Touching Distance: Kevin Keegan, the Entertainers and Newcastle’s Impossible Dream
By Martin Hardy
(De Coubertin Books, £18.99)

GIVEN that as I write Newcastle United have just three League wins to their name this calendar year and are stuck in the relegation zone, it’s easy to forget that in the mid-1990s Kevin Keegan’s “entertainers” were everyone’s favourite second team.

Martin Hardy brings those memories flooding back in Touching Distance, a scintillating oral history of the team’s title charge in the 1995-96 season.

Based on in-depth interviews with all the key figures, the book includes fascinating potted biographies of the players involved which give a fascinating insight into the struggles professional footballers face before they reach the top of the game. Their memories of the Newcastle nightlife also provide a reminder of an era when Premier League stars still mixed with fans as equals.

The book’s clearly a passion project for Hardy, who has reported on football in north-east England for several decades, and his love for the club is also evident in the odd sections devoted to his own memories of watching Newcastle in the early ’80s and mid-’90s.

But this is also the book’s one weak point. Hardy’s closeness to the subject matter seems to prevent serious analysis of the key questions — what went wrong and how it was that Newcastle blew their 12-point lead.

It’s almost as if Hardy daren’t look too hard for reasons because he might have to acknowledge that the team’s cavalier approach — their defining characteristic — was ultimately what cost them.

He says his aim is to show that the narrative that has developed around Newcastle’s glorious failure is false, the real story being rather more complex.

Yet in this endeavour Hardy fails, not least because he presents no alternative narrative of his own. The idea that the signing of Faustino Asprilla disturbed the team’s rhythm is, Hardy suggests, a myth but he himself acknowledges the Colombian’s arrival created a numerical and logistical problem that ultimately meant Newcastle became unbalanced.

Hardy also argues that the notion that a suspect defence cost Newcastle was “unfair and simplistic.” Yet the issue is never addressed in any detail and all the available evidence suggests that was in fact the case.

Keith Gillespie in talking about training says: “We didn’t go on about defensive things.” Les Ferdinand talks about a lack of structure and in one illuminating section Sir John Hall relates how some within the club wanted to bring in a centre-half when the team was 12 points clear at the top but starting to leak goals. Keegan refused, saying: “I’ll do it my way.”

These avenues are all left unexplored. How might things have turned out had the team discussed “defensive things,” had more structure or strengthened their back line when they were leading the table?

We’ll never know but the lack of critical analysis of these issues leaves a rather large elephant in the room.

That said, Touching Distance is highly recommended for anyone who wants to relive that season from inside the St James’ Park dressing room.

Every Newcastle fan should have it on their Christmas list.