New Toon of glory greets Wor Kevin

Prodigal son Keegan never wanted to lead out another team at St James' but tonight's the night

FA Cup 5th round

Arsenal 5 Gillingham 2

Middlesbrough 1 Blackburn Rovers 0

Walsall 1 Fulham 2

West Bromwich Albion 1 Cheltenham Town 0

Previews

New Toon of glory greets Wor Kevin

Moyes silences the Fergie talk to stir the ghosts of Preston's past

It all started in August 1982, with a press conference at the Gosforth Park Hotel. Russell Cushing, the secretary of Newcastle United, cleared his throat and announced: "We've got Kevin and we're in heaven." He had hardly paused for effect when Bob Cass, the veteran North-east football writer, remarked: "It's a good job you didn't sign Richie Pitt, then."

Two decades on, it happens to be a moot point. Kevin Keegan's first coming on Tyneside raised Newcastle United out of the Richie Pitt of (olde) Second Division mediocity and 9,000 gates and put the Magpies back in the top flight with their home roost packed to the rafters. His second coming achieved even more, leading Newcastle from the brink of bankruptcy and the old Third Division to the brink of the Premiership title.

The fact is, though, that in two years at St James' Park as player and in five years there as a manager, Keegan never won a major trophy – unlike Richie Pitt, who was Dave Watson's central defensive partner in Sunderland's FA Cup winning side of 1973, the last North-east team to capture one of football's first-class honours.

If Bobby Robson's Newcastle overcome Keegan's Manchester City at St James' Park tonight and proceed to lift the FA Cup at Cardiff in May it will be the club's first big prize since their Fairs Cup success in 1969 and their first on the domestic front since May 1955, when Bobby Robson was a 22-year-old wing-half with Fulham, Kevin Keegan was a four-year-old preparing to start primary school in Armthorpe and Jackie Milburn's 45th- second header past Bert Trautmann set Newcastle on the road to a 3-1 FA Cup final win against Manchester City. Yet Keegan, in his seven years at St James' Park provided a degree of inspiration that even a stuffed and sparkling trophy cabinet would struggle to match.

That much was evident last Sunday when the Toon Army set up camp overnight to buy tickets for tonight's fifth-round tie. By the time the box office opened for business, at 9am on Monday, there were thousands in a queue that snaked round to the other side of the ground. St James' had seen nothing like it since tickets went on sale for the 1974 FA Cup final, in which the Newcastle team of Moncur, McDermott, Hibbitt and Macdonald lost 3-0 to Liverpool and 2-0 to a certain Kevin Keegan. "We would need a 100,000-seater stadium to accommodate the demand for this game," Freddy Shepherd, the Newcastle chairman, observed.

"It just sums up what Kevin Keegan means to the people up here," Mark Jensen, editor of the fanzine The Mag, reflected. "I mean, the match is live on telly – terrestrial telly, too. It is mad, when you think about it. People love Keegan for what he did for us. He has a special place in our hearts. But times have moved on. We've found someone who can more than fill his shoes now in Bobby Robson."

The great irony in that state of affairs is that Keegan's return will bring back into focus the time Bobby Robson became public enemy number one on Tyneside. With hindsight, Robson does not regret his omission of Keegan from the first squad he picked as England manager in 1982. He does, however, concede that he ought to have informed the former captain of his decision before announcing his squad – and provoking a public spat in more ways than one. Keegan vented his fury in the press and Robson was spat at and verbally abused when he next attended a match at St James'.

The rift has since been healed, though it would be ironic in the extreme if Robson were to succeed, in a season of such low-key expectation, where Keegan failed in a season of such great hope six years ago, and lead Newcastle to their first top-flight championship since 1927.

Much has been made of the 12-point lead Keegan's cavaliers let slip in 1996, but they missed out by the thickness of the Gallowgate End crossbar that kept out Philippe Albert's thundering free-kick when the Manchester United goal was under first-half siege in the match that turned the tide of the championship race.

"I don't really see it as a competition between Keegan and Robson," Mark Jensen said. "Keegan did a job that maybe nobody else could have done at that time, and I think it's the same with Bobby Robson now. He's done a job that maybe nobody else could have done." No Toon Army foot soldier would argue with that. Robson, 69 tomorrow, is assured of as pointedly a rapturous reception as Keegan, 51 on Valentine's Day, will be afforded before the fifth-round tie kicks off tonight.

It will be Keegan's first managerial engagement at St James' since he left five years ago complaining that football was taking second place to the club's planned Stock Market flotation. He said at the time that only one thing would bring him back, and he duly returned in January 1999 to play in Peter Beardsley's testimonial match. Chants of "Keegan! Keegan!" boomed round the ground as Fulham's "chief operating officer" took the field to replace Paul Gascoigne for the final 20 minutes.

"I'm pleased that tonight has given me a chance to say goodbye to the Toon Army," Keegan said afterwards. "It closes a chapter in my life in the nicest possible way, because the Newcastle supporters are fantastic people."

Keegan never did want to return to St James' Park as the manager of another team. That particular addendum will be penned tonight, though – with a script that will feature one of the Gallowgate Enders who queued for five hours to witness Wor Kevin's match-winning debut for Newcastle against Queen's Park Rangers 20 years ago. Alan Shearer, Toon Army member turned totem, was bought by Keegan not so much to dig Newcastle out of the Richie Pitt as win them a first-class trophy. The £15m man might do it yet.