You never forget your first love. Kevin Keegan was mine and he was everything you wanted your first hero to be. Sleep well, Kev…
YOU never forget your first love.
The first footballing memories are always the best. The nascent appreciation of something glorious, something almost mystical, something you’re absolutely desperate to be a part of.
A blood red kit, a tiny Umbro logo next to a Liverbird and three letters that meant the world. The big ‘7’ on his back. The Kop swaying with huge parts somehow falling to the front of the terrace before being sucked back again. And the noise. A noise that could scare you if you didn’t think it was for you and the strange thing it did to your heart.
Kevin Keegan personified that period. Post Shankly, early Paisley. He was everything you wanted your first hero to be. A genius who looked anything but one.
Shorter than Toshack but a bundle of muscle and spirit. It was his ball. Always his ball. He never gave anyone a second’s peace. What’s more he looked like he enjoyed it more than any of us. He loved football and loved playing for the best team in the world even when he didn’t.
My Dad, a Blue, if a little Red curious, always sneered when his name was mentioned. That was enough for me. He knew trouble when he saw it.
There’ll be a lot of talk about his swansong game in Rome over the next few days, but my favourite goal of his was the 1974 FA Cup semi-final goal against Leicester City, our bogey side at the time. It’s a lofted volley on the run that he shouldn’t have even considered. It took us to Wembley where he destroyed his second love, Newcastle United, a month later.
Three years later he was gone. It was my first experience with footballing loss and I didn’t like it. What right had he to walk all over my eight-year-old heart by playing for someone I’d never heard of in Germany. At least it made my Dad happy, until his replacement made things worse for him.
Like Michael Owen two decades later, the national team took him to a wider audience and subsequently diluted my love for him, but he could never take away those early years. For me, Kevin Keegan was the starting line on this seemingly eternal race and I’m forever grateful for that.
When his death was announced today I had a raft of messages on my phone, many telling me that he was their first hero too. Not all of those messages are from Liverpool fans. Kevin Keegan represented the whole game in the 1970s.
I was still too young to go when he came back to Anfield just six months after his exit with his Hamburg side in the European Super Cup, and had to settle with radio commentary. There were no niceties on show. No slaps on the back. Liverpool won 6-0 – 7-1 on aggregate.
I was old enough to be there when his league return came after his move to Southampton in November 1981. This was my first visit to Anfield and his captaining the Saints felt significant. He’d got me there and here he was again. Like he’d topped and tailed my non-going years.
I met him a few years ago, outside Anfield after we’d beaten Newcastle in 2018. He took the piss out of my selfie skills. I love that photo. I love that I got to thank him for what he did for us.
Sleep well, Kev. You were still ours long after you left.
You never forget your first love.
