Football has lost one of its most beloved figures.

Kevin Keegan, whose name became synonymous with everything thrilling about the English game in the 1970s and early 1980s, and then later as manager of the national tean, has died at the age of 75 following a battle with cancer.

Long before “King Kev” became a household name across Europe, he was a teenager from Doncaster taking his first steps in the professional game, and it’s that journey through the Football League that shaped the player the whole football world came to love.

And later, during his managerial career, a newer generation would became familiar with Keegan through his time as England manager, leading the Three Lions to qualification for Euro 2000.

From Scunthorpe to superstardom

Keegan’s story began at Scunthorpe United, who handed him his professional debut in the late 1960s.

It was there, in the lower reaches of the Football League, that the raw materials of his game - relentless movement, an appetite for hard work and an instinctive nose for goal - first caught the eye of scouts across the country.

It was enough to convince Liverpool manager Bill Shankly to bring him to Anfield in 1971 for a fee of £33,000, a piece of business that would go down as one of the shrewdest in the club’s history.

What followed was a golden period for both player and club.

Keegan formed a devastating partnership with John Toshack, inspired a fierce rivalry-turned-friendship with Kevin Beattie’s Ipswich side, and became the heartbeat of a Liverpool team that ruled England and Europe.

Across six seasons at Anfield, Keegan won three First Division titles, an FA Cup, two UEFA Cups and, in 1977, the European Cup - scoring in that Rome final as Liverpool were crowned champions of Europe for the first time.

He was voted PFA Footballer of the Year in 1976, the first of two occasions he would claim the honour.

A Football League great, home and away

When Keegan left for Hamburg later in 1977, he took the reputation of the Football League with him and enhanced it further, winning the Bundesliga and being crowned European Footballer of the Year in both 1978 and 1979 - a back-to-back Ballon d’Or feat matched by precious few players before or since.

But it was on his return to English football, first with Southampton and then Newcastle United, that Keegan showed the Football League had never left him.

At St James’ Park, he inspired the Magpies to promotion from the Second Division in 1983-84, playing some of the most crowd-pleasing football the club had seen in years before hanging up his boots in 1984 as a hero on Tyneside.

For England, Keegan won 63 caps and scored 21 goals, captaining his country on more than 30 occasions and representing them at the 1982 World Cup in Spain.

The Newcastle years and beyond

Keegan’s affection for Newcastle brought him back to the club in 1992, this time in the dugout, and he oversaw one of the most romantic chapters in the Premier League’s early years — steering the Magpies to promotion and then agonisingly close to the title in 1995-96 with a team that captured the imagination of the entire country.

Spells at Fulham, England Manchester City followed, along with a brief and emotional second stint back at Newcastle in 2008.

Tributes have been shared across the football world today, with EFL clubs among those paying their respects to a player whose achievements in England’s domestic game helped define an era.

Kevin Keegan: Remembering a football icon

Kevin Keegan: Remembering a football icon