The outporing of love from Newcastle fans for Kevin Keegan on his 70th birthday told its own story.
The stories ranged from the deeply personal - a kind gesture here, a beaming picture of meeting their idol at a sportsman's dinner or, my personal favourite, the tale of Keegan and Terry McDermott making time for a couple of student reporters just a couple of days after landing the biggest signing in the world - to the many sweeping tributes to a man who has done more than anyone to shape the modern day Newcastle.
The United of Keegan - which I witnessed only from the outside - seems almost like a fairytale when viewed through the prism of the current club, locked in an unhappy marriage with its public and unwilling and unable to break out of that toxic cycle.
Keegan's personality dovetailed perfectly with a club that blossomed under the tutelage of a man of imagination and sporting romance who burned with ambition and a searing sense of 'What if?'
So it should come as no surprise that, in one sentence in his memorable Athletic interview with Alan Shearer, he summed up how bankrupt Mike Ashley's reign has become.
"It’s difficult to run a club and please everybody, " he reflected on the cursed Ashley regime. "But you’d think it was impossible to run one and please nobody."
His contempt for what the club has become mirrors what many feel about Ashley's Newcastle - the club where its Managing Director, with a straight face, said the club's motto henceforth would be 'To make Newcastle the best it could be, pound for pound'.
The biggest mystery is why they never saw what Keegan saw: that its public is its greatest asset. Anyone who is going to be successful with Newcastle needs to embrace the energy rather than rail against it.
The exasperation of Steve Bruce and other high-profile figures at the club at the negativity that clings to the Magpies of 2021 highlights how little they really understand about Newcastle. True, Bruce and his ilk did not cause the problems but they could also never, ever solve them either.
On a weekend when the team sank to 17th yet the manager talks of a progress, that point hit the mark like an exocet.
The solutions won't come from those above him, either, who think they are misunderstood or misinterpreted. Their answer to 10,000 missing season tickets last year was to give them away for free, rather than tackle the club's culture that had left those seats unattended. When they leave they will be unlamented.
Keegan's birthday was an excuse to celebrate a great man but also what a great club could look like again. Anyone who wants to emulate his era could do worse than tap into his knowledge.
One day he will return to St James' Park with Newcastle under new management, heralded by a full stadium. Until then, what he created is the reason why United fans should never - and will never - settle for what they have now.
