Sideline Cut:History can be confusing. Standard Irish texts suggest that Ireland gained independence from Blighty early in the last century before spluttering and guessing its way to nationhood in the following decades. It was surprising, therefore, to learn this country is still firmly wedded to Empire, with Newcastle upon Tyne as its capital.
At least that seemed to be the only explanation for the deluge of breathless radio and television commentary and endless newspaper coverage about the troubled Geordie football outfit Newcastle United. "Nobody really gives a damn about this," I told myself, after the 250th bulletin of the day concerning the machinations to replace "Big" Sam Allardyce. Wrong again, of course. Wrong again.
Yes, in those madding days of uncertainty and rumour that followed Big Sam's woebegone if dignified departure from Newcastle, it seemed as if the identity of his successor was the most burning issue across modern Ireland.
In fairness, in the dark month of January, it offered something of a welcome distraction from the latest report that the globe is melting like a lemon popsicle in June and from the insistent fantasy that America is ready to put either a black man or any woman in the White House. Still, it was mystifying too.
Newcastle were never one of those English clubs traditionally adopted in the more brutal school days of yesteryear, when you either feigned support for Man U, Liverpool, Arsenal or got beaten up and ended up friendless, in therapy and much too good at the Rubik's Cube.
In recent times, Chelsea have come back into vogue and it is well documented that a generation of Irish kids suffered the bad luck of sharing their childhood with the brief and magisterial reign of Leeds United. That is not to suggest there are not Newcastle fans in this country and it is often said that the people on Tyneside are delightful - warm, garrulous and entirely impossible to understand.
Still, the way the country went this week it would have been no surprise had brown ale replaced the black stuff as the national drink of choice. But there was no doubt that radio and television people had their fingers on the pulse. Nobody in Ireland was talking about anything besides the Newcastle job. At a supermarket check-out in the heart of the country, one lady called across at an elderly gentleman wearing an authentic Faustino Asprilla shirt and rooting through the cauliflower basket, "That boy was only a shaper compared to Dazzler Mitchell."
At Mass on Sunday, the priest departed from his sermon to recall the days of Jackie Milburn. This newspaper pushed weighty political matters to the side to facilitate a lengthy editorial headed "The fog on the Tyne", which analysed the folly of Kevin Keegan's daredevil attacking game, noting that the Latin motto on the crest, Fortier Defendit Triumphans, translates as "Triumphing by brave defence". Enda Kenny revealed that Fine Gael were considering adopting the motto.
Up North, Edwin Poots, the Northern Ireland sports minister, attended three-quarters of a GAA match in the company of the GAA president, Nickey Brennan, and it is reported they spent most of the second half deep in conversation about the complexities of the Smith/Viduka forward axis.
Down easily beat Donegal, whose players were rumoured to have been disappointed by the news Alan Shearer was not taking over at Tyneside. One Donegal defender admitted he didn't really have the heart to chase down his man as he kept thinking of poor Shay Given, without a manager over there in that city of coal and football.
As the days - nay, the hours - ticked on with hourly bulletins of Newcastle's failure to land this manager or that, the thought occurred this is how it must have been for those who lived through the Cuban missile crisis: tense but undeniably exciting. I began to realise I was guilty of not watching the Toon Army team play "live" as often as I should have. In fact, I probably hadn't seen a Newcastle match since the famous shoot-out they lost 4-3 to Liverpool. It was shocking to learn that the match took place a little under 12 years ago. How time flies.
That was the period when Newcastle reasserted themselves as the club that almost always won things with panache only to finish runners-up. It was soon forgotten, after Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson crushed Kevin Keegan in the psychological war of words at the climax of the 1995-1996 season, that Newcastle had hammered Manchester 5-0 during that same season. They blew a 12-point top-of-the-table lead and were left with nothing but David Ginola smiling at them from television as he sold beauty products.
It is true that for the next 10 years the sight of Shearer regularly and infuriatingly raising his left arm in a no-nonsense Yorkshire-born-and-bred goal celebration was a common one. But all in all, Newcastle and their fans seemed content to meander along locked in their own private world of frustrated ambition.
But Kevin Keegan's decision to step back into the spotlight, to become the "Messiah" yet again, changes all that. Newcastle will be impossible to ignore now that KK is back, greyer, stockier and, hopefully, crazier than ever after all these years. I can't imagine there is a single person on earth who could dislike Kevin Keegan.
Those who have no memory of the days when he strode the continent with that insane mane of curls and that unfeasibly muscular frame will probably recall his last period as king of Newcastle, when he brought warmth and light to that tough, Northern river town and said so many wonderful things.
Things like, "England have the best fans in the world and Scotland's are second to none." "I don't think there is anyone bigger or smaller than Maradona." "Goalkeepers aren't born today until they are in their late 20s or 30s." "The 33 or 34-year-olds will be 35 or 36 by the time the next World Cup comes around - if they are not careful."
Keegan's observations have often been lampooned as nonsensical. That is just not the case: Oscar Wilde would have been proud of any of those gems.
It was touching, watching Alan Shearer on the BBC football couch on the night of KK's homecoming. Shear-ah is normally a bleak and pessimistic type of footie pundit, but on this occasion he was like a kid with too much chocolate, giddy and high-voiced, and you could see in his eyes he was begging and praying that the suave Gary Lineker (who was evilly toying with the Tyneside boy) would tell him that, yes, KK wanted him to be his number two at St James' Park.
Shearer admitted he was open to offers. In fact, he all but said he would work for free. They were calling Keegan and Shearer "the dream ticket" all over Ireland this week - and possibly in Newcastle too.
The "Magpies" play Bolton this afternoon, and in Ireland the grassroots would "love it if we beat them - LOVE IT".
