in. Or Sir Bobby Robson’s third placed Champions League finishers.

The past 100 days has shown the antipathy nationwide for the

Newcastle “project”.

First the blocking of new sponsorship deals, then the rule change meaning only “market value” deals can be struck to stop quick-fix cash being poured in by the Saudis.

And last week one decent signing in Kieran Trippier provoked bitterness. Only there for the cash. Mockery at swapping Madrid for Tyneside. From Champions League to relegation fight.

Newcastle United are relevant again, but the Saudi buyout means the rebuild will go unloved away from Tyneside.

Poor human rights, murdering journalists, locking up dissenters, persecuting gays… no matter how many games they win, those issues will taint the progress. Rightly so.

But forgive Newcastle fans, who have watched their club slide for a decade, unloved, with no ambition, if they see it differently.

Even if they have doubts about the Saudis, they see owners having a go, investing in a sporting dream – and giving one of the most loyal and success-starved fanbases something to cling to.

It doesn’t mean Newcastle fans have no interest in human rights and the like. But life throws up conflicting dilemmas, and many just want a team to put a smile on their faces.