{"id":552352,"date":"2026-07-21T13:40:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-21T13:40:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/552352\/"},"modified":"2026-07-21T13:40:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-21T13:40:10","slug":"the-utmost-respect-for-him-alex-ferguson-pays-tribute-to-kevin-keegan-newcastle-united","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/552352\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018The utmost respect for him\u2019: Alex Ferguson pays tribute to Kevin Keegan | Newcastle United"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sir Alex Ferguson has saluted Kevin Keegan for building Newcastle\u2019s \u201cgreatest team\u201d. Keegan, who had cancer, died on Monday<\/a> at the age of 75 and Ferguson has joined the tributes for one of football\u2019s most endearing characters<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Ferguson and Keegan were involved a fierce battle for Premier League supremacy, with Ferguson\u2019s Manchester United<\/a> pipping Newcastle to the title in 1996. \u201cI had the utmost respect for him,\u201d Ferguson told Track Radio. \u201cWe had many duels when he was manager of Newcastle, but the job he did at Newcastle was fantastic. He re-energised that club and he brought that enthusiasm and fanaticism great supporters can give.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd he also brought three great players to the club \u2013 [David] Ginola, [Faustino] Asprilla, Philippe Albert \u2013 and added a bit of class to the team. The challenges we had with Newcastle at that time were huge.\u201d<\/p>\n

Keegan, frustrated by Ferguson\u2019s comments in the media towards the end of the tense title fight, memorably ranted at the Scot in a television interview<\/a>. Despite that, Ferguson remained friendly with the former Liverpool and England striker and admired Keegan\u2019s impressive rebuilding job at Newcastle.<\/p>\n

The club were in danger of relegation to the third tier when Keegan took over, but he saved them from that fate and then won promotion to the Premier League in 1993. Keegan made Newcastle so dynamic they were referred to as \u201cthe entertainers\u201d.<\/p>\n

Ferguson believes the title runners-up were the best team in the club\u2019s history. \u201cKevin carried the love of the game on his sleeve, there\u2019s no question about that, and that carried right on to the fans, to the players,\u201d he said. \u201cThat period at Newcastle was of emotion, it was excitement. They brought these great players to the club and they added to it, and it gave Newcastle \u2013 I think \u2013 their best ever team.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tributes at St James\u2019 Park for Kevin Keegan, who died on Monday Photograph: Owen Humphreys\/PA<\/p>\n

Ferguson said he and Keegan had bumped into each other at a pub near Wentworth golf club a few weeks after that season. They spent the night around a piano with all thoughts of the rivalry forgotten. \u201cThe great thing about him, he held no grudges,\u201d Ferguson said. \u201cThat was a fantastic quality he had and we had a great night.<\/p>\n

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\u201cAll aside whatever happened in previous weeks, that was soon forgotten. I really respected him for that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sir Alex Ferguson has saluted Kevin Keegan for building Newcastle\u2019s \u201cgreatest team\u201d. Keegan, who had cancer, died on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":552353,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[85,46,105],"class_list":["post-552352","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552352","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=552352"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552352\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/552353"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=552352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=552352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=552352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}