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Kevin Keegan aged 15 had many of the attributes that would go on to conquer the world.
He willingly ran into the channels. His build-up play was excellent, with a touch that was dependable and movement that was clever. No-one could ever question his work-rate, nor indeed his tenacity, in and out of possession. Crucially too for a forward player, he could finish.
There was just one problem, and ironically for the circumstance, it was a big one, a hindrance that Coventry City, and later Doncaster Rovers – his home-town club – could not see past. At five foot eight in his socks he was just too small, too slight, to make it as a pro.
The Sky Blues, to their credit, took a good look at him, the future two-time Ballon d’Or winner spending six weeks on trial in the West Midlands. They liked what they saw. Indeed, they really liked what they saw but when he was marked by a towering, bestial centre-back the mismatch was stark.
Keegan returned to his family home in Yorkshire, disappointed but unbowed.
Soon after came the second rejection, this one delivered with a twist of the knife. Having deemed him too diminutive a Rovers employee suggested to the player’s father that perhaps the youngster would be more suited becoming a jockey.
Grow and Overcome: How early setbacks forged an iron-will
There was no late growth spurt that explains Keegan’s entry into the professional game. Five foot eight he was, and five foot eight he stayed.
In every other regard though the determined teenager developed, improved.
He took out his frustrations on cross country runs, once even completing a gruelling 50 mile trek over muddy terrain. He would train relentlessly, rudimentary exercises for sure but all designed to get him fitter and stronger. He bulked out by eating bacon rind and lots of it.
So when he ran rings around a seasoned former pro at Sunday League level, and the impressed defender subsequently arranged a trail at Scunthorpe, he was primed to make it third time lucky.
In the summer of 1968, in a small cabin that doubled up as an office, next to a down-at-heel ground that no longer exists, the teenager eagerly signed apprenticeship forms, his father present and proud. His size was never mentioned once.
Only now came a new challenge, Keegan’s journey to the top being blighted with them.
Scunthorpe United were in the fourth tier and dirt-poor, a circumstance that necessitated the player finding a summer job plate-laying at the local steelworks in the off-season. Training to a decent standard meanwhile was nigh-on impossible, the car park used as a 5-a-side ‘pitch’ and a nearby rugby club allowing the Iron’s squad use of their facilities from time to time.
Undeterred, the young striker participated in running drills with his team-mates in the morning before pushing himself through weighted farmer’s walks up and down the cantilever stand at the Old Show Ground.
Data box – A ‘farmer’s walk’ consists of carrying heavy barbell weights in each hand. Keegan did this twice a week at Scunthorpe but was prohibited from continuing the practice on joining Liverpool in 1971.
Placing great stock too in diet, in an era when chips and even smoking was commonplace, the forward dedicated every moment, and every action, to self-improvement, driven to the point of obsession to make the grade.
Not for nothing did the club trainer once refer to him as a ‘One hundred per center’, perhaps the most accurate description of Kevin Keegan ever proffered.
Destination Superstardom: Exceeding all Expectations
Liverpool manager Bill Shankly was well aware of the player’s indefatigable nature when signing him for £33,000. The club had done their homework.
He knew too that Keegan had a high development ceiling, blessed with raw ability that had not yet fully been mined.
Not even the great man however could have possibly envisioned a career trajectory that rocketed Keegan to worldwide stardom, winning two Ballon d’Or awards along the way, in doing so beating out such prestigious names as Johan Cruyff and Michel Platini.
Simply put, the Reds believed they were signing a decent prospect, no more, no less. Even more simply put, a player who could enhance their first team.
Perhaps they underestimated after all Keegan’s remarkable drive, a quality that first came to the fore on Merseyside when he successfully forged a lethal partnership with John Toshack up front.
Now the story-arc concerning the player’s height comes full circle, the strikers celebrated as a ‘little and large’ duo that terrorised the English top-flight. Keegan had somehow turned his diminutive stature into a positive.
Inheriting the Throne: A King in Four Cities
Trophies followed, for both club and individual, not least the securing of a European Cup in 1977, the player’s farewell game before moving to Hamburger SV for a fee that almost doubled the previous German transfer record.
And it was there, in the Bundesliga, where Keegan’s magnificent orchestration of his new side led to the ultimate recognition, twice being voted the best player in Europe.
Southampton came next, and lastly Newcastle, and at all four clubs his exuberance, and endeavour, and utter brilliance, helped transform their fortunes and dramatically so.
That doesn’t get forgotten about by fans who still adore him in all four cities today.
Journalist and lifelong Newcastle supporter Harry De Cosemo sums up the enduring feeling in the North-East towards an adopted son who first revitalised the Magpies as a player, and later as manager.
“Kevin Keegan is the father of the modern Newcastle United. Without him, nothing that happened since would have. People talk about his team that nearly won the Premier League but had he not inspired safety from relegation to the third tier in 1992, it wouldn’t have been possible.
He speaks to Newcastle fans and understands their mindsets like nobody else. He’s the most important figure at the club for fifty years.”
A series of early rejections and set-backs hardened Kevin Keegan’s resolve to make a success of his footballing life. Once they were overcome no mere opponent could stop him.
