Doncaster must do more to honour its greatest sports star Kevin Keegan

He may never have played for Doncaster Rovers, but if you're making a Mount Rushmore of greats to hail from the city then Kevin Keegan has to be on there. I went to the same school as the sporting great and there is nothing at all to show he once graced those corridors. Sadly, the same is truth across the whole of his home city Doncaster.

One of only four Englishmen to win the Ballon d’Or and the only British footballer in history to win the award twice, Keegan, a former England captain and manager, should really have a statue or at the very least some sort of mural to honour his achievements in the sport in Doncaster.

Born on Valentines Day 1951 at 32 Elm Place, Armthorpe, Keegan, regularly attended matches at Belle Vue as a child.

He was given his first football by his uncle and his first pair of football boots by his father after he won a bet on horses. Those were a second-hand pair of Winit boots bought from a sports shop run by former Donny forward Ray Harrison.

Keegan looked up to Rovers legend Alick Jeffrey as a child and should have really been his generation’s great hero in the club's classic red and white hoops.

His father even fixed up a trial for him in the pub, but King Kev as he’d go on to be known was brutally rejected before even getting the chance to kick the ball.

“I went for a trial,” Keegan recalled in an old interview with Sky Sports.

“ I knocked on the door at Belle Vue, which was the ground back then. A guy opened it and looked at me up and down, because I’ve never been tall, but believe it or not at 16, I was only 5ft.

“I said ‘I’ve come for a trial’, and I’ll never forget what he said. The guy just responded ‘You should be across the road, son, at the racecourse. You look like a jockey. And he just closed the door. So, my trial at Doncaster, which was fixed up by my father, never came.”

The decision remains one of the club’s greatest and most laughable mistakes.

Keegan didn’t start his career with his boyhood club, instead his adventure began at Scuthorpe United. He racked up more than 100 appearances for the Irons, catching the eye as a creative midfielder in the lower leagues, so much so that he’d soon become the central striker for one of the most iconic club sides of the 20th century, Billy Shankly’s Liverpool.

He played 230 times for the Reds, won three league titles, two UEFA Cups and played in the club’s first ever European Cup final triumph.

The Mighty Mouse from Doncaster conquered Europe with Hamburg during a trophy-laden spell, and enjoyed a prolific stint at Southampton, but to many including myself he’s perhaps best associated with his love affair at Newcastle United both as a player and manager.

In fact, he’s the very reason I became a fan of the St James’ Park club.

It all started as a joke in a bar, around seven years before I was born in a fairly bleak era for Newcastle. My dad, who had no interest in football back in 1991, joked if he’d ever support a team, he’d pick Newcastle because of his love for manager Keegan - and the fact that his favourite beverage at the time was Newcastle Brown Ale.

Few could have envisioned the rise Newcastle would go through - climbing from second-tier strugglers to Premier League contenders within the space of three seasons - all while playing a cavalier attacking-brand of football, that would lead to them being branded ‘the entertainers’.

Barring a first division title to win promotion to the top-flight, that Newcastle team never won a major honour despite going toe-to-toe with Manchester United with the likes of Andy Cole, Peter Beardsley, David Ginola and Alan Shearer all thriving.

However, there’s few teams, even winning ones, that are loved and spoken about, quite as much as Keegan’s team of the 1990s both from Geordies and neutrals alike.

All I heard growing up from my dad, who was unsurprisingly hooked on football by then, was how good Keegan’s team was - and how incredible the atmosphere was at the stadium of the time.

Keegan’s charisma from the famous ‘I love it rant’ to his ability to convince Rob Lee that Newcastle was closer to Middlesbrough than London when signing - carried the club into a brighter era, and in many ways made the team what they are today.

My dad’s one of many people in Doncaster with a story to tell about Keegan - one of England’s first footballers that perhaps transcended the sport.

Others such as my uncle - a Liverpool fan, adopted his iconic perm haircut as a teenager.

Yet there’s very little in Doncaster to really honour the greatest sportsman to have come from the area. I went to the same school as Keegan, McAuley Catholic High School, then known as St Peter’s - and there was nothing to show that Keegan even went there.

Surely Doncaster should do at least something to honour the memory of one of the city’s all-time greats.