Ex-Newcastle hero Shaka Hislop recalls the Premier League title near miss & the 'unwarranted' decision which took United 'four or five steps backwards'

While fans look back on Graham Fenton’s Blackburn double, Eric Cantona’s St James’s Park goal and Stan Collymore in added time at Liverpool as moments – all from the 1995/96 season – of real regret from the mid-1990s, Hislop pinpoints something totally different.

And he believes this decision – taken off the pitch, not on it – changed the history of Newcastle United forever.

"Kevin Keegan was ridiculously ousted in my opinion,” said the former Trinidad and Tobago international.

"I mean of all the things I look back on during my time at Newcastle the only thing I feel bitter about is the departure of Kevin Keegan.

"It was unwarranted, unneeded, it cost Newcastle. It cost them their position in the hierarchy of the Premier League and took four or five major steps backwards – and that is no disrespect to Kenny Dalglish – but a side moving forward was broken up."

Hislop, regarded as a legend at Reading and also held in high-regard by West Ham United fans, now works as a pundit for ESPN, regularly commentating on or summarising Premier League games.

He came within a whisker of claiming a top flight winners’ medal with Keegan’s Magpies and thinks one 90-minute performances from an opposition keeper prevented himself and that star-studded 95/96 squad claiming the honours.

“Looking back at why it happened [the title slip] everyone pinpoints the Man Utd game – and the reason we lost that game was Peter Schmeichel. It was simply the best 90-minute performance I have seen from a player in the Premier League,” said the now 51-year-old, of Newcastle United’s 1-0 loss to Manchester United in March 1996.

"I have no doubt that if not for him we would have won that game, and the league.

“Yes I think we showed inexperience that season. I think especially now looking back and looking at football as a former player and a current pundit, to win a title you need a near miss and you see it time and time again whether it was Man City even with their standing they came close a couple of times and then they get over the final hurdle.

"If you want to talk about Liverpool coming as close as they did, or even roll it back a few years under Brendan Rodgers and that now infamous slip by Steven Gerrard you have to come close once, it’s almost part of the process and the more you look at teams now and how they build their own legacy there is

always that one season where it just gets away. That was our near miss. we should have built on that, but instead of doing so the club then moved to float on

the stock market become a PLC.”

Having climbed the divisions with Reading from the Third Division to a First Division play-off final defeat in May ‘95, Hislop admits he did not expect a club like Newcastle to come calling, or a manager like Keegan.

Speaking to the Hollywood Balls podcast, Hislop explained: “I was following closely what was happening that summer in particular, you always hear about Newcastle and see what they are doing but at that time I had no connection with the club.

"A name like Kevin Keegan is always in the news, and of course all of a sudden the sale of Andy Cole just put Newcastle on the front pages.

"That summer of ‘95 I’d gone back to Trinidad and got married and my agent was never off the phone about speculation I was joining the Toon.

"There were other clubs interested but I grew up in a time when Kevin Keegan was in his absolute pomp so the mere thought of playing for Keegan I

couldn’t put that into words. Then when I joined Reading for pre-season things began to happen very quickly.

"(David) Ginola, (Les) Ferdinand, (Warren) Barton all joined and you just knew Newcastle were going to be making a push at the top of the table. To be able to join them was I would say unexpected but extremely exciting.”

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