Like Messi or Ronaldo: HSV idol Keegan first pop star in the Bundesliga

Kevin Keegan will be 70 on Sunday. Old companions of Hamburger SV will tell their experiences with the first pop star in the Bundesliga.

Love stories usually start differently. Günter Netzer joined HSV as a manager in the summer of 1978, one year after Kevin Keegan. When he first met the superstar, he remembered: “He didn’t even greet me when I came to see him. He just said: ‘So that you know, I want to get out of here!’ Those were his first words. ”

The good thing for Netzer and Hamburg was that Keegan didn’t have the normal case. His companions in Germany tell of many extraordinary things. In all respects. The Englishman played exceptionally well, trained exceptionally hard, was exceptionally entertaining. And in view of its popularity ratings, it is extraordinarily down to earth. “Nobody,” says Horst Hrubesch today, “was like Kevin. He was an original. If he didn’t exist, he would have to be invented.”

First a lot of envy, then love only at second sight

Nevertheless, love with the Hanseatic city required the much-cited second look. Netzer won it from Keegan because, after a disappointing premiere year in which Hamburger SV disappointed in terms of sport and the star shopping was greeted with envy and resentment by his colleagues, he clearly promised to make a radical cut. He exchanged established players for hungry second division players like Hrubesch and Bernd Wehmeyer, and he signed Branko Zebec as a coach.

Back then it was like Messi or Ronaldo were coming to the Bundesliga today.

It was the belated beginning of a love story. The 1.70-meter-short captain of the English national team became the big number. To the “Mighty Mouse”, the mighty mouse. Keegan became the first superstar in the Bundesliga. Wehmeyer was still at Hannover 96 when Hamburg’s President Dr. Peter Krohn Keegan had kicked off Liverpool FC for 2.3 million marks, he draws this comparison: “Back then it was as if Messi or Ronaldo were coming to the Bundesliga today,” explains Wehmeyer.

“A certain Berti Vogts is still dizzy today”

The fact that Krohn was in London in the summer of 1977 to actually sign Stan Bowles from the Queens Park Rangers fits in with the love at second sight. Keegan had won the European Cup of national champions against Borussia Mönchengladbach a few days earlier with the Reds, and Wehmeyer believes “that a certain Berti Vogts is still dizzy today because of Kevin”. The tempo dribbler was actually at least one size too big for HSV, but Krohn heard Keegan say on BBC television during his stay in England that he was looking for a new challenge.

The HSV was the only club in Europe willing to finance this, so we went to Hamburg on the spur of the moment. “Dr. Krohn,” says Wehmeyer, “wasn’t known for minimalism.” Keegan neither. That’s why he just wanted to leave after 10th place. He told the English magazine “Men only” after his first year: “Our fans were almost always drunk. But I think it was because we had a terrible season. What we offered was sometimes so bad that it was better to get drunk. ”

In the following years, of course, there was reason to celebrate. For the HSV. And for Keegan. The Brit contributed 17 goals to the 1979 league title and was named Europe’s Footballer of the Year in 1978 and 1979. And left a lot more than a title. “He was the league’s first pop star,” says Hrubesch. And that even in the literal sense. With Chris Norman from the British band “Smokie” he recorded the single “Head over heels in love” in Hamburg. ”

Our fans were almost always drunk. Sometimes what we offered was so bad that it was better to get drunk.

But he wasn’t madly in love with the Hanseatic city, love has grown. But then it was intense on both sides. And Wehmeyer is certain that Keegan was the first to have so much influence on football and the show around it precisely because he did not see business as such. “Kevin was just like that. He didn’t see it as a business at all. He just did what he felt like doing.” And that was a lot. In all matters, especially on the training ground. “He came to HSV as a world star,” says Wehmeyer, “but he never turned down an autograph request, he trained like someone who still has to recommend himself. The word load control simply didn’t exist with him. Kevin always aimed at 100 percent. ”

And he still didn’t have enough after that. Hrubesch remembers games that Keegan invented. “When the training was over, he said, ‘Come on, we’re going to shoot balls through all the holes in the fence and into all the trash cans we see on the way to the dressing room.’ Kevin was never the type to be quick after the session wanted to go home. He was a role model, sacrificed himself for the team. And he just couldn’t get enough of football. ”

Keegan’s little game – Zebec tips over like a railway barrier

One of these gimmicks, reveals Wehmeyer, almost became Keegan’s undoing. Because he caught the strict Zebec on the way to the cabin. “Kevin wanted to aim at something again and just shot Zebec over, it fell over like a train barrier. We all held our breath, were afraid to react. But Zebec just got up, looked at him sternly, said nothing and went in. He would probably have killed any other of us. ”

Keegan not only introduced this special form of “soccer golf” in Hamburg, he also made the first tee shot by an HSV professional. “Golf,” says Wehmeyer, “was not yet widespread in Germany at the time, and we were at the training camp in nearby Quickborn when he suggested a game again: There was a lake behind the hotel terrace and a forest behind it. He said: ‘Betting we that I can hit a ball across the lake into the forest? ‘ We couldn’t imagine it. Kevin ran away from training camp, drove home, got a golf club and hit the ball in the woods. ”

I’ll be right there for Hermann.

Wehmeyer says it is episodes like the one with Zebec or the golf club that characterize Keegan excellently. And while he digs through his memories, he finds more. They not only characterize the image of a life-affirming, humorous footballer, but also that of a person with depth When Hamburg’s cult masseur Hermann Rieger, who died in 2014, was in poor health, Wehmeyer called his former companion in England and told him about Rieger’s illness and his great wish Told to see Keegan again. “Kevin didn’t ask any questions, he just said, ‘I’ll be right there for Hermann.'”

Keegan saw Hamburg as a man of action. Even in painful ways. Because as determined, he played, met and acted – so he left the Hanseatic city in 1980 after only three years, although the love of the fans had not yet cooled down. Keegan is said to have revealed within the team that if he completed the tough training under Zebec for two more years, he could end his career early.

And a possible gentle cycle was not provided in his world. Keegan had learned the language quickly with the help of his German-speaking wife Jean, delighted fans and teammates alike and said himself: “I really loved Germany.” Yet he went as he had come – head over heels.

–