In the eye of the United storm

McKEAG THE MAN IN MIDDLE AS THE LONG FIGHT FOR UNITED RAGED ON

In part three of six special features looking at the men who have run NUFC, John Gibson tells the story of the sons of United’s most influential and warring chairmen

THROUGHOUT the 1980s United were in the hands of the sons of two of the most influential and warring chairmen in the club’s kaleidoscope history.

Stan Seymour and William McKeag were boardroom giants who clashed in bitter conflict time and again during and after the golden years of Wor Jackie, Bobby Dazzler Mitchell, and Joe Harvey. Now in the decade of the eighties it was first Stan Seymour Jnr and then Gordon McKeag who walked through the land of their fathers.

They were men from different backgrounds. The Seymours ran a sports outfitters in the centre of town while the McKeags were both solicitors – dad a Liberal MP for Durham City, a Newcastle councillor, Alderman and twice Lord Mayor of Newcastle while son Gordon was educated at the Royal Grammar School, Durham Schools and Cambridge University.

As all did in those days, Gordon was elevated on to United’s board upon the death of his father in November of 1972, becoming chair in 1988 just as the share war instigated by Sir John Hall’s Magpie Group signalled the commencement of open hostilities.

He took on a momentous job, too, while recovering from a quintuple heart bypass.

A battle for control raged for almost three years with McKeag sitting squarely in the middle of a minefield displaying bulldog resistance.

He was through history on the

The days of the owner rather than the families of shareholders inheriting power was about to take over