HEAD OVER HEELS IN LOVE
It all started in the back of a van, rumbling between Doncaster and Scunthorpe. It was the summer of 1966 and sat behind the wheel was Bob Nellis, a furniture salesman who’d once had trials with the former. Now in his thirties, Nellis’ football career consisted of the odd Sunday League kickabout as well as helping to coach a local kids team.
Dreams of making it had long since expired; Nellis didn’t even have enough balls or kit to run his training sessions. As luck would have it, the solution to acquiring some was getting changed on the back seat of his van: a scrawny 15-year-old lad named Joseph.
Nellis had initially met the youngster a few weeks earlier, and hadn’t much enjoyed the encounter. Turning out for his local pub team, he was tasked with marking the skinny waif playing on the right of midfield. Such was the runaround Nellis received, he approached the kid at the final whistle. Nellis had a contact at Scunthorpe United, he explained, and 10 balls and a bag of kit had been promised if he could bring them someone worth signing.
Joseph had been to trials before, including at Coventry, but his miniature 5ft 8in stature proved a stumbling block. Still, the offer was a no-brainer for this pint-sized pub footballer who’d just quit school to work for a nearby brassworks firm.
Once delivered to the Old Show Ground, Scunthorpe’s original home, the prodigy’s trial consisted of a cross country run before a match on the car park adjacent to the pitch. Even on gravel, it was obvious that the teen was wasted on ballcocks and toilet fittings. Iron manager Ron Ashman summoned the trialist to his office before the session had even concluded.
That night, Nellis drove home with a new bag of balls on his back seat. And Joseph Kevin Keegan was a professional footballer.
WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN
Scunthorpe had been relegated to the Fourth Division before Keegan made his first-team debut in September
