Swansong

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

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