Football: Tyneside sees former messiah take on Craven image

News that Kevin Keegan, regarded by Newcastle United fans as the messiah, should apparently be interested in returning to football with Fulham, albeit in an executive role, was greeted with some surprise on Tyneside, as Simon Turnbull discovered.

When Everton paid a yuletide visit to St James' Park the season before last, those of us passing the Strawberry pub were handed a leaflet on behalf of the Welbeck Road Evangelical Church in Newcastle. It posed the question: "Is Kevin Keegan the Messiah ?"

It did so in all seriousness, too, feeling the need to inform the congregation of St James': "Kevin Keegan may be Newcastle United's saviour but he is NOT God."

It was clear last night that Tyneside had got the message. It was not merely that the one-time messiah was about to assume a new Craven image. Eight months have passed since his mourned departure. Tyneside has simply learned to live without him.

The Talk of the Toon was as much of the match in hand, and of beating Barcelona, as of Keegan's return to football. The Evening Chronicle led the front page with the story, but BBC Radio Newcastle ranked it No 5 on its lunchtime bulletin, behind a Northumberland man caught snatching eggs.

The local radio station did, however, catch up with one man who has been idolized - if not deified - at St James' and who has succeeded in making Fulham Football Club something of a thriving Cottage industry.

Malcolm Macdonald, in fact, was the last manager to lead Fulham out of the bottom two divisions. "The club is sitting there waiting to be totally revitalised," he said. "I couldn't see Mohamed Al Fayed buying a small club to stay small."

Going back to the managerial days of Macdonald, in October 1982, it was at St James' Park that Fulham gained probably the most recent of their famous victories. Gordon Davies clipped the Magpies' wings in a 4-1 victory featured on Match of the Day. Keegan scored Newcastle's consolation goal.

He promised in those days that he would end his playing days by the banks of the Tyne and, true to his word, when he retired two years later it was to head for the golf course. After returning in 1992, Keegan always maintained he would never manage another club, not even Liverpool. There was not a little surprise on Tyneside that he had, apparently, chosen to take the reins of Fulham, albeit in an executive role.

"I must admit I didn't expect to see him back in football so quickly," Mark Jensen said outside the Strawberry, where he sells his fanzine, The Mag. "When he left here the reason given was that he was drained by football. It does seem a bit premature but I'm sure everyone here wishes him well."

Not quite everyone perhaps. When it was confirmed last week that Keegan's forthcoming autobiography would not be stocked at any of Newcastle's club shops, a spokesman was quoted as pointing out that "the author" was no longer employed by the club.

Mr G Smith, of Winlaton, writing to the Newcastle Journal, described the terse reference as "offensive, a disgrace and beyond belief." Saying that if the club did not recognise the achievement of taking Newcastle from a joke club to one of international reputation, "there are tens of thousands who will correct that view."

That view - Tyneside's reflective vision of the old messiah - may be in for more revision. Kevin Keegan: My Autobiography is expected to bite the hand that once fed.