Newcastle’s Kevin Keegan tifo against Liverpool was one of the finest Premier League designs of the past decade.
01St James’ Park · Newcastle
The Entertainers
The words on the banner came from Keegan’s autobiography and referred to the legend he created as Newcastle manager in the early 1990s. When he took over in 1991/92, Newcastle had at one point been in danger of relegation from Division Two. In 1993/94, their first season after promotion, they surged to third place in the Premier League. By 1995/96, the side known as the ‘Entertainers’ led Manchester United by twelve points at the top. Ferguson eventually overturned that lead, but Keegan had transformed the idea that Newcastle could challenge for the Premier League title from fantasy into reality.
02Class and self-limitation
Knowing your place
Britain is a society highly conscious of class, and of knowing one’s place. Once a class order exists, it brings a fatalism in which everyone is expected to remain where they belong. What position a club ought to occupy, and how far a person can reasonably go, are constrained by an invisible force warning individuals and groups not to overreach.
Newcastle had accepted their place as a club short of resources and perpetually moving between divisions. Keegan strongly resisted that kind of self-domestication.
03Permission to dream
Why not?
‘Why not?’ Why shouldn’t they?
Someone says it cannot be done. You ask why, and they cannot give you a real reason.
So why not go and do it?
Until a goal has been conclusively proved impossible, do not rush to impose a ceiling on yourself.
Permission to dream: that is the most precious thing Keegan left Newcastle, and perhaps the world.