Seeing Keegan's face instantly brightens my day, even now

FROM THE JOY OF KEEGAN TO THE DESPAIR OF ASHLEY, A NEW BOOK, DESCRIBED AS FEVER PITCH FOR NEWCASTLE FANS, TELLS THE TALE

- 

ANDREW NAGY is one of us, a fully paid-up member of the Toon Army. Part of a crazy group whose loyalty and passion far outweighs the plunging depths of darkness that supporting Newcastle United inevitably forces its faithful to endure.

It's just that he walks with us having taken a slightly different route!

Nagy was actually born in Carlisle to a Hungarian refugee father and mother (thankfully) from the North East and so at the formative age of three he found himself amongst us.

As his dad had actually fleetingly played for Newcastle, a love affair inevitably followed and blossomed.

It has developed into a 40-year obsession through great depths of despair and the occasional soaring high and even now, working in Amsterdam after a period in Dubai, Andrew remains fanatical.

The result is his first book, The Battle For Newcastle United.

A journalist who has spent the last 10 years working for GQ, Esquire and Men's Health, he explained how he became a black and whiter living the glory of Kevin Keegan and relentless misery of Mike Ashley.

"Though I was born in Carlisle my mum was from the North East and we moved there at the start of the 1980s," Andrew told me. "Her family was from Witton Gilbert, but we settled just up the road in Sacriston.

"My dad was a Hungarian refugee who had escaped to the UK during the uprising in 1956. He was meant to end up in New York, but settled for a place on Plawsworth Road."