The Fans – C4

“This final painting is a tribute to the fans who will always be there as players and managers come and go. The curve of the letter ‘C’ represents an arm in the crowd with the fist being the crown used previously for King Kev to signify his return. Another way of looking at it is that the fans are the kings and keegan is also a fan which if you look back at the previous painting ‘Goals Galore you can see I’ve used the same silhouette of keegan for the fan holding the scarf”

Another Manager Out

With club talisman Alan Shearer retired, and Michael Owen out injured for most of the season (he didn’t come back until 30 April 2007), the club’s strike force was substantially weakened in 2006. The team was also ravaged by injuries, and finished in 13th place. Newcastle were also embarrassed by Birmingham City in the 2006-07 F.A. Cup, Birmingham earning a replay at home with a last-minute equaliser to make the result 2-2, before comfortably demolishing Newcastle at St James’ Park by five goals to one. They also lost in the Round of 16 in the UEFA Cup on away goals to AZ Alkmaar, after winning the first leg 4-2.

Rumors of discontent in the dressing room were proved by more than one player refusing to play in the final games of the season, and Glenn Roeder resigned before the end of the season.Sam Allardyce replaced him after leaving Bolton Wanderers in April and brought in some of his own players, such as David Rozenahl, Cloudio Cacapa, Habib Beye, Alan Smith and Mark Viduka. The season started brightly for Newcastle, with two wins and two draws from their first five games, but they then became the first(and only) side to lose to Derby County that season. After that Newcastle won only 5 or their next Premier League games (and again could only draw with Derby in the reverse fixture). and a 3rd Round Draw with Stoke City.

This proved to be his last match in charge of Newcastle,because three days later he was sacked by owner Mike Ashley, after pressure from the fans, who were wanting success despite Sam Allardyce only having been there eight months.

There were a number of candidates lined up for the job, including Harry Redknapp, Didier Deschamps, Gerard Houllier and even former England Manager Steve McClaren. But on 16 january 2008, it was announced, after much speculation, that Kevin Keegan would be returning to the club for a third time, after previous spells both as a player and as a manager.

The announcement had an immediate impact. On that day the club had a scheduled FA Cup 3rd Round replay against Stoke, which was not expected to reach even 50% capacity. On distribution of the news, 20,000 extra tickets were sold within a couple of hours, and the kick off was delayed to allow the extra fans time to get into the game. The Keegan effect seemed to work on the pitch immediately too, as Newcastle beat Stoke convincingly 4-1, even though he was not in the dugout for the match, having arrived during the first half to sit with the directors.

Subsequently though, Keegan had a disastrous start, without a win in the following 8 games, an FA Cup exit, and talk even of a relegation dog fight. March 2008 proved to be a turning point, and following a change to an attacking line-up of three strikers, Martins and Viduka up front with Owen supporting, the team started to produce results, in time for Keegan to maintain his perfect record in the 2-0 home derby win on 20 April 2008, which secured mathematical safety from relegation, allowing Keegan to plan for his stated contract length of the next three full seasons at the club. With a 2-2 away draw for the following game at West Ham, the 8 game run of no wins had been turned into a 7 game unbeaten run, with two games left to the season. We lost the last two games to Chelsea and Everton.