page_title: Newcastle United F.C.
section_title: Into the Premier League and near-title misses (1992–2006)
hierarchical_section_title: Newcastle United F.C. / History / Into the Premier League and near-title misses (1992–2006)
caption_attribution_description: English: English football (soccer) manager en:Kevin Keegan
context_page_description: Newcastle United Football Club is an English professional football club based in Newcastle upon Tyne, Tyne and Wear, that plays in the Premier League, the top flight of English football.
  Founded in 1892 by the merger of Newcastle East End and Newcastle West End. The team plays its home matches at St. James' Park. Per the Taylor Report's requirement that all Premier League clubs have an all-seater stadium, the ground was adjusted in the mid-1990s and now has a capacity of 52,305.
  The club has been a member of the Premier League for all but three years of the competition's history, spending 88 seasons in the top flight as of July 2020, and have never dropped below English football's second tier since joining the Football League in 1893. Newcastle have won 4 League titles, 6 FA Cups and a Charity Shield, as well as the 1969 Inter-Cities Fairs Cup and the 2006 UEFA Intertoto Cup, the ninth highest total of trophies won by an English club. The club's most successful period was between 1904 and 1910, when they won an FA Cup and three of their League titles. Newcastle were relegated in 2009, and again in 2016.
context_section_description: Sir John Hall became the club's chairman in 1992, and replaced Ardiles with Keegan, who managed to save the team from relegation to the Third Division. Keegan was given more money for players, and he brought in Rob Lee, Paul Bracewell and Barry Venison and the club won the then First Division Championship at the end of the 1992–93 season, earning promotion to the then new Premier League. At the end of the 1993–94 season, their first year back in the top flight they finished in third, their highest league finish since 1927. The attacking philosophy of Keegan led to the team being labelled "The Entertainers" by Sky Sports.
  Keegan took Newcastle to two consecutive runners-up finishes in the league in 1995–96 and 1996–97, coming very close to winning the title in the former season which included a 4–3 game against Liverpool at Anfield – often considered the greatest game in Premier League history – which ended with a defining image of the Premier League with Keegan slumped over the advertising hoarding. The success of the team was in part due to the attacking talent of players like David Ginola, Les Ferdinand and Alan Shearer, who was signed on 30 July 1996 for a then world record fee of £15 million.
  Keegan left Newcastle in January 1997 and was replaced by Kenny Dalglish, however the club endured a largely unsuccessful season with a 13th-place finish in the 1997–98 FA Premier League, failure to progress beyond the group stages of the 1997–98 UEFA Champions League despite beating Barcelona and group winners Dynamo Kiev at St James' Park as well as coming from 2–0 down to draw 2–2 with Valery Lobanovsky's team in Ukraine and defeat in the 1998 FA Cup Final. Dalglish was replaced as manager early in the following season by Ruud Gullit.
  The club once again finished thirteenth in the league and lost the 1999 FA Cup Final. Gullit fell into disagreements with the squad and chairman Freddy Shepherd, and quit the club four games into the 1999–2000 season with the team bottom of the table to be replaced by Bobby Robson. The club managed to reach an FA Cup Semi-final and to stay in the Premier League.
  A title challenge emerged during the 2001–02 season, and Newcastle's fourth-place finish saw them qualify for the UEFA Champions League. The following season, Robson guided the team to another title challenge and finished third in the League, and the second group stage of the Champions League, after being the first team to have progressed past the first group stage after losing their first three games. Newcastle finished fifth in the league at the end of the 2003–04 season, and exited the Champions League in the qualifying rounds, but despite this Robson was sacked in August 2004 following a series of disagreements with the club.
  Graeme Souness was brought in to manage by the start of the 2004–05 season. In his time at the helm, he broke the club's transfer record by signing Michael Owen. Souness also took the geordies to the quarterfinals of the 2005 UEFA Cup with Alan Shearer winning the tournament's golden boot as well. However, he was sacked in February 2006 after a bad start to the club's 2005–06 season. Glenn Roeder took over, initially on a temporary basis, before being appointed full-time manager at the end of the season. Shearer retired at the end of the 2005–06 season as the club's all-time record goal scorer, with 206 goals.
caption: Kevin Keegan (pictured in his second spell in 2008) guided Newcastle to promotion and Champions League football from 1992 to 1997, turning United into one of the biggest clubs in England despite not winning the league
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