Football and Music

Look barcodes fans you are kidding yourself. It’s not the same football as Keegan walked away from when he was the England boss. It’s not the same Premier League that KK walked away from 11 years ago and again 3 years ago. He can’t resign in the toilet this time. He has to stay and face it. Can’t run away this time. The only chance of getting away this time is when he gets “mutuallly consented.” Which should be in only a few months time…

I really don’t understand why he decided to return. I think it is because he’s spent a few years out of the spotlight now and has maybe forgotten about all the scrutiny, the pressure, the expectation… which will be in triplicate now. But it is football. Like the clowns in the circus ring, like the Toreador in the bullring, the sawdust gets in your blood (and possibly in KK’s case - his head) and it’s something that you can’t leave behind.

Rolling out another cliché now - You can never. Should never. Go back. All right I admit that he presence might spurn a mini-resurgence and Newcastle might actually play better but they’ve got to realise that they are not that big a club any more.
KK will have only a couple of weeks before the transfer window closes and I can’t see any likely signings coming in so he’ll have to work with Big Sam’s squad. Newcastle are currently 11th in the table and at the time of writing still in the cup. But all this wasn’t good enough for their fans, they want to rollercoaster ride that Kev took them on last time which will include some alarming dips this time, trust me. Sacrificing your midtable obscurity just so you can see better football ? Strange wish to have.

For this season anyway Newcastle will have to post the excuse of rebuilding after a rocky start. Will the messiah be there at the end ? Will there be a relegation dogfight or challenge for a European Cup place before that. Only time will tell.

In the meantime back in time with a song by the Don Juans who half talk/half sing about when KK was first signed and they reminisce about the glory days (as usual… actually is there anybody still alive who remembers their last cup win ?).

» Don Juans - Wor Kev

Until I find his 1973 release this will be the last time I mention KK and the Barcodes.
There’s been enough mentions already.

After this breaking news I’m sure that there will be many google searches for the original curly perm. Below are links to KK’s musical output plus a couple of other interesting related posts:

» KK - Head Over Heels In Love

» KK - Move On Down

» KK - In England

- Here’s a tribute after he left. » Busker - Thank You Kevin
Time for a follow-up welcoming him back again I think.

- Finally a visual feast of video and photographs for you to drool over: » KK In Pictures

Edit & update: One more and that’s it. Enough already. » Don Juan - Wor Kev

On a personal note I would like to emulate Busker’s words by thanking you Kevin for making this stupid return. It is partly because of your musical output that I got the idea for F & M.

I hope that some enterprising record company will leap onto this bandwagon and gather all his material together - I’m still looking for his appearance on Little and Large in which he sang with them on the show, there was also a little know single released in 1973 called It Ain’t Easy. If anybody out there spots these then give me a shout.

Last one in this KK themed week:

A tribute song done after KK had legged it resigned from the Barcodes.

- A quick reminder of that period from this excellent page about Kev »

It was little surprise to see Kevin’s return to top football management. The king of motivators returned at Newcastle United, which had barely survived relegation to the (old) third Division the season before. It was a triumphant return for Kevin, as he immediately helped the club win the Division One Championship (1992-93) ensuring that the Newcastle United were around for the Premiership from its second season of formation. His god-like status as a player for Newcastle thus continued in his new role as manager, and in subsequent seasons Newcastle finished 3rd, 6th, and runners-up to Manchester United.

But by the next season, the pressure was beginning to tell, a 9 point Championship lead in February 1996 slowly eroded away, and by March Man U were on top again. The Manchester United manager, Sir Alex Ferguson’s gamesmanship got the better of wor Kev. On 29 April, Newcastle beat Leeds United 1-0 to record the side’s third win on the trot, and believing Sir Alex had tried to stir up the Leeds players to win 12 days earlier, Kevin flipped on a Sky TV interview.

All cruel fans just love to see it repeated again and again. Not least because Newcastle ultimately bottled it, in spite of - or maybe because of - Kevin’s high emotions, and were runners-up to Manchester United for the second season on the trot. Halfway through the next campaign, Kevin left the club - curiously to be replaced by Kenny Dalglish as he had been as a player at Liverpool.

Heady days. Not seen since.

I can understand after what happened in KK’s steerage of the club that somebody would pick up a guitar and compose a tune. Luckily it wasn’t Ant & Dec.

Ronnie Lambert, under the alias of “Busker” is a musician from Gateshead who has sung and released a CD of tunes dedicated to Newcastle Utd.

On that album is this track wrote especially for wor Kev:

» Busker - Thank You Kevin

As mentioned the other day I discovered that KK had attempted chart success three times. Head Over Heels wasn’t his first crack at it. In fact he started earlier than this with a single which sadly I didn’t have any success in finding.

I did find the info about the record - It was released in 1973 and the song was “It Ain’t Easy”. But no success with any audio. If anyone out there does have this in their possession, or knows the whereabouts to purchase a copy give me a shout.

Until then we’ll have to make do with the B side to Head Over Heels in which Kev and his chums let their hair dow… uncurls his perm a bit, loosens his wide lapels and lets his bellbottoms swing and rocks out with…

» Kev Keegan - Move On Down

“Hey Hey !

Welcome to Keegan’s Klassic Klips…

What was that ?”

*Looks around*

“Oh this can’t be good…

Roll the clips.”

Edit: MickMills also reminded me of a bit of football/musical/televisual history which I forgot about but cursing myself as soon as I remembered. It was a Jess Conrad level of craptacular when KK got together to sing with Little and Large on their TV show. Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on how you look at it - this moment of Light Entertainment hell doesn’t exist anymore. Unless you know different…

Next up - A slideshow with some memories of the curly perm: