MICHAEL WALKER SOCCER ANGLES:Keegan altered the culture beyond football. He stimulated interest in Newcastle as a place

REMEMBER THE old days, when you left Ireland by boat? I think they were called the 1980s.

Well, for some of us they were the 1980s, maybe for you it was the 50s, 60s or 70s. Leaving Belfast as a teenager in 1984, you headed past your local checkpoint and down to the docks to get the overnight ferry to Liverpool.

Waking up and seeing the swollen Mersey was amazing. From there it was a trek to Lime Street station and from there a four-hour train journey through Manchester, across the Pennines and up to Newcastle-upon-Tyne. You remember the first time you see that bridge.

That is one city landmark, another is Grey's Monument. But on the top of the hill fringing the city centre is arguably Newcastle's true calling card: St James' Park. You remember the first time you see it, too.

That first game I went to three days after arriving was Newcastle United versus West Ham United, and, given the events at both clubs this week, the memory returned. No one forgets Billy Bonds.

Kevin Keegan had just left Newcastle - as now - though then it was in a helicopter in front of an adoring public.

This week it was via a side door, pushed out by people who think they know and understand more than Keegan. Ditto Alan Curbishley at West Ham.

So I missed Keegan first time around at Newcastle, but everyone talked about him with reverence, so much so that his impact on the club and the city could not be overstated.

Keegan had inspired a yo-yo club upwards to promotion before he retired, but at least two of the beguiling attacking triumvirate remained, Peter Beardsley and Chris Waddle.

Beardsley scored that day against West Ham, but that is not one of the sights and sounds that stuck. More so was outside the Gallowgate End, where striking miners were collecting in buckets. Today that patch of land is Shearer's Bar. This was a different time.

Also shuffling around outside that day, and only slightly less conspicuous, were the National Front. Racism, something not encountered in all-white, other-issues Belfast, was surprisingly open. Swaying on the cracked concrete Gallowgate terrace, suddenly you were not far from people throwing bananas at West Ham winger Bobby Barnes. Waddle was forced to throw two away when taking a corner.

Meanwhile, at the other end of the roofless stadium, sporadic but serious hooliganism was taking place. Londoners coming up to the northeast for a scrap; that rang a bell this week, too.

Settling in the city, you came to realise the enormity of the club in people's lives. This is not unique, it can be seen and heard in Glasgow, Liverpool and Manchester as well - and the number of clubs in London is often overlooked.

England's capital has a passion.

What set Newcastle - and Sunderland - apart was their one-club reality and that the ardour still brimmed decades after they were any good.

People were not watching the team because of success or glamorous players, it was because some folk memory compelled them to do so. It's what you do, it's who we are.

Kevin Keegan changed that. Not long after that West Ham match, Bruce Springsteen played a benefit gig for miners' wives at St James'. Everybody said it was nearly as good as seeing Keegan there.

Keegan made ever more supporters walk to St James' because he inspired them as a player and then as their manager with a team and with an ethos. Keegan is no saint as a man, but there is enough of Bill Shankly's purity within him to make people believe when he talked about the meaning of football in this city. Only truly significant football men can change the geography of the game - Alex Ferguson in Aberdeen, Brian Clough in Nottingham, Shankly in Liverpool. Before them all, Herbert Chapman did it at Huddersfield and Arsenal.

Some say Keegan does not merit that company because, ultimately, the Newcastle team of the mid-1990s fell just short. But what Keegan did in that period, for which satellite television and the breakaway Premier League should be grateful forever, was to re-establish it as the country's premier social-sporting activity again.

On Sky's 10th anniversary - or was it 15th? - they named their top-10 matches covered. Five involved Newcastle, the team that have not won one Premier League - or indeed the league title since 1927.

Keegan altered the culture, and beyond football. He helped recharge a nation's football batteries. To some of us that is a definition of success.

Keegan also stimulated interest in Newcastle as a place. There are plenty within this city who regard the bricks-and-mortar rejuvenation of the past 15 years to be cosmetic, and there is no doubt that it is fraying around more than just the edges. There is a different sort of energy to 1984, but it can feel brash as opposed to genuinely self-confident. At least the redevelopment of the river is a massive improvement.

You can debate Keegan's role in any of this beyond the stadium. But it will be interesting to note in decades to come which individuals are remembered on Tyneside for making a difference.

On that night in January when Keegan returned and sat beside owner Mike Ashley, you could see Keegan pointing to the expanded, roofed Gallowgate and imagine him explaining how it was when he first came. Keegan changed that.

The eight months or so since have not been anything like the first time around. Ashley swiftly stopped believing in the man he appointed. That is not Keegan's fault. Now those inside the building are beginning to sneer at Keegan, as Newcastle United becomes something else in football you can't believe.

Money talks rubbish

IT WOULD be obtuse not to mention Manchester City after one of the finest weeks in their history. How good it is for them that they have been bought by one Dr Sulaiman al-Fahim from Abu Dhabi.

Like Roman Abramovich at Chelsea and Mike Ashley at Newcastle, al-Fahim must be a great fella, and smart. Look at all the money he has.

Some of the most powerful voices within professional football wonder why some fans have turned their back on the game and why there are so many empty seats when they are busy coming up with great ideas, such as the 39th step.

Al-Fahim probably thinks it's the future, and he just happens to be developing a "sporting complex" that will be the pride of the Middle East. The £2 billion being spent by rival emirate Dubai on their Sports City will doubtless have to be trumped.

Won't it be great when Manchester City are playing matches there and Mark Hughes is photographed with Pamela Anderson writhing up against him, as al-Fahim has been? Hughes is a proper football man being transported into a parallel universe on a magic carpet made of cash.

You wonder why this is happening when the perfect product for these oh-so-smart men is already out there. It's called Formula One. Maybe it's because Formula One is crap.

Two Tribes Still

SO THE reaction to the death of Tommy Burns in May did not matter after all. At the first Old Firm derby since Burns' death - and the attendance of Walter Smith and Ally McCoist at the funeral - sectarianism returned to Glasgow with its far-from-delightful vengeance. Surprise, surprise.

Inside Parkhead, the old "party tunes" made an appearance, while afterwards Neil Lennon, now a coach at Celtic, was punched unconscious in a bar in the west end. Some are reserving judgment as to whether this was just a run-of-the- mill occurrence, unrelated to an Old Firm derby. Yeah, right.

Part of Lennon might think walking away from Glasgow would represent a form of defeat, but what future is there for him in that city now? More danger and violence. If he becomes manager of Celtic, how much will that up the ante for the bigots who hate him?

The level of malevolence in Glasgow is long-known, but it can still shock, and the optimism- inducing reaction to the death of Tommy Burns turns out to be a sideshow. Glasgow's Miles Better, another thing you can't believe.