Iconic Moments in Football No.74
Kevin Keegan has been known throughout his managerial career as a manager who can get carried away in the moment and become very emotional about the goings-on with his team. Other managers have more of a matter-of-fact way of dealing with poor results and develop a thick skin when their players are criticised.
Keegan took things to heart and continually backed his players and their performances. He famously got increasingly irate after Alex Ferguson played a bit of mind games towards the end of the 1995/96 season, when his Manchester United side had closed in on Keegan’s Newcastle towards the end of the 1995/96 season. The Newcastle manager quickly got caught up in the moment and needed little encouragement to bemoan Ferguson’s words during a live post-match interview with Sky’s Richard Keys and Andy Gray.
Fast forward four years and Kevin Keegan was now England manager. His England side had just lost 1-0 to Germany in the last game to be played at the old Wembley Stadium.
England had performed poorly at the European Championship four months earlier, having failed to qualify from the group stage. The nation now pinned their hopes on a successful World Cup two years later, but an uninspiring defeat to the Germans in the opening World Cup qualifiers had proved to be the last straw for Keegan.
The former Liverpool striker cut a lonely and desperate figure as he made the long walk from the bench to the tunnel at Wembley. He was completely soaked after heavy downpour throughout the match and walked head bowed and looking thoroughly ashamed.
The result was not entirely Keegan;s fault but he had made his mind up. He wanted to leave, just as he had in 1997 when he shocked the footballing world when he left Newcastle United. He felt like he had taken the club as far as he could and quit midway through the 1996/97 season. Newcastle weren’t far off the top of the table, but the pressure got to him and he left.
David Davies, the Chief Executive of the Football Association later stated that he spent a while trying to convince Keegan to stay on as England manager but to no success. The two had these discussions whilst in the bathrooms of the England dressing room!
Keegan left the dressing room to face the media and was interviewed in the tunnel by Sky Sports. It was there that he announced to the world that he wanted out.
It would be a little under a year and a half before Keegan returned to football. His net club was Manchester City, where he would spend the next the next four years. One particular highlight of his time at the City of Manchester Stadium came in 2004 when his City side came back from 3-0 down to beat Tottenham 4-3 in the FA Cup.
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