Mark Lawrenson says his role as defensive coach at Newcastle amounted to doing “absolutely nothing” under Kevin Keegan.
BBC pundit Lawrenson is the latest guest of podcast sensation Quickly Kevin, which is dedicated to 90s football and has built up a huge following since it launched earlier this year.
The hilarious podcast sees hosts Josh Widdicombe, Chris Scull and Michael Marden interview nineties football personalities, comedians and ex-professionals and is into its second season.
They’ve interviewed Matt Le Tissier, Darren Anderton, Frank Skinner and Dermot Gallagher in previous episodes and Lawrenson gets fully into the spirit of the podcast as he talks about his time at Newcastle in detail – regaling the hosts with tales of David Batty, Faustino Asprilla, Kenny Dalglish and – of course – Keegan.
And he freely admits his role as defensive coach saw him doing very little defensive work. “I did absolutely nothing. Honestly I did absolutely nothing but my CV looks great because we finished second and got into the Champions League,” he joked.
“He said come with us, do a bit of coaching with us but nothing defensively. Nothing. I trained every day – I was first pick of the staff in the five-a-side! I got myself fit and all that and after three months I said to Kevin ‘Look, I’m earning money under false pretences here’. Kevin said ‘You’re not’.
“He said to me ‘What do you think?’ I told him he’d had the same defensive players for a while and needed some new ones but next thing I know they were going public and a guy came in to do the PLC stuff and Kevin got the hump. They offered him a new contract because it would look good to the shareholders because he was a messiah up there.
“But the next thing I know he’s gone. Arthur Cox – who was still a legend – stayed on and on the Monday after the news he said to me ‘You can do the job you’re paid to do’. That was the first session that I took.”
Lawrenson’s interview is an hour-long and he also talks about how he was one of the first people to do a Soccer Saturday-style football show, his time working with Des Lynam and Gary Lineker and what is was like playing for Jack Charlton at Ireland.
United fans will love his anecdotes about Newcastle – including the story of a half-time team talk given by Alan Shearer. He also touches on the infamous ‘nearly’ season. “Everyone blamed Asprilla from the outside but no-one inside the club did. They loved him,” he said.
“He was unlucky. They basically lost a lot of confidence and stopped playing but when they had confidence and everyone bombed on, they were such a good side.”