Kevin Keegan, a kid from mining stock in South Yorkshire, a kid who started out at Scunthorpe United and went on to conquer Europe, was one of the greatest players English football has ever produced but it was the unquenchable passion that burned within him that won him such a prominent place in the hearts of the public.

Mighty Mouse, he was called as a player and it suited him. He was the little man who would never give up. He was the small guy who punched way above his weight. He was the lad who never bowed to anyone. He may have been slight of stature but he had the biggest heart that ever beat in the chest of an English footballer.

Sometimes, it feels as if time has dimmed the memory of quite what an outstanding footballer Keegan was and how he became a pioneer and a pathfinder, the first Englishman to play in a European Cup final with both English and foreign clubs, in his case Liverpool and Hamburger SV.

Sometimes it feels as if England’s mediocrity when he was at the peak of his playing career and the fame and affection he garnered in his managerial career, particularly at Newcastle United, have obscured the fact that he remains the only Englishman to have won the Ballon d’Or, the prize bestowed on the greatest player in the world each year, more than once.

Keegan won it in successive years during his time in Germany, in 1978 and 1979. For context, that puts him level with Franz Beckenbauer, Alfredo Di Stefano, Karl-Heinz Rummenigge and the Brazilian Ronaldo in the pantheon of the greats of the game. ‘I’m probably the most ordinary player to have won it twice,’ Keegan said in a recent interview.

But there was nothing ordinary about Kevin Keegan. Anybody who ever met him or ever watched him play or ever heard him giving a manager’s post-match press conference or ever saw him spending hours with fans desperate for a word or an autograph, knew that.

Kevin Keegan has tragically passed away at the age of 75 after a short battle with illness

Keegan (pictured in 1977 after winning the European Cup with Liverpool ) is one of the greatest players English football has ever produced

Once, after his playing career was over, I sat opposite him on a stage at Westminster Central Hall, asking him questions in an interview organised by the newspaper I worked for then. I don’t remember the questions I asked, or the answers he gave.

What I do remember is how Keegan held the audience in the palm of his hand. They were rapt. After it was over, Keegan stayed until he had fulfilled every autograph request and spoken to every man and woman who wanted a word, who wanted to say that they had talked to one of the legends of the English game.

Keegan was an extraordinary man. He was a riot of colour and flame in a grey world. In a sport where players are told to keep their mouths shut and their emotions in check, he let his emotions run wild and people loved him for it.

His public profile rose even more when he competed in the BBC programme Superstars, which aired in the 1970s and 80s, and featured sportsmen battling it out against each other in series of different disciplines.

‘Superstar’ has become an overused term now but if ever a man fitted that description, it was Keegan. He was box office, from head to toe. The combination of the reach of television and the dynamism of his personality made him one of football’s first new age icons.

Even in the midst of everything he achieved on the pitch, what endeared him to people, and a huge part of the gift he leaves behind for us, was his heart and soul. His passion lit up his life. He could not contain it and we loved him for it.

His passion gave us some of the landmarks we remember him for. The fight with Leeds United captain Billy Bremner at the 1974 Charity Shield that got both men sent off and saw Keegan ripping off his shirt as he left the pitch.

What a different world it was then. ‘That looked very much like a right hook by Johnny Giles,’ commentator Barry Davies said when Keegan was flattened by a sweet right hand. Keegan pleaded for leniency for Giles. A few moments later, he was trading punches with Bremner. ‘This is a side of English football we do not want to see,’ Davies opined.

Keegan, who was born in Doncaster, had begun his career with Scunthorpe United before he was spotted and scouted by Liverpool manager Bill Shankly and established himself as the star player of the team that went on to win the European Cup, under Bob Paisley, in 1977.

That team was one of the great sides in the history of the English game. Let the names roll off your tongue: Ray Clemence, Phil Neal, Joey Jones, Tommy Smith, Ray Kennedy, Emlyn Hughes, Kevin Keegan, Jimmy Case, Steve Heighway, Ian Callaghan, Terry McDermott.

Keegan tormented the Borussia Monchengladbach captain Berti Vogts in that final in Rome and won the penalty in the 83rd minute that sealed a 3-1 victory for Liverpool and was the start of the club’s rise to being the most successful club in European competition in this country.

When Keegan moved to Hamburger SV that summer, many thought it would mark the end of Liverpool’s hegemony but they signed a player called Kenny Dalglish, who went on to emulate Keegan’s successes and more.

Then there was his bike crash in Superstars when he peddled furiously down the main straight of an athletics track at the start of a race against Belgian footballer, Gilbert Van Binst, wobbling from side to side as he desperately tried to keep up, before crashing to the tarmac on the first bend.

It was a nasty accident. Keegan, who was close to the height of his powers as a footballer at that point, sustained cuts and grazes but he still refused to give up. The race was re-started and Keegan won. It was the show’s greatest moment.

Keegan was an extraordinary man. He was a riot of colour and flame in a grey world

Keegan became a hugely successful manager and is particularly adored by Newcastle fans

Keegan pictured in 1995 with famous entertainers Ant McPartlin (L) and Declan Donnelly (R)

Then there was the most famous diatribe in English football history when, feeling the hot despair of Sir Alex Ferguson’s Manchester United closing in on the league title after they had overhauled his wonderful Newcastle United team, he snapped as he spoke to Sky Sports after an away win over Leeds United at Elland Road at the end of April 1996.

‘We’re still fighting for this title,’ Keegan almost shouted into the camera, his voice shaking with anger and his finger pointing and jabbing, ‘and he (Sir Alex Ferguson) has got to go to Middlesbrough and get something and I’ll tell you honestly, I will love it if we beat them. Love it.’

David Beckham has said since that when the United players watched Keegan’s rant, they knew they had won the league. They knew that Ferguson’s mind games had exploded in Keegan’s head and that the title was theirs.

But that only added to Keegan’s legend. There was something magnificently untameable about him, something beautifully unpredictable, something free and untrammelled. He was still Mighty Mouse.

And he is still adored in Newcastle. It may be, in fact, that he is adored there more than anywhere else. He is adored for the pride he brought to the city and the way he resurrected the club and for the thrill of the beautiful football the Geordies played under his management.

That team was made in his image and so it was brilliant and it was entertaining and it was breathtaking but it was also fragile. And it could not quite cope with the relentlessness of Manchester United. But every neutral was desperate for Newcastle to win the title that season. And that was mostly down to Keegan.

There was no artifice about Keegan. He did not bother to try to hide what he was feeling. Or what he was. It was all out there, everything worn on his sleeve. He would have been the world’s worst poker player. He was not a man for keeping his counsel. Or for keeping his cool. Again, we loved him all the more for that.

Keegan always burned hot. At his unveiling as England manager in 1999, Daily Mirror journalist Nigel Clarke, who was sitting on the front row of the press conference, coughed while Keegan was speaking. Keegan became convinced that Clarke was mocking him and demanded to know why he was coughing. A long stand-off ensued.

Before a game against Sweden the same year, Keegan told Paul Scholes to ‘go out there and drop a few hand grenades’. Scholes promptly became the first England player to be sent off at Wembley after two horrendous challenges on opponents.

At the end of his short reign as England boss, Keegan was preparing his team for the final game at the old Wembley on October 7, 2000, a World Cup qualifier against Germany, and he decided he was going to play Gareth Southgate, a central defender in midfield.

On the Friday night before the game on the Saturday, the news began to leak out. I was on a Sky programme called Hold the Back Page, hosted by Brian Woolnough and Jimmy Hill, and we began the show by discussing the Southgate plan with varying degrees of scepticism.

Keegan was incandescent. He asked the FA to phone Sky to demand that the programme be taken off the air. Sky, obviously, could not accede to that request and the show continued as normal. To no one’s great surprise, the Southgate experiment did not go well.

Keegan managed England from February 1999 to October 2000 but resigned from his post

Keegan won the Ballon d’Or in successive years during his time playing for Hamburger SV

England lost the game 1-0 and Keegan was booed by a section of England fans as he walked off the pitch. He stopped to remonstrate with some of them at the entrance to the tunnel. When he reached the dressing rooms, he summoned FA officials, retreated to the quiet of the toilets, and promptly resigned. The FA tried to talk him out of it but he would not reconsider.

Keegan had been a sublime player at Liverpool and Hamburger SV and then, in the late summer of his career with Southampton and Newcastle. I say late summer deliberately. There was never anything autumn about Keegan. His football did not yellow and fade. After his last game for Newcastle, a testimonial against Liverpool, he was lifted from the St James’s Park pitch in a helicopter.

‘Auf Wiedersehen, Kev,’ a message on the scoreboard at the Gallowgate End read that day in May 1984. And now, it is time to bid him farewell once more. Auf Wiedersehen, Kev, and thank you.