IT'S fair to say that last week's surprise announcement of Kevin Keegan's return to St James' Park inspired some interesting and varied reaction.

These days, of course, the reaction starts pouring in on The Northern Echo's website within minutes of the news breaking. Those web messages - along with the flurry of texts and telephone calls asking if it was really true - ranged from unadulterated joy to predictions of disaster.

And then there was the wonderfully indignant telephone message left the following morning from a reader demanding to know why the paper was dominated by such "utter drivel" about someone who'd walked out on Newcastle United once before.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion and we welcome all feedback, whether it is positive or negative.

Thankfully, by the time his call was returned by my deputy, the man had calmed down - and even admitted that he'd had a ticking off from his wife for being so grumpy.

No, his name wasn't Victor.

THE first time I met Kevin Keegan was in 1980 - a week or so into my first job as a trainee reporter at the Scunthorpe Evening Telegraph.

Keegan, who was then playing for Southampton, had started his career in Scunthorpe. He'd returned to the town to open a travel agent for his old boss Ron Ashman, the man who'd discovered him.

I don't think I've ever been quite as nervous. I was 18, green as grass, and Keegan was the first famous person I'd been sent to interview.

"Would you mind answering a few questions?"

I asked, stumbling over my words and shaking like a leaf.

I needn't have worried. He put his arm on my shoulder and said: "Aye son, let's go somewhere quiet. What do you need?"

He was generous with his time and his answers and I went back to the office with a notebook full of quotes and a heart full of confidence. I've had a soft spot for him ever since.

MY next experience of Keegan came 13 years later when, as Newcastle United manager, he brought a team to Middlesbrough to play a fundraising match in aid of a ten-year-old girl called Leigh-Ann Johns.

Leigh-Ann had lost both legs in a road accident in which two sisters were killed at South Bank, near Middlesbrough.

Peter Sands, the editor of The Northern Echo at the time, telephoned Keegan to talk about the idea of a match to build a specially-equipped bungalow for Leigh-Ann and he immediately agreed to help.

A few weeks later, on the first day of August 1993, a Middlesbrough team featuring the likes of Bernie Slaven, David Mills and Terry Cochrane, played a Leigh-Ann Johns Celebrity XI graced by Keegan, Peter Beardsley, Lee Clark and "exciting new signing"

Niki Papavasiliou.

Boro won 4-1, £20,000 was raised, and Keegan was a star throughout the day.

THE fundraising match was kicked off on that unforgettable day by dear old Wilf Mannion, the greatest of them all, according to my dad.

Like me, Wilf was an ex-pupil of St Peter's school in South Bank and I was given the task of picking him up from his Redcar home and looking after him for the day.

Apart from the chaperone job costing me a small fortune in whiskies, my most vivid memory is driving up to Ayresome Park and Wilf being surrounded by flocks of fans as he got out of the car.

Young and old, they were more interested in "The Golden Boy" than the modern-day players.

Wilf died, aged 81, in April 2000, but they'll never forget him on Teesside.