Kevin Keegan, England and Newcastle Icon, Dies at 75
Kevin Keegan, winner of back-to-back Ballon d'Or awards, European champion with Liverpool and manager of Newcastle's Entertainers, has died at 75 after a battle with cancer.
Kevin Keegan, the former England captain and manager who won back-to-back Ballon d'Or awards and built the Newcastle United side remembered as "The Entertainers", has died at the age of 75 after a battle with cancer, Sky Sports reported.
Across five decades Keegan stood at the center of English football in a way few others have managed: champion of Europe as a player at Liverpool, twice named the best footballer on the continent at Hamburg, captain of his country, and later the most watchable manager of the early Premier League era.
From Scunthorpe to back-to-back Ballon d'Or
Signed by Liverpool from Scunthorpe United in 1971, Keegan became the driving force of Bill Shankly's rebuilt team. In six seasons at Anfield he won three First Division titles, the FA Cup in 1974, two UEFA Cups and, in his final match for the club, the 1977 European Cup against Borussia Mönchengladbach in Rome.
He then moved to Hamburg, where he was voted European Footballer of the Year in 1978 and again in 1979 — still the only English player to win the Ballon d'Or twice — and led the club to the 1979 Bundesliga title and the 1980 European Cup final. Back in England he was the First Division's leading scorer with Southampton before dropping a division to join Newcastle United in 1982, firing the club to promotion in his final season as a player.
For England he won 63 caps and scored 21 goals, captaining the side for much of the late 1970s and early 1980s.
The Entertainers and 'I would love it'
Keegan returned to Newcastle as manager in 1992 with the club sliding toward the third tier, won promotion within a year, and by 1995-96 had them top of the Premier League playing the most admired attacking football in the country. That side — Beardsley, Ginola, Ferdinand, and later a world-record £15m Alan Shearer — surrendered a 12-point lead to Manchester United, and Keegan's live-television "I will love it if we beat them" outburst from April 1996 remains one of the defining moments of the Premier League age.
He went on to manage Fulham and then England, resigning in October 2000 after a defeat to Germany in the final match played at the old Wembley. He won promotion to the Premier League with Manchester City in 2002 and returned to Newcastle for a brief second spell in 2008.
Sky Sports said Keegan had been ill with cancer. His two Ballon d'Or trophies remain unmatched by any English player, and at St James' Park no manager since has carried the bond he held with the club's supporters. He was 75.
