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JANUARY is the month when things tend to go flat. The festivities are over, the bad weather kicks in and particularly if you're a Newcastle supporter this season, there's more grumbles than cheers.

I related last week in my column stories of my friend Barry and company, a group of very sensible business types and their feelings towards the football club. Like any group of supporters, the amusing thing is they would all normally pick a different team and probably a different manager to control them.

I rang Barry after the announcement of Kevin Keegan's return and he said that to a man, not only his group but everyone within sight or hearing distance within miles and miles of St James' Park was singing the praises of the owner for bringing back Kevin.

Because of my long term friendship with Kevin and his family, and also of course the fact that we had our own day in the sunlight when I was able to surprise one and all when we announced he was joining the Saints from Hamburg, I have been quite busy answering many calls from the media.

I don't think any other appointment - whether it was Jose Mourinho or even Fabio Cappello - would have had the same reaction. BBC television must have been kicking themselves that they had nominated the Manchester City v West Ham replay for their live game whilst Sky had some game from Scotland. But the panel on their Sky news channel was covering every game taking place and at every opportunity went up to St James' Park.

Their cameras were not allowed to watch the match but didn't mind because most attention was on the directors' box, particularly 20 minutes into the game when the entourage including the owner, the chairman and most importantly Kevin and his wife Jean arrived.

Our own Matt Le Tissier was the pundit nominated to report on the Newcastle game and it was quite apt for him to be the link what with his own connection with the Saints and the other name which is now being talked about more than any other, Alan Shearer.

The BBC eventually had the opportunity to talk in the half-time interval about Kevin's arrival and were fortunate to have Alan himself back in the studio after his holiday.

I was interested to hear him say he would be pleased to get a call from Kevin and gave the impression he would be happy to join up. On the other hand, he has also stated elsewhere that he did not fancy being a number two and also accepts he is not yet experienced enough to be the manager.

If his heart is really in eventually becoming a manager - and there's only one club he'd want to do that with - surely, if given the opportunity to work with Kevin, he should take it.

However, by the time you read this, Kevin could possibly have announced his backroom staff. Getting back to Barry and his fellow pundits, his information - and people like them always have inside information - inform me the staff would likely comprise of Peter Beardsley, who's already working at the academy, and also Lee Clark, another ex-Newcastle player who is on the staff at Norwich City. This would all make sense.

They know Kevin well, have worked with him before and are died-in-the-wool Geordies. So what will Kevin bring? He knows exactly what the supporters want.

This has been the biggest complaint, that managers recently have not understood that the Geordies don't even mind losing now and again at home. But they definitely want to leave the ground having enjoyed watching their team play attacking football and scoring goals.

They are not silly. They accept, as Kevin did in his day, if you play with two wingers and a centre forward or two, at times you will be exposed in defence.

But they are absolutely prepared to lend their 50,000 strong support at every game and are prepared to step up the volume, which I can tell you can intimidate some of the opposition most of the time.

There's nothing worse than having a ground full of supporters who will turn up even to watch the shirts dry without them making any noise.

This has the opposite effect, puts a dampner on the home team and gives the opposition a head start.

Kevin talks about the dreams to be fulfilled, unfinished business, having left the job earlier than was thought the last time (January 1997).

But back then, he didn't really leave the club - he left because of circumstances.

The new owner would appear to have the same outlook on life. He is obviously a tremendously wealthy man who is more or less saying if I'm paying out the millions I have done to get the club, I want to enjoy the experience.' He has already been made welcome by some doubting fans in the first instance who had never heard of him, by turning up wearing the shirt and at times sitting in the crowd as opposed to the directors' box.

He also was famously stopped entry into a nightclub by the Tyne for not having a proper shirt ... until they realised who he was. He then proceeded to buy everyone's drinks for the rest of the evening.

If he needed any icing on the cake after that, he certainly earned it with the return of Kevin.

Kevin himself has not been involved in the professional game for the last few years but I can tell you he's been very much involved in the game of football, having opened his soccer academy which has been a dream of his for many many years.

What originally was going to be a circus type themed activity centre for children to go in and dribble round a cut out of an elephant, chip a ball over a giraffe's head, shoot at a make-believe wall of monkeys etc and then be folded up and moved around the country on the back of a wagon, eventually developed into a state-of-the-art Disneyland-type themed football centre.

The site he choose was between Glasgow airport and the coast and I can tell you he has worked at times seven days a week.

Everything Kevin has ever done as a player and away from football he attacks with 100 per cent enthusiasm and a determination which saw him develop from a youngster who was turned away by his local club Doncaster Rovers for being too small to becoming captain of England and having one of the most illustrious careers any footballer has ever had.

In the process of his work at the academy, he told me recently he had actually lost two stone of weight so he will be ready physically for the new demands. What effect will he have where it really matters - with due respect to the supporters - the players, the dressing room and on the pitch?

I can tell you no matter who they are, where they come from, how good they think they are, they will react in a positive way. Barry tells me he saw some of the players in a completely different light in the Cup tie against Stoke.

The team were down to ten men after 30 minutes and played as if they had 12 men.

Some of the players looked a yard quicker even though Kevin hadn't even spoken to them before the game.

I was interested to hear Nicolas Anelka and David Ginola on the radio say the same thing - he was a pleasure to work for.

Anelka described his time under him at Manchester City as being wonderful, and coming from two players who I would think would probably have to be handled a bit differently to your run-of-the-mill professional that is praise indeed.

Kevin will find all of the football side of the job easier than most.

What he will have to get back in to is the adulation, the fact that he will not be able to put his head out of the door before people want to talk to him or shake his hand.

Unlike London, there is no hiding place in Newcastle.

My friend Barry and his pals will be able to tell me exactly where they saw Kevin having lunch or meeting someone.

Not everyone, of course, can live with that goldfish bowl type of atmosphere.

However, I suppose Kevin has had that since his Liverpool career started all those years ago and possibly the couple of years up in the wilds of Scotland where he has lived were maybe too quiet for a man with so much to give.

He has already said he knows what the supporters want and he knows what they don't want. And as long as they're realistic and patient, he is going to try and help make their dreams come true. Realism and patience are not two words which I have heard in my occasional lunches with Barry and company, so good luck Kevin.

Let's hope, speaking as a Geordie, he can win some silverware - unless of course it's the FA Cup which we want to win this season!

10:24am Monday 21st January 2008

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