Kevin Keegan, a two-time Ballon d’Or winner and football star who captained and coached England and won the European Cup with Liverpool, has died. He was 75.
Keegan’s death was announced on Tuesday by his former club Newcastle, where he was both a player and coach.
Kevin Keegan greets the crowd in 2008. Getty
Keegan revealed last month that he had stage 4 cancer.
For a time in the 1970s, Keegan transcended the English game thanks to his celebrity status.
One of four Englishmen to win the Ballon d’Or, he was more than just a brilliant footballer who combined agility and goal-seeking with the unrelenting hunger and work ethic stemming from his working-class upbringing in northern England.
He was also a trendsetter off the pitch with his haircut – a perm that other footballers across Europe began to imitate – and his move into celebrity culture, which saw him release a single, appear in an aftershave advert with heavyweight great Henry Cooper and appear on TV shows.
Keegan was also something of a pioneer in his sport, as he was one of the first English players to join a continental team when he left Liverpool, where he had just won the European Cup, for German club Hamburg in 1977.
It was in Hamburg that he won the Ballon d’Or twice (in 1978 and 1979) (he was then named European Footballer of the Year) and appeared in another European Cup final, losing to Nottingham Forest in 1980.
Keegan scored 21 goals in 63 caps for England and played at the 1982 World Cup, his only appearance on football’s biggest stage after the country failed to qualify for the 1974 and 1978 tournaments.