Newcastle United manager Kevin Keegan put club before the country as he became one of Britain’s top-paid managers after committing himself to St James’ Park until June 1996. Club chairman explained that the move was to ward off constant speculation linking Keegan with the England job, a situation which had irritated the manager and the fans alike.
The contract was believed to be at around £250000 a year which would put him alongside Alex Ferguson of Manchester United and Kenny Daglish at Blackburn Rovers. Keegan had 18 months left on the contract.
Kevin Keegan said “I think when you’ve worked as hard as we have, you’ve got to be mental to walk away from it. It will stop a lot of the stupid speculation that has been going on. Fans were coming up to me to talk about it and I’ve had pages of letters from them going right back through the problems of the club. I thought “hey they don’t deserve that”.”
