Legendary Newcastle commentator Mick Lowes on Keegan, Shearer and THAT New Radicals song

Football is back this weekend – but unfortunately not in the UK!
Newcastle United manager Kevin Keegan (left) with his first team coach Terry McDermott during Keegan's first game as manager against Bristol City at St James' Park, 8th February 1992. Newcastle won the match 3-0. (Photo by Mike Hewitt/Getty Images)Newcastle United manager Kevin Keegan (left) with his first team coach Terry McDermott during Keegan's first game as manager against Bristol City at St James' Park, 8th February 1992. Newcastle won the match 3-0. (Photo by Mike Hewitt/Getty Images)
Newcastle United manager Kevin Keegan (left) with his first team coach Terry McDermott during Keegan's first game as manager against Bristol City at St James' Park, 8th February 1992. Newcastle won the match 3-0. (Photo by Mike Hewitt/Getty Images)

While the Bundesliga kicks off over in Germany, the English Premier League can only watch on and hope for a return to action in the summer months.

So, with nothing live on these shores this weekend, we're rolling back the years in a special three-part series telling tales from Newcastle United’s past from behind the microphone.

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And the voices telling those stories, albeit this time in print, which no doubt prove to be familiar to Newcastle United fans.

First up is former Radio Newcastle and Metro Radio commentator, Mick Lowes, who was the voice of Newcastle United on the radio for the best part of 25 years.

Since moving to the region in 1991, Lowes has seen it all from the arrival of the Messiah to two FA Cup finals and a couple of relegations.

Lowes had arrived in the region already with a wealth of experience, having commentated on the 1990 World Cup for Capital FM.

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“My first month at the BBC was August 1991. Ossie Ardiles was in charge and Dennis Smith was at Sunderland. Neither of the two big North East clubs were in any great shape at all,” recalls Lowes.

“Ironically, in my first season I had an FA Cup final as I did some of Sunderland’s cup run that season. At that time, being totally honest I didn’t really have any great affinity to Newcastle, I’d just come up for a job as Sports Editor and I knew the region as my Dad was from the area. The big turning point came in February 1992, when Newcastle all of a sudden became the big story.”

Within six months of his arrival at BBC Radio Newcastle, Ossie Ardiles was sacked as manager and Kevin Keegan was brought in. The change was almost immediate.

Lowes said: “In modern day journalism, there’s absolutely nothing that you can keep secret, there’s nothing everybody doesn’t know a day or two before it’s announced. In this instance though we genuinely didn’t know it was happening, I just got a call one morning about 48 hours after Ossie was sacked, to get to a press conference and Kevin Keegan was unveiled as manager.

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“I always say my life changed that day and certainly Newcastle’s life changed that day. He completely rejuvenated and rebuilt the football club.

“There couldn’t have been a greater contrast between him and Kevin though, it was like chalk and cheese. Ossie was a lovely fellow and although he spoke English, he wasn’t comfortable with it. He basically told the players to “play, play, play” and they were playing some nice football but because they were more or less kids they were getting battered more often than not.

“Kevin was unbelievable to work with. It was like (Frank) Sinatra walking through the door – he could turn a phrase and hold an audience. You used to look forward to pre and post-match interviews because it was just gold dust every time.”

With Keegan in the hotseat, Newcastle soared to promotion in 1993 as the club entered the ‘Entertainers’ era. Lowes moved to Metro Radio for the 1995/96 season and as has been the case throughout his career, the timing couldn’t have been better. The ending to Newcastle’s title tilt is well publicised and Lowes still looks back ruefully at the meeting with Manchester United in March 1996.

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“I always maintain even if we had taken a point against them at St James’s, Newcastle would have won the title. As good as they are and as professional as they are, if they didn’t win that night, I think they knew the chase was up. But you just feel they smelled a bit of fear in Newcastle that night. They of course took the momentum from that night and Newcastle sadly went the other way and got the jitters. It was painful in many ways and hard to stomach.

“The 4-3 against Liverpool was probably the greatest game I have commentated on but for all the wrong reasons. It was a tough one to take and even as someone who hadn’t been around the club as long as some, you were absolutely gutted.

“There were tears in the eyes when you saw Keegan slumped over the hoardings. Although the Manchester United game was more fateful, I think the Liverpool game took a lot more out of Kevin because of the fact it was Liverpool. He had so many good memories there and to give the game away from being 3-2 ahead, it was a real body blow.”

Newcastle would get revenge over Manchester United the following season with a 5-0 victory, a result which brought Lowes an unexpected phone call.

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“I was in the office one day and a little old lady called and said she was 76 and had recently lost her husband. She asked if I could send my commentary over for Philippe Albert’s goal against Manchester United as she wanted to play it at the funeral. We got it onto cassette and they played it as the coffin was going in, he’d said that’s what he wanted to go out to, he wanted to go out to the 5-0 goal.”

Even with Alan Shearer signed for a world record fee, Keegan would resign in January 1997. Whilst it was a surprise to some, Lowes saw a change in ‘King Kev’ first hand.

“He was usually such a buoyant character, if you wear your heart on your sleeve like Kevin did it’s pretty hard to hide your emotions. They were training one day at Maiden Castle and I was looking for Kevin to sign a football. I’d searched everywhere and eventually found him in the back room of the kitchen sitting alone, which was a great shame,” said Lowes.

Although neither Kenny Dalglish or Ruud Gullit will be remembered particularly fondly on Tyneside, both took Newcastle to FA Cup finals in 1998 and 1999.

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Unfortunately, the build up is better remembered than the finals themselves.

“In ’98 other than Everton away we didn’t really play anyone on the way to the final. We tried a revamp of Oasis’ Heroes with the goals and it didn’t really take off and of course we lost to Arsenal,” he said.

“I used to be a massive fan of Mark & Lard and they started playing New Radicals – You Get What You Give - and I just remember thinking this would work really well with football. So, for the 98/99 cup run I suggested we used the song and mixed it with the commentary from each round and the station really ran with it, it felt like they were playing it every second song!

“A mate of mine rang me up one day after he had been stuck in bad traffic trying to get through town, really bumper to bumper for miles. The song had come on Metro and looking around, everybody was listening to this song. When it got to the line “We’ll kick your ass in” everybody was banging on the steering wheel. It was mad.

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“I really thought we would win in 99. Roy Keane went off early and you thought ‘this is it’ but it didn’t happen.”

Lowes returned to BBC Radio Newcastle in 2003 where he remained until standing down in 2016. His departure was met with floods of tributes from former colleagues and players, including Alan Shearer and Jonathan Pearce.

“I’ve been really fortunate throughout my career. To have colleagues like Jonathan, who I didn’t know until I worked with him at Capital and I learned so much from him. Then to come to the North East and have 10 years with Alan Shearer who I now count as a friend, it’s incredible really.

“I didn’t realise how much some people thought of me. The strangest one was John Murray at Radio 5 told me that if both John and I were doing a Newcastle game, his Dad would rather listen to me than his own son. How mad is that?!

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“I always had good relationships with people I worked with. If I worked with someone who I rated I made sure I told them. I got on with Raiser (Matthew Raisbeck) very early on and said ‘You can do this!’ I was never really one for the school of hard knocks that journalism used to be. I really hope the club gets back to the good times and he has 10 years of what I had.”