Newcastle United winger Paul Ferris pictured at the pre season photo call ahead of the 1984/85 season at St James' Park in 1984 in Newcastle upon Tyne, England. (Photo by Danny Brannigan/Hulton Archive). His new memoir is Once Upon a Toon: 18 Years inside Newcastle UnitedNewcastle United winger Paul Ferris pictured at the pre season photo call ahead of the 1984/85 season at St James' Park in 1984 in Newcastle upon Tyne, England. (Photo by Danny Brannigan/Hulton Archive). His new memoir is Once Upon a Toon: 18 Years inside Newcastle United
Newcastle United winger Paul Ferris pictured at the pre season photo call ahead of the 1984/85 season at St James' Park in 1984 in Newcastle upon Tyne, England. (Photo by Danny Brannigan/Hulton Archive). His new memoir is Once Upon a Toon: 18 Years inside Newcastle United
For many kids growing up in the 1970s, Kevin Keegan wasn’t just a footballer – he was an icon in sideburns and bubble perm.
For Paul Ferris, a football-obsessed boy from a Lisburn council estate, Keegan was “practically a deity”. Unlike most, Ferris would one day meet his idol. Even rarer, he would play alongside him.
“I never played with a footballer more professional than Kevin Keegan….In his two year spell, he was a phenomenon….He trained like a demon every day….My boyhood idol didn’t disappoint in the flesh.”
However, as a young player he did cross paths with Keegan after he was caught taking a short cut during an arduous training run.
Lisburn man Paul Ferris spent 18 years at Newcastle United, first as a player, then a physio, then as part of the management teamLisburn man Paul Ferris spent 18 years at Newcastle United, first as a player, then a physio, then as part of the management team
Lisburn man Paul Ferris spent 18 years at Newcastle United, first as a player, then a physio, then as part of the management team
“In my first preseason I was caught cheating….and got a clip round the ear from Kevin Keegan my footballing hero.”
This is just one of the many unforgettable anecdotes in Once Upon a Toon: 18 Years Inside Newcastle United, the latest book by Paul Ferris, former player, physio, coach, and bestselling author of The Boy on the Shed.
In his new memoir, Ferris revisits the club and city that shaped his life—and reveals what happens when a boyhood dream collides with the reality of professional football.
Ferris was just 16 when he made his debut for Newcastle United in 1981, making him the club’s youngest ever first-team player. Billed as the “new George Best”, his talent was real—but so too was the brutal fragility of football, after a devastating knee injury cut short his career.
The Newcastle United team boarding a plane in 1995 - Paul Ferris is to the left of Paul GascoigneThe Newcastle United team boarding a plane in 1995 - Paul Ferris is to the left of Paul Gascoigne
The Newcastle United team boarding a plane in 1995 - Paul Ferris is to the left of Paul Gascoigne
But this isn’t a story of bitterness. Instead, it’s one of rediscovery. Ferris returned to the club as a physiotherapist in the 1990s, then later joined Alan Shearer’s backroom team in 2009. Over nearly two decades, he witnessed the Magpies’ dramas from every angle: dressing rooms, dugouts, and treatment tables.
“It was a very different place back then,” he says of football in the 1980s. “I got ringworm in my first few weeks just from wearing someone else’s filthy socks.”
While marquee names like Keegan, Dalglish, Gascoigne, Robson and Shearer leap from the pages, the heart of Once Upon a Toon lies in the quieter stories. Ferris shines a light on those who rarely feature in football memoirs—the tea man, the long-serving kit man, the unsung lifeblood of a club.
“There was a guy called Bill who made tea that was a work of art,” Ferris recalls. “And Joe Harvey, the former manager who showed me incredible kindness when I wrecked my knee. I wanted to give those people their moment.”
Lisburn man Paul Ferris' new book about his 18 years at Newcastle UnitedLisburn man Paul Ferris' new book about his 18 years at Newcastle United
Lisburn man Paul Ferris' new book about his 18 years at Newcastle United
The result is a book that is often laugh-out-loud funny—Alan Shearer being afraid of the dark is a standout—and occasionally gut-punch poignant. Ferris writes movingly about his brother-in-law Kieran, whose final visit to Newcastle is lovingly chronicled. There are also raw reflections on seeing George Best drunk and barely coherent before a match—a far cry from the balletic genius he once idolised.
“I had a moment when I was in the same place as him when he was playing for Hibs, and I was subbing the game. He was maybe 38-years-old, I suppose, at the time, and he just did this one little thing, and it was almost like a ballet dancer, it looked incredible. It was all just fluid, it was like poetry, his balance was incredible.”
On that day, Best was sober and offered Paul some “predictable but good advice” – “Don’t get caught up with the drinking and all that goes with it. Just play your football.”
He met Best some 10 years later in a Belfast hotel, where he was “so drunk he could barely speak”.
Kevin Keegan makes his debut appearance for Newcastle United at St James' Park, where they were playing Queens Park Rangers. Keegan scored the only goal of the game.Kevin Keegan makes his debut appearance for Newcastle United at St James' Park, where they were playing Queens Park Rangers. Keegan scored the only goal of the game.
Kevin Keegan makes his debut appearance for Newcastle United at St James' Park, where they were playing Queens Park Rangers. Keegan scored the only goal of the game.
"He played in the game three hours later. As he entered the field of play, I’m not sure he knew where he was….It was too painful to watch.”
Ferris doesn’t shy away from addressing football’s money problem either. As a teenage professional, he earned £175 a week—"mostly spent on dreadful clothes and a top-of-the-range teasmade for my bemused parents.” Today’s Premier League stars earn that every few minutes.
Still, he’s pragmatic. “It had to change,” he says. “Back in the day, all the money went to the club owners. Jackie Milburn was getting the bus to the game and then going down the mine on Monday. That wasn’t right either.”
What concerns him more is what happens to young players without the grounding to cope with sudden wealth. “The ones who thrive—like Shearer—have solid backgrounds.
"The others? You’d see them come in stinking of drink, crashed two cars in a week, girl trouble... it was, and still is, football’s problem. But I don't begrudge them, and I think absolutely the people who are the entertainers, the people who are on the field, the money should be going there."
And, of course, there are many changes at the club these days.
“You walk into Newcastle United now and they've got so many analysts and physiotherapists and so many players, but actually it's just football in the end. And they're all there because of that one thing – that was the same when Billy Bingham played or when Danny Blanchflower played – it's the same working class boys with the same humour.”
Despite the hard edges and harsh realities of the football world, Ferris’s memoir captures something rare: tenderness.
“In the 80s it felt macho, even brutal at times,” he says. “But underneath that, there was vulnerability too. Because football is a harsh world. You’re only ever one injury away from it all ending.”
Ferris, now 60 and living in Newcastle with his wife, three sons and granddaughter, has survived more than one kind of battle—his previous book, The Magic in the Tin, chronicles his prostate cancer journey. He’s seven years clear of cancer, and still writing with the same blend of sharp observation, poetic detail, and disarming honesty that made The Boy on the Shed such a hit.
Looking back, Ferris admits he wishes he’d been stronger in advocating for himself during his injury-plagued youth.
“I should have said, ‘I’m not right’. But I didn’t have the strength then. I let people move me around. I didn’t ask for help. My mum died just months after my football career ended. It knocked the stuffing out of me.”
Still, there were moments of magic. “I did score a goal at St James’ Park. That’s something a lot of boys only dream about.”
There’s one misconception Ferris is especially keen to challenge: that footballers aren’t bright.
“I was head boy at school. But I’d get to Newcastle and people would say, ‘You’re a footballer? You must be thick.’ Then, ‘Oh, you’re Irish too? You must be doubly thick.’”
It’s an old stereotype, he says, and an unfair one. “A lot of footballers leave school early, but that doesn’t mean they’re not intelligent.
“I’ve met so many bright lads—John Barnes, Gary Speed. Some went on to be teachers, lawyers, even got Master’s degrees.”
In Once Upon a Toon, Ferris has written more than a football memoir. It’s a love letter to the game, yes—but also to the people who make it what it is. The dreamers, the grafters, the nearly-men, and the heroes who, sideburns or not, turn out to be everything you hoped they’d be.
“I wanted people to see the funny side of football,” he says, “but also the human side. That’s what I was hoping for.”
He’s more than succeeded.
Once Upon a Toon: 18 Years Inside Newcastle United by Paul Ferris is published by Bloomsbury Sport. RRP £20.