The death of Kevin Keegan at the age of 75, announced on Monday, closes a chapter on one of English football’s most charismatic and emotionally charged careers. The former Liverpool, Hamburg and Newcastle United forward, who won the European Cup and three league titles at Anfield before claiming back-to-back Ballons d’Or in 1978 and 1979, had been battling cancer. His passing prompted an immediate suspension of media coverage from Hamburg’s training camp in Austria, where the club held a minute’s silence for the man they called “Mighty Mouse” and for Uwe Seeler, whose fourth death anniversary fell on the same day.

Keegan’s playing prime was defined by a telepathic partnership with John Toshack at Liverpool, where Bill Shankly plucked him from Scunthorpe United for £35,000 in 1971. He scored on his debut against Nottingham Forest and went on to deliver two goals in the 1974 FA Cup final demolition of Newcastle, prompting the BBC’s David Coleman to remark that “goals pay the rent and Keegan pays his share.” A move to Hamburg in 1977 brought a difficult first season but then the Bundesliga title in 1979, ending the club’s 19-year wait, before a European Cup final defeat to Nottingham Forest the following year. He remains one of only four English players to win the Ballon d’Or twice.

It was as a manager, however, that Keegan forged his deepest bond with a fanbase. Returning to Newcastle in 1992, he guided the club to promotion and then assembled a side featuring David Ginola, Faustino Asprilla and Philippe Albert that finished second in the 1995-96 Premier League. Sir Alex Ferguson, whose Manchester United team overhauled a 12-point deficit to snatch the title, told Track Radio that Keegan “carried the love of the game on his sleeve” and had built Newcastle’s “best ever team.” The season’s defining image was Keegan’s live television outburst — “I will love it if we beat them” — yet Ferguson later recalled a chance meeting at a pub near Wentworth Golf Club where the rivalry dissolved over a piano, with no grudges held.

Tributes from across the game underscored the breadth of Keegan’s impact. Alan Shearer, whom Keegan signed for a world-record £15 million in 1996, called him “a man everyone loved.” Newcastle’s current manager Eddie Howe, who sought Keegan’s counsel upon his own appointment, described a mentor who “understood better than most the privilege and responsibility of leading Newcastle United.” In Germany, Hamburg’s board member Eric Huwer addressed 300 travelling supporters in Längenfeld, hailing Keegan as a figure who “shaped not only HSV but the whole football world.” Former England teammate Sir Trevor Brooking remembered a bubbly character who was never shy of making jokes, often at Brooking’s expense.

Keegan’s autobiography, co-written with a journalist who received a recording device as a gift from Keegan’s wife Jean, revealed a man who rarely spoke of his own accolades. His legacy now rests on the emotion he stirred: the Kop’s roar, the Bundesliga title reclaimed, and a Tyneside club re-energised. Newcastle’s supporters laid flowers outside St James’ Park, a quiet marker of a connection that outlasted any single season.