He arrived as a player in 1982 and led the team back to the top-flight before hanging up his boots in the summer of 1984.
He returned as manager in 1992, saving the club from relegation to the old Third Division that year before leading the Magpies to the Premier League the following season.
From that point, the attacking brand of football he had the team playing saw Newcastle dubbed ‘The Entertainers’. Keegan was a hugely popular figure during that spell as Magpies boss but was initially viewed by many as an outside candidate to replace Sam Allardyce. Keegan has been out of football management since 2005 after a largely unsuccessful spell as Manchester City boss. As recently as October of 2007, Keegan had told the BBC’s Inside Sport that he would not get into management again as he was content in running his interactive football attraction Soccer Circus, which is based in Glasgow.
Gerard Houllier and Didier Deschamps were the names being linked with the position in the last two days but the club unexpectedly announced Keegan as the club’s new manager on their website this afternoon.
We’ll be post more on this as news emerges.
