How Neil 'Nello' Baldwin got Kevin Keegan to be president of his football club

Former Stoke City FC kit man and circus clown Neil "Nello" Baldwin says the ex-England captain and manager Kevin Keegan was a "lovely man", after his friend died aged 75.

Baldwin started his own club, the Neil Baldwin Football Club, many years ago and the former Scunthorpe United, Liverpool, Hamburg, Southampton and Newcastle player agreed to be its president.

The now 80-year-old, whose story was showcased in the 2014 Bafta-winning BBC film Marvellous, said when Keegan was the boss of the national team, "he got me all England free tickets".

Baldwin added that when his mother died, the former manager sent him a letter.

"Not only a letter, but he sent me [an]... England rosette," he added.

Baldwin, who grew up with learning difficulties, joined the circus after leaving school.

Former Stoke manager Lou Macari, who gave him the kit man job, wrote in his autobiography that Baldwin's "real value was in helping the players relax before games".

Baldwin said Keegan was "a great friend of mine".

"He was... president of my football club. I wrote to him and he met me and he said he would do that for me," he added.

The ex-Stoke kit man remembered that he went to see Keegan, "a lovely man altogether", at the former England manager's house.

He said: "It's very sad, because I was only with him last year at a football club dinner near Macclesfield."

Baldwin has close ties to Keele University, where his mum worked as a cleaner, and in 2013, the university awarded him an honorary degree.

Former Football Supporters Association chair Malcolm Clarke, who knew Keegan both through the fan group and Baldwin, said he thought the ex-Stoke kit man and former manager had met at a game.

"As we know, Neil has a habit of going up to famous people and introducing himself and becoming, quotes, very good friends of them," he added.

Clarke said Keegan also wrote Baldwin "a lovely letter when Neil put on a testimonial game to celebrate Neil's 40 years at Keele".

"Quoting from it in the second paragraph, and it's actually in the book we wrote, he says 'I have the honour of being the president of the Neil Baldwin Football Club'," he said.

"I think that sums up Kevin's approach to it. It wasn't the case of Neil having the honour to have Kevin as his president. It was Kevin saying 'I'm very honoured to be your president'."

Clarke said Keegan and Baldwin were friends for two decades with the manager writing to the latter when he was the boss of the national team and "he actually also invited Neil quite often down to Wembley when the England team were playing".

"So Neil became an honoured guest of Kevin's at those games and for an England manager to take the time out to do those things was wonderful really," he said.

Clarke stated he was "very humble... considering that he was one of the greatest players of his generation, if not any generation".

Keegan also unveiled the permanent memorial to football legend Sir Stanley Matthews at Stoke's stadium in 2001.

Former football summariser at BBC Radio Stoke Angela Smith, who was there, said he "didn't ask for a fee to do it, which is the measure of the man".

"I genuinely remember after he unveiled the statue... he felt it was a massive honour to do that which again gives you an idea of what sort of person he was like," she said.

"He spent it seemed like hours signing autographs, signing shirts, signing pictures for everybody that was around and he was a thoroughly nice man."

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