Kevin Keegan's unforgettable Blacktown City stint remains one of Australian football's great stories

There are football stories that feel almost too extraordinary to be true.

A two-time Ballon d'Or winner, a European Cup champion, an England captain and one of the biggest names in world football playing for Blacktown City.

Yet for one unforgettable week in 1985, Kevin Keegan swapped Europe's biggest stadiums for suburban Sydney, coming out of retirement to play two matches for the National Soccer League club, scoring one goal.

His time in Australia was brief but his impact wasn't.

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Keegan arrived five years after another England legend, Bobby Charlton, had helped launch Blacktown City's inaugural NSL campaign. But while Charlton had opened the door, Keegan helped ensure the club remained on the football map.

"We had to close the stadium because of the crowd Kevin Keegan drew," then-chief executive Peter Thorne recalled in a previous interview with Sporting News.

The crowds came to see a global superstar. What they found was something even more memorable.

"Kevin was a different type of guy to Bobby," Thorne said. "When he came, he just put himself at the club's disposal.

"He would've spent a week with us, played two games, one at home, one at Marconi, and nothing was too much for him.

"He got involved in whatever activity, trained with the team and just fit in.

"He was nature's gentleman. You could not ask for a better guy and everybody wanted to be around Kevin Keegan."

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That's perhaps the lasting memory.

Not the Ballon d'Or trophies, not Liverpool, Hamburg or England. Not even the novelty of seeing one of football's greatest players wearing a Blacktown City shirt.

It was the humility.

The willingness to simply become another member of the club, however briefly.

For Blacktown, those two matches became part of the club's folklore. For Australian football, they served as another reminder of the NSL's unique ability to attract some of the game's biggest names to these shores.

"Those two were good for the club at the time and what it represented," Thorne said, referring to Charlton and Keegan. "We did well with that.

"Every cent the club could afford to spend on football we spent on football.

"Anything long-term was never going to be achieved by Bobby or Kevin, but they were a marketing tool at a time when nobody knew about Blacktown and it put the club's name out there."

Forty years later, Keegan's stint remains one of the most remarkable cameos in Australian football history.

Only two games. Just one week but enough to leave behind a story that has never been forgotten.

Now, following Keegan's passing, that chapter feels even more special because for one brief moment, one of football's biggest stars belonged to Blacktown.