His Tyne has come

Published on Saturday 7 February 2009 18:58

PETER LOVENKRANDS is proof that one man's crisis can be another's salvation. Don't bother asking him about the boardroom troubles of his new club, Newcastle United, the threat of relegation at St James' Park, or the idiosyncrasies of his manager, Joe Kinnear. Not yet anyway. The former Rangers striker, whose career has gone off the rails these last couple of seasons, is glad just to be back in business, enjoying the dressing-room banter, and spending more time with his fam

After two and a half years with German side Schalke, where his wife, Teresa, failed to settle, and he had been cast into the footballing wilderness, the chance to join a club hovering above the trap door of England's Premier League came as a blessed relief. Given just eight minutes' action in this season's Bundesliga, a role in one of the game's most popular soap operas was not to be sniffed at. And, with the family home just a couple of hours north, the 29-year-old has quickly adapted to the circus that is Newcastle United, scoring his first goal for the club yesterday against West Brom at The Hawthrons.

"When I came home after my first training session, my wife said, 'what's up with you?' I was just so happy. When I walked into the dressing room, everyone was so nice. It helped that I had the Scottish accent. I'm not like a lot of foreigners. I can talk to anybody. And the way the team is run is much more relaxed. In Germany, you felt like you were constantly in handcuffs. Here, you can eat lunch when you feel like it, not when you're told to."

It's his kind of club, and his kind of town. In Glasgow and Gelsenkirchen, he became used to former industrial heartlands, the kind of "hotbeds" that confuse football with religion. At Schalke, the fans were as passionate as any, their futuristic stadium sold out every week. At Rangers, football dominated life, on and off the pitch. Newcastle, where he has been only a few weeks, has all the emotion and intensity of Glasgow, but none of the Old Firm rivalry. "That's the thing," he says. "You don't have to go around watching over your shoulder for Celtic fans."

Lovenkrands adores Scotland, and the club he played for. In Germany, he watched every Rangers match he could on satellite television. Married to a girl from Govan, he still calls himself a "bluenose", and hopes to attend next weekend's derby with his new team-mate, Alan Smith. When he has retired, the plan is to bring up a family at his home in Thorntonhall, to which he and his wife return between football duties.

Glasgow, though, has its downside. In five and a half years with Rangers, he was assaulted three times by Celtic fans, and threatened by a Hearts supporter, whose team Lovenkrands had scored against two weeks earlier. "This guy came up to me, shouting and making bother. I had a dislocated shoulder at the time, so my arm was in a sling, and he knew I couldn't do anything. There used to be a lot of stuff like that, but from what I can gather, it is getting worse.

"When I was attacked, it felt like it was only really me it had been done to. Now it seems to be everybody. A lot of the Rangers players have had their cars vandalised. I'm a wee bit worried. I just feel like a player is going to be stabbed soon. It's starting to get too much. You're used to getting abuse in the town. I've had that hundreds of times. You can take that on the chin, no problem, but when you start getting beat up because you play for the other team … that's where you have to draw the line."

Maybe it meant Lovenkrands was doing his job. After an injury-hit first year at Ibrox, he came to life the following season with five goals against Celtic, the last an injury-time winner in the 2002 Scottish Cup final. In 2005-6, his final season at the club, he scored against Porto, Internazionale and Villarreal (twice) during Rangers' unexpected Champions League run. He grabbed breathtaking goals, turned games, and in those last few months at Ibrox, arguably kept his manager, Alex McLeish, in a job.

And yet, for many, he was an exasperating player, who didn't always reproduce that form on the Premier League treadmill. "I scored 54 goals for Rangers," he responds. "Take away the six I scored against Celtic, and the five I got in the Champions League, and I scored 43 goals against other clubs, but nobody seems to remember that. And most of them were from left midfield. I'm actually a striker. I played my heart out for Rangers in the wrong position, but people don't take that into consideration. When I scored against Celtic in that second season, I was playing up front, but as soon as we played someone else, they put me back in midfield. It didn't make any sense."

Lovenkrands' consistency was often questioned. With his lightweight frame and searing pace, some accused him of lacking substance, of performing only in bursts. He admits that he wasn't mentally strong enough to handle the criticism, which demoralised him during his penultimate season. At the start of the following campaign, the one in which he helped Rangers to the last 16 of the Champions League, McLeish told him to find another club or be relegated to the Ibrox bench. They tried to strike a deal with Portsmouth, but Lovenkrands insisted on staying put. "I went through hell, as well as great times at Rangers. They were trying to get me away, but as soon as I started playing well, they were like, 'oh, please stay'. It shows you, though. If you put me in the right position, I'll do well for you."

That summer, McLeish's successor, Paul Le Guen, showed no desire to keep him, and a move to Schalke was agreed. As part of a fluid front three, he made a big impact in his first season, nearly helping the German club to their first Bundesliga title since 1958. There were goals against Bayern Munich, local rivals Borussia Dortmund and the two that knocked leaders Werder Bremen off their perch. In fact, it was all going swimmingly until an ankle injury effectively ended his season, and he was forced to watch from the stands as his team-mates threw away their lead. "The coach came up to me at the end of the season and said that, if I hadn't been injured, we would have won the title."

After which it all went wrong for Lovenkrands. Injuries and a new system worked against him the following year, and soon he lost his place in the team. With his wife unhappy, he was desperate for a move back to Britain. After a bid by Fulham was rejected in the summer, Schalke coach Fred Rutten couldn't even find a place for him on the bench. His last start for Schalke was in February of last year. "I love playing football, but it reached the stage where I didn't want to be picked in the squad. I knew I wouldn't get a game. They would take me all the way to Bayern Munich, and have me sitting in the stand. I would rather have been at home with my family."

Eventually, Lovenkrands was released from his contract. After a two-week trial with Newcastle, who had been pipped by Rangers to his signature nine years ago, he signed on till the end of the season. Hoping to play up front, as he did in substitute appearances against Manchester City and Sunderland, he says he is quicker than he used to be, not off the mark perhaps, but over a longer distance. Schalke's sprint coach, who had competed against Linford Christie, taught him to take longer strides. "I didn't think you could change the way you run, but I have. I'm more like a proper sprinter now."

Lovenkrands' immediate aim is to earn himself a longer contract, and beyond that maybe a place in Denmark's 2010 World Cup squad. Despite his problems at club level, he was called up for the recent qualifier in Portugal, and played in a dramatic 3-2 win. The national coach, Morten Olsen, sent him a Christmas card with a personal message inside. "Get your ass to another club," it read.

Lovenkrands has represented his country in two major finals. In his games room at home, he has 10 framed strips hanging on the wall, one of them Michael Owen's. He acquired it at the 2002 World Cup after Denmark had lost to England in the second round. Despite playing no part in the 3-0 defeat, he sought out the man who had long been his inspiration. The young Englishman's pace, build and hunger for goals were all qualities he could identify with.

Now, they have something else in common. With the same club, at the same juncture of a career that hasn't quite gone according to plan lately, their shared ambition is to score the goals that keep Newcastle United in the Premier League. "I want to do everything I can to help this club," says Lovenkrands. If he succeeds, he will have done himself a favour in the process.