“Sir Alex Ferguson crossed a line, and therein lies the difference between me and him, that’s how he won 13 league titles and I won none” Kevin Keegan on Newcastle United’s 1995/96 Premier League challenge 30 years on from the ‘Love it’ rant

We beat West Ham in our next game before losing to Arsenal and then suffering the heartache of losing 4-3 against Liverpool at Anfield in that famous game. On a terrible pitch, we should have won that game twice over, but we came away with nothing.

In the final minute, Stan Collymore scored Liverpool’s winner by beating Pavel Srnicek at the near post, which I always thought he should have saved. Pavel never thought I completely trusted him, and he was probably right.

I always felt I could have had a better goalkeeper at Newcastle, but never got one. We didn’t ever have a truly great goalkeeper during my whole time there. That’s not an insult to Pavel, Shaka Hislop or any of the others; it’s just the way it was. If we had Peter Schmeichel in our goal, we would have won the league, even if he might have been a little bit busier playing for us.

There’s no use pretending we didn’t mentally collapse towards the end of the season. We played under incredible tension. Chances were dropping to players you would expect to finish them, but we were snatching at them and missing them.

What would I have done differently? I can honestly say nothing. I am often told I should have been more defensive in the run-in, but I didn’t have the players to play another way. We were built to play attacking football, and had done that for three years.

What did people expect me to say to my team, ‘Ok guys, we are 12 points clear, we are playing fantastic football, but do you know what? I am now going to change the way we play. I am going to leave out David Ginola and put another defender on.’ I mean, come on! That just was never going to happen!

Of course, if someone said to me now you could turn the clock back and put two more defenders in, and play a few shit games, then you probably would just to get a trophy to Newcastle.

We had one way of playing that had got us to there, and we were stuck with it. We were the entertainers. Maybe history will judge that we did too much entertaining, and we should have shut up shop more, but I didn’t have the players to do that.

In February, I’d bought Faustino Asprilla from Parma for £6.7 million to help us win the league, and some have suggested his arrival was a reason for us falling short, because we started to lose games after that. But that’s not fair, that’s simply looking for a scapegoat; he also won us games we would have otherwise lost.

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“I would love it….”

By the end of March, Man United had overtaken us at the top of the table, and so we were now forced to play catch-up. They had cemented their lead over us in April with a narrow 1-0 win over Leeds United, who had annoyed Alex Ferguson with their battling performance.

My understanding is that a furious Ferguson actually asked the Leeds manager Howard Wilkinson if he could go to the press, and more or less say that Leeds should be ashamed of themselves because they should play like that every week.

The sole reason he did that is because he knew we still had to go to Elland Road to play Leeds, and so he was suggesting they would not try as hard against us, and wanted to challenge them and their commitment, and throw down the gauntlet to them to beat us.

This really annoyed me because I thought Alex Ferguson was having a go at football, and suggesting that players wouldn’t try hard enough. The suggestion was that they only tried hard against him and Man United. I was not buying that. Everyone tries hard against everyone. That is what made me so angry.

On April 29th, after we had been to Leeds and won 1-0, I faced the Sky cameras for an interview and let it be known just how much he had annoyed me. This became known as my famous rant.

This is what I said: “When you do that, with footballers, like he [Alex Ferguson] said about Leeds… I’ve kept really quiet, but I’ll let you something, he went down in my estimation when he said that. We have not resorted to that. But I’ll tell you, you can tell him now if you’re watching it, we’re still fighting for this title, and he’s got to go to Middlesbrough and get something, and I tell you honestly, I will love it if we beat them. Love it!”

I don’t regret it even now. What he had said had really annoyed me, and I let that be known. It was just pure emotion. The interview was down the line with cans on my ears, and people always speak loudly with them on, you just don’t realise how loud you’re talking. I got on the bus afterwards, saw the interview and couldn’t believe I was shouting so much.

What does annoy me though, is the myth that has built up that I lost Newcastle the title because of this rant, and that it made my players nervous and unsettled, which is simply not true.

United were three points ahead of us with a game to play, and while we still had two games to play, their goal difference was worth another point. The title had effectively already gone.

Ferguson crossed a line

On the final weekend, they had to go to Middlesbrough, managed by a former Man United great, Bryan Robson, and get a win, whereas we had to hope they lost that, and beat both Nottingham Forest and Tottenham in our final two games. It was never going to happen.

Sir Alex crossed a line, and therein lays the difference between me and him, and that’s how he won 13 league titles and I won none.

I don’t hold a grudge against him. I wouldn’t say we’re friends – we don’t go out for dinner, we’ve never been close – but there is a mutual respect there. He has since phoned me up and asked me to do a favour for a charity his friend runs, which I did.

People say we lost that league, but United won it. Look at their record after Christmas. They just kept winning. On that final day, they won again at Middlesbrough, while we could only draw at home with Tottenham to finish four points behind them in the table.

The whole mood was different that day, myself and the players knew we had gone. At the final whistle, I hated doing a lap of honour because I didn’t feel it was justified. I get you have to thank the fans at the end of the season, but the disappointment was so intense, I didn’t want to walk around like that.

At the time, we had nothing to show for a fantastic season, as back then you didn’t even get a Champions League place for finishing second, but on reflection, I am still proud of what we achieved.

They say no one ever remembers who finishes second in the league, but people remember us for doing it that season. We were everyone’s second-favourite team. They will always remember the entertainment we gave them and the way we played.