Found this on Koptalk.
Keane lets the mask slip
Roy Keane, embroiled in controversy again last night, talks to David Walsh about the support of his family, his future with Ireland and the England team's lack of desire
We had agreed to meet at a hotel 15 minutes from his home in Manchester. Ten minutes before the appointed time, he shows up in denim jeans and a white T-shirt. His smile is warm. He orders two bottles of water and sits. For almost three hours, he talks. The water lies at the centre of the table, unopened.
He is self-deprecating, analytical, unforgiving and unexpectedly funny. Alone, those characteristics wouldn’t hurt him. But they travel in a steaming ship, a vessel that sails too close to the truth. Roy Keane doesn’t do diplomacy.
He gives an interview, says what’s on his mind, and recoils at the headline: “Keane Blasts This . . . Keane Slams That.” But to back off would be akin to shirking a tackle. Doesn’t do that, either. At Old Trafford, the faithful have long identified his honesty as the team’s greatest strength. “Keano, There’s Only One Keano.”
One Keane? Nothing could be more simple. And nothing could be less accurate.
Though you may think you know Roy Keane, you don’t. There is a depth that the scowling caricature doesn’t even hint at. It has been his choice. He has not wanted us to know him. And too easily, we have judged the book by the cover.
He tells a story about seeing the England international Gareth Southgate on holiday in Portugal this summer. As Keane walked into a shop, Southgate was there with his back to the door. “I thought, ‘Will I, won’t I? Nah, I will leave it’. I wouldn’t have minded saying, ‘Hi Gareth, how are things?’ because I haven’t got a problem with him. I’d have a bit of time for him, actually. It might seem aloof or arrogant, but I’m shy. I need the other guy to break the ice, and that’s something I need to grow out of. Forget about football, I am talking life in general.”
There are other sides, other aspects of a complex nature. He tells of another chance meeting. This time he and his wife, Theresa, were at a restaurant when they met the Leeds goalkeeper Paul Robinson and his girlfriend. Robinson broke the ice and the couples enjoyed a pleasant conversation. Then, at the end, Keane could not stop himself: “He seemed a nice lad, but I do give this vibe. It’s like, ‘We’ve had this conversation, but let’s leave it at that’.
Maybe it’s a fault, but I am saying, ‘Let’s not kid ourselves that we’re going to be pals’. He’s Leeds, I’m United. It was the same in my Rockmount days in Cork. You would go into town and meet fellows from other teams. Fine, but they were the enemy. Always the enemy. I know my priorities. I know what comes first. Winning, winning football matches.”
This hunger has made him the warrior he is. It has caused him to lose control on the pitch, it has led to confrontations with Alf-Inge Haaland, Alan Shearer and, yesterday, Jason McAteer. Keane should be tried in a court of law, says the leader writer in The Daily Telegraph, commenting on the Haaland tackle. His critics see an ogre, but from where did the monster come? “I’ve built up this character over the years,” says Keane. “With all the bad stuff, the sendings-off, having a go at the referee, the off-the-field stuff, the ad with Diadora, the hard man image. I am as guilty as anyone in the creation of this character.” Keane believes there are few wrongs in life you don’t pay for. Allow Diadora to make you a devil, allow newspapers to serialise your book: you pay. He is paying.
“When I’m over in Ireland or on holidays and people look at me, what they see is the monster. Without a shadow of a doubt. Then some people make the effort to be polite and you see . . . I wouldn’t like to say the relief, but that is what it is. Especially when they see me with my kids. They’re always amazed at that. Well, they are my kids.
“They see me in a pool with the kids, eating a lollipop or on the swings, and they can’t believe it. ‘I saw you playing with your kids’. They’re probably expecting me to be kicking the little lad in a game on the beach. I have contributed to the image.”
Who is the man Theresa Keane loves?
WE meet on the day after United’s first European game of the season, the 1-0 defeat to Zalaegerszeg in Hungary. He is learning to cope better with defeat, but the balance he seeks is elusive. Victories have never bothered him; briefly enjoyed, soon banished. It is defeats that drive him down.
“Before, I’d be twisting and turning all night. As you get older, you get better at sleeping, but I don’t want to sleep too well after we lose. I look at other people and how they react to a defeat, and in a way, I admire them. They’re chatting away afterwards, they’re brilliant. But I hope I never get to that. I hope I never get to the ‘it’s gone, now let it go’ stage.”
It was 2am when the team’s chartered plane landed at Manchester airport the previous night. He described what it was like when he got to his home in Hale. “My wife was still up, I let the dog in and I put on Teletext. First thing I saw: ‘Irwin Slams Keane Over Book’. ‘Thanks Denis, thanks’. Three o’clock in the morning, **** match in Hungary, and Denis has a pop. Denis, a man I respect.”
Theresa was still up? “I don’t really mention her in public, but in fairness to her, she has been a rock in my life. Just brilliant. She reads me better than I read myself.
“If we have a bad result, especially at Old Trafford, I usually won’t go to the players’ lounge, even though Theresa will be waiting there for me. I get a message to her. The plan would have been to go out for a meal. She comes to the car, and even though I am not showing any outward sign of disappointment, she will say, ‘It’s okay, I’ll cancel the table’.
“I wouldn’t say Theresa likes every part of the package. She knows I haven’t got a halo over my head. Actually, that’s what she likes about me. She also knows I am not the nastiest person in the world.”
Family life is Keane’s refuge, his protection from the corrosion that comes with celebrity. Offered victory in the Champions League in the next two years or his kids remembering him as a good father, he says he wouldn’t have to think. As much as football means, it will not come before his family. After a bad day at Highbury or St James’ Park or wherever, Shannon, Caragh, Aidan and Leah are his therapists.
He loves, too, that they don’t care, that their innocent indifference challenges his intensity. On those grim evenings they entice him out of himself, encourage him back to normality. A good father? “I think I am. Hopefully. I know I’m pretty useless at being a footballer. I dreamt all my life of being a footballer, but I don’t like a lot of what comes with it. The lack of privacy, the fuss people make over you, I’m hopeless in situations like that. I get annoyed.”
Easily, he talks about them. Aidan is almost four, and, to his dad’s amusement, he displays not an iota of interest in football. Dad has tried to enthuse him, just so they can talk about the game or sit together and watch it on television. So far Aidan’s world is too full, too interesting, for football, and his dad thinks, “What the hell? What does it matter?” “But it’s funny. You take Shannon and Caragh. Shannon is eight and Caragh is nearly seven, and they do have a bit of interest. They have a few posters of me up on their bedroom wall. When I first saw that, it surprised me. It’s strange when your own kids put posters of you in their room. They put them up because I’m away a lot and they like a reminder. Or maybe they’ve put me up on the wall to scare away other monsters at night.”
ON an average evening in the city of Cork you will encounter a taxi driver who swears that of the four Keane boys, Roy was not the most talented. Another know-all will tell you he was at school with Roy and remembers how Roy and Anthony Kenneally were best mates. “But, actually, Anthony was the better footballer.”
From the Rockmount team of the mid-1980s, five made the Ireland Under-15s. Roy, Damien, Paul, Alan and Len. Only Keane did not get an offer from an English club: “This wasn’t a mistake. I was the least talented of the five, without a shadow of a doubt. Even now, I don’t see myself as a talented player.
“I have limited ability, but at least I know it. I don’t kid myself that I can start whipping balls into the box or beating two or three players. I win it and give it to the lads who can play. At Nottingham Forest, Cloughie (the manager, Brian Clough) used to tell me to get it and give it to someone more skilful. I’ve made a career out of it. That and my attitude. With me, attitude is everything.”
Ah, attitude. It is what makes him the most admired player in the Premiership, and the least admired. Sir Alex Ferguson has built the Manchester United team around Keane’s attitude, because everything else he can replace. Others find the unrelenting hardness of his attitude difficult to take.
For in a world where the line between football and show business is less easy to identify, Keane refuses to play the entertainer. For him, Manchester United is a team, not a brand. Celebrity is for film stars, not footballers. When he is asked what he thinks, he says it as he feels it. If that hurts his image, so be it.
“I’ve done the diplomatic bit,” he says. “Didn’t do anything for me. I would rather be a victim of my honesty than be with those who sit on the fence. Of course people mightn’t like to hear it, but so what?” His recently published autobiography, written with Eamon Dunphy, is an adult account of his football life. Keane is pleased by the book: “I didn’t do the book to please people and I am aware there are people who are going to get hurt by it, probably me more than anybody because of the honesty.”
The description of the intentional foul on Haaland has upset people. He has been accused of glorifying the crude, and the Football Association is examining the contents of the book. There is a clamour for Keane to be punished. He calmly says the foul has long been dealt with; David Elleray’s red card was the punishment. Sixteen months on, he finds the commotion proof of what he has long believed: bluster and hypocrisy are part of life’s routine.
He is less blasé when saying he did not set out to deliberately injure Haaland. But he will not express regret for the tackle. That would be dishonest and weak, because at the time, he knew what he was doing. Given the same circumstances, he would do the same again. If there is a regret, it is that in the book he felt he had to stay true to football’s vocabulary.
“I am sure the bad language will upset my parents. Even myself, reading the book, I thought, ‘Ah, there is a lot of it’, but that is the way it was. A lot of the stuff was in heated arguments, sometimes drink was involved, and that’s how we spoke. If we had softened it, it wouldn’t be the book I wanted.”
Keane saves his sporting passion for what matters to him, Manchester United. The club is at a crossroads and he sees no certainty in the future. United are no longer the Premiership’s best team: “Arsenal and Liverpool have gone past us. They have good managers, they have bought well, and the teams they now have are hungry.
“We’ve been at the top for a long time; it’s human nature that you slacken off. I am not talking about teammates, I’m talking about me as an individual, the team as a whole. Who did well last season? Ruud (van Nistelrooy), I would say, and Becks (David Beckham). That’s it.”
For some time, he has known the key question. Can Beckham, Giggs, Scholes, Butt and Gary Neville be to this team what Robson, Pallister, Bruce, Hughes, Schmeichel and Cantona were to the old one? “I love the lads I play with, and this is not being critical of them. They’ve worked damn hard for what they’ve achieved, but they mustn’t let it go. They’ve been at United from the age of 14 or 15 and they’ve had a great life. I don’t know if they’ve ever had the fear that it wasn’t going to work out. “When people like Robbo and Brucie came to United, they came from smaller clubs and it was a case of, ‘Okay, here we go, let’s see what we can achieve’. They brought with them the ability to grind out results. Last season we didn’t have that. People said our defence was the problem. Bull****. We lost six games at home last season: Bolton, West Ham, Liverpool, Chelsea, Middlesbrough and Arsenal. In those six games, we scored one goal.
“We have identified the problem. Now we’ve got to deal with it. Put it another way: the penny is in, now it has to drop. But isn’t this great? Doesn’t it give us a challenge this season? If things are not working, the gaffer is going to get drastic, and that’s as it should be. This is Manchester United we’re talking about.”
He thinks about the club and the players he has soldiered with. Mark Hughes was one of the warriors, a player who had his respect. But at the time of Hughes’s departure, the affection was laced with disdain. Hughes left because he was no longer certain of being in the first team: “No player should be guaranteed a game at Manchester United. Same for Arsenal, Liverpool, Real Madrid, Bayern Munich. Doesn’t matter who you are, what you’ve done for the club. I think it’ll be a miracle if I see out my current contract as a first-team player at Man United. That’s the name of the game. I’ve spoken to one or two players recently. ‘It doesn’t look like I’m going to get a game,’ they say. ‘You make sure you do,’ I tell them. ‘But it’s a big squad.’ And I just say, ‘F*** sake man, okay, go somewhere where you’re guaranteed a game, get into the comfort zone’. What is the world coming to?” The same question was asked when Keane and the Republic of Ireland went their separate ways at the World Cup. He wants to move on from Saipan, but cannot stop himself going back. Maybe there is more clarity now, but there is no less hurt. He has been critical of manager Mick McCarthy, Niall Quinn and Steve Staunton, and feels it is time to let it go. He’s had good times with these people. But that thought cannot banish the others.
Three months have passed since Saipan. Some things have moved on. He accepts he will not play for Ireland under McCarthy: player and manager have decided they are not meant for each other. He is similarly certain he will again play for Ireland: “Things will work out okay in the end. I believe that. I will play for my country again. I can’t imagine finishing my international career on the note I have. What goes round, comes round.”
Less easy for him is his sense of betrayal by former Irish teammates. “I wouldn’t have done what the other players did to me. In that room in Saipan, it came down to me and Mick, it had been brewing for years. But it was the press conference afterwards that really galls me; 15 minutes after a private meeting between management and players, you have a press conference. And for three players to sit alongside Mick and denounce me, that bothers me. It really does. Then, the next morning, when they were leaving for the World Cup and I was getting ready to go home, not one f***** came to my room, nobody except the physio, Mick Byrne.
“You know it has happened at United, a player has been 100% out of order, but I have stuck by him. Players should always stand by a teammate. The Irish players didn’t do that. Then they came home to Dublin, big reception, gallant losers, full of ****. I deserved to play in the World Cup. I did my bit, like everybody else. After what happened, I never wanted to go back. If I had, before the Cameroon game I would have said, ‘Lads, before we go out, will you do me a favour, take the knife out of my back’.”
To the suggestion that Ireland performed admirably in his absence, he politely disagrees: “They should have beaten Spain. I watched the extra time, Spain had 10 men, their legs were gone. Spain were dead, happy to go home. Typical Spain. There for the taking. I wanted the lads to go through. Not for the manager’s sake, for their sake. But they didn’t, and at the end there were fellows on the pitch crying. F****** grow up.”
And England’s performance? “Poor. The English mentality is not far behind the Irish. They came back as heroes, kind of heroes anyway. They beat Denmark in the second phase; the keeper threw two goals in. The best thing that could have happened to England was (David) Seaman let that goal in (against Brazil), because Seaman took the heat.
“You analyse that game. Men against boys. Some England players were more interested in swapping their shirts at the end of the game. It was obvious: England were overawed by Brazil. Brazil with 10 players, men against boys. You could see England’s body language at the end: ‘We’ve done okay, haven’t we? Got to the quarter-finals’.
“England should expect to be in the semi-finals or final every time. Come on lads, wake up! I spoke to Butty (teammate Nicky Butt) about them concentrating on swapping tops. He didn’t disagree with me. There’s nothing wrong with swapping tops, but it shouldn’t be the priority in the quarter- final of the World Cup.
“I studied Roberto Carlos after the whistle in the World Cup final. Walking around the pitch like he was in his local park. He wasn’t waving flags, wasn’t crying, wasn’t kissing his boots. You could see what he is about. ‘This is what I expect, this is what I deserve’. Class player.”
TO leave you with the driven Keane is to leave you with one aspect of the man. For sure, the most important, but maybe not his most endearing trait. He spoke about his adviser and friend, Michael Kennedy. He said he hoped Kennedy respected him. From Keane, that was an unusual observation.
Kennedy has negotiated all of Keane’s contracts but has refused to accept any payment for the work: “A few weeks ago, Michael was up to see me about some contract or other. ‘For Christ’s sake, Michael, this has gone on for 10 years. We’ve got to sort something out’. He just laughed, ‘Another time, Roy, another time’.”
Keane tells a story about his last contract with United, and how the board were reluctant to commit themselves to a long contract until they were sure he had fully recovered from serious knee surgery. When the board were satisfied Keane was as fit as ever, they wanted him to commit his future to the club. He made them sweat.
“Actually, Michael’s timing was just superb. He strung things out until close to the January 1 deadline. Then I would have been free to negotiate with other clubs. The meetings had gone on for months, but it came to a head on the Sunday before Christmas. Sir Roland Smith, chairman of the shareholders or something like that, was involved. It was two o’clock in the afternoon, and Michael rang me at home.
“He said, ‘Roy, this is what they are offering, and the deal has to be done today. The club’s representatives are sitting next to me’. I said, ‘Yeah Michael, that’s great, the figures sound good, let’s do it, let’s go for it’. And he said, ‘What? You’re not happy with that?’ And I am saying, ‘No, no, it’s great’. And he said, ‘Okay, I’ll see what I can do’.
“The deal ended up being a lot better for me. Michael’s been brilliant. I owe him so much that when the time comes to pay him, I’m going to do a runner.” That would be a first.
David Walsh Sunday Times
Keane lets the mask slip
Roy Keane, embroiled in controversy again last night, talks to David Walsh about the support of his family, his future with Ireland and the England team's lack of desire
We had agreed to meet at a hotel 15 minutes from his home in Manchester. Ten minutes before the appointed time, he shows up in denim jeans and a white T-shirt. His smile is warm. He orders two bottles of water and sits. For almost three hours, he talks. The water lies at the centre of the table, unopened.
He is self-deprecating, analytical, unforgiving and unexpectedly funny. Alone, those characteristics wouldn’t hurt him. But they travel in a steaming ship, a vessel that sails too close to the truth. Roy Keane doesn’t do diplomacy.
He gives an interview, says what’s on his mind, and recoils at the headline: “Keane Blasts This . . . Keane Slams That.” But to back off would be akin to shirking a tackle. Doesn’t do that, either. At Old Trafford, the faithful have long identified his honesty as the team’s greatest strength. “Keano, There’s Only One Keano.”
One Keane? Nothing could be more simple. And nothing could be less accurate.
Though you may think you know Roy Keane, you don’t. There is a depth that the scowling caricature doesn’t even hint at. It has been his choice. He has not wanted us to know him. And too easily, we have judged the book by the cover.
He tells a story about seeing the England international Gareth Southgate on holiday in Portugal this summer. As Keane walked into a shop, Southgate was there with his back to the door. “I thought, ‘Will I, won’t I? Nah, I will leave it’. I wouldn’t have minded saying, ‘Hi Gareth, how are things?’ because I haven’t got a problem with him. I’d have a bit of time for him, actually. It might seem aloof or arrogant, but I’m shy. I need the other guy to break the ice, and that’s something I need to grow out of. Forget about football, I am talking life in general.”
There are other sides, other aspects of a complex nature. He tells of another chance meeting. This time he and his wife, Theresa, were at a restaurant when they met the Leeds goalkeeper Paul Robinson and his girlfriend. Robinson broke the ice and the couples enjoyed a pleasant conversation. Then, at the end, Keane could not stop himself: “He seemed a nice lad, but I do give this vibe. It’s like, ‘We’ve had this conversation, but let’s leave it at that’.
Maybe it’s a fault, but I am saying, ‘Let’s not kid ourselves that we’re going to be pals’. He’s Leeds, I’m United. It was the same in my Rockmount days in Cork. You would go into town and meet fellows from other teams. Fine, but they were the enemy. Always the enemy. I know my priorities. I know what comes first. Winning, winning football matches.”
This hunger has made him the warrior he is. It has caused him to lose control on the pitch, it has led to confrontations with Alf-Inge Haaland, Alan Shearer and, yesterday, Jason McAteer. Keane should be tried in a court of law, says the leader writer in The Daily Telegraph, commenting on the Haaland tackle. His critics see an ogre, but from where did the monster come? “I’ve built up this character over the years,” says Keane. “With all the bad stuff, the sendings-off, having a go at the referee, the off-the-field stuff, the ad with Diadora, the hard man image. I am as guilty as anyone in the creation of this character.” Keane believes there are few wrongs in life you don’t pay for. Allow Diadora to make you a devil, allow newspapers to serialise your book: you pay. He is paying.
“When I’m over in Ireland or on holidays and people look at me, what they see is the monster. Without a shadow of a doubt. Then some people make the effort to be polite and you see . . . I wouldn’t like to say the relief, but that is what it is. Especially when they see me with my kids. They’re always amazed at that. Well, they are my kids.
“They see me in a pool with the kids, eating a lollipop or on the swings, and they can’t believe it. ‘I saw you playing with your kids’. They’re probably expecting me to be kicking the little lad in a game on the beach. I have contributed to the image.”
Who is the man Theresa Keane loves?
WE meet on the day after United’s first European game of the season, the 1-0 defeat to Zalaegerszeg in Hungary. He is learning to cope better with defeat, but the balance he seeks is elusive. Victories have never bothered him; briefly enjoyed, soon banished. It is defeats that drive him down.
“Before, I’d be twisting and turning all night. As you get older, you get better at sleeping, but I don’t want to sleep too well after we lose. I look at other people and how they react to a defeat, and in a way, I admire them. They’re chatting away afterwards, they’re brilliant. But I hope I never get to that. I hope I never get to the ‘it’s gone, now let it go’ stage.”
It was 2am when the team’s chartered plane landed at Manchester airport the previous night. He described what it was like when he got to his home in Hale. “My wife was still up, I let the dog in and I put on Teletext. First thing I saw: ‘Irwin Slams Keane Over Book’. ‘Thanks Denis, thanks’. Three o’clock in the morning, **** match in Hungary, and Denis has a pop. Denis, a man I respect.”
Theresa was still up? “I don’t really mention her in public, but in fairness to her, she has been a rock in my life. Just brilliant. She reads me better than I read myself.
“If we have a bad result, especially at Old Trafford, I usually won’t go to the players’ lounge, even though Theresa will be waiting there for me. I get a message to her. The plan would have been to go out for a meal. She comes to the car, and even though I am not showing any outward sign of disappointment, she will say, ‘It’s okay, I’ll cancel the table’.
“I wouldn’t say Theresa likes every part of the package. She knows I haven’t got a halo over my head. Actually, that’s what she likes about me. She also knows I am not the nastiest person in the world.”
Family life is Keane’s refuge, his protection from the corrosion that comes with celebrity. Offered victory in the Champions League in the next two years or his kids remembering him as a good father, he says he wouldn’t have to think. As much as football means, it will not come before his family. After a bad day at Highbury or St James’ Park or wherever, Shannon, Caragh, Aidan and Leah are his therapists.
He loves, too, that they don’t care, that their innocent indifference challenges his intensity. On those grim evenings they entice him out of himself, encourage him back to normality. A good father? “I think I am. Hopefully. I know I’m pretty useless at being a footballer. I dreamt all my life of being a footballer, but I don’t like a lot of what comes with it. The lack of privacy, the fuss people make over you, I’m hopeless in situations like that. I get annoyed.”
Easily, he talks about them. Aidan is almost four, and, to his dad’s amusement, he displays not an iota of interest in football. Dad has tried to enthuse him, just so they can talk about the game or sit together and watch it on television. So far Aidan’s world is too full, too interesting, for football, and his dad thinks, “What the hell? What does it matter?” “But it’s funny. You take Shannon and Caragh. Shannon is eight and Caragh is nearly seven, and they do have a bit of interest. They have a few posters of me up on their bedroom wall. When I first saw that, it surprised me. It’s strange when your own kids put posters of you in their room. They put them up because I’m away a lot and they like a reminder. Or maybe they’ve put me up on the wall to scare away other monsters at night.”
ON an average evening in the city of Cork you will encounter a taxi driver who swears that of the four Keane boys, Roy was not the most talented. Another know-all will tell you he was at school with Roy and remembers how Roy and Anthony Kenneally were best mates. “But, actually, Anthony was the better footballer.”
From the Rockmount team of the mid-1980s, five made the Ireland Under-15s. Roy, Damien, Paul, Alan and Len. Only Keane did not get an offer from an English club: “This wasn’t a mistake. I was the least talented of the five, without a shadow of a doubt. Even now, I don’t see myself as a talented player.
“I have limited ability, but at least I know it. I don’t kid myself that I can start whipping balls into the box or beating two or three players. I win it and give it to the lads who can play. At Nottingham Forest, Cloughie (the manager, Brian Clough) used to tell me to get it and give it to someone more skilful. I’ve made a career out of it. That and my attitude. With me, attitude is everything.”
Ah, attitude. It is what makes him the most admired player in the Premiership, and the least admired. Sir Alex Ferguson has built the Manchester United team around Keane’s attitude, because everything else he can replace. Others find the unrelenting hardness of his attitude difficult to take.
For in a world where the line between football and show business is less easy to identify, Keane refuses to play the entertainer. For him, Manchester United is a team, not a brand. Celebrity is for film stars, not footballers. When he is asked what he thinks, he says it as he feels it. If that hurts his image, so be it.
“I’ve done the diplomatic bit,” he says. “Didn’t do anything for me. I would rather be a victim of my honesty than be with those who sit on the fence. Of course people mightn’t like to hear it, but so what?” His recently published autobiography, written with Eamon Dunphy, is an adult account of his football life. Keane is pleased by the book: “I didn’t do the book to please people and I am aware there are people who are going to get hurt by it, probably me more than anybody because of the honesty.”
The description of the intentional foul on Haaland has upset people. He has been accused of glorifying the crude, and the Football Association is examining the contents of the book. There is a clamour for Keane to be punished. He calmly says the foul has long been dealt with; David Elleray’s red card was the punishment. Sixteen months on, he finds the commotion proof of what he has long believed: bluster and hypocrisy are part of life’s routine.
He is less blasé when saying he did not set out to deliberately injure Haaland. But he will not express regret for the tackle. That would be dishonest and weak, because at the time, he knew what he was doing. Given the same circumstances, he would do the same again. If there is a regret, it is that in the book he felt he had to stay true to football’s vocabulary.
“I am sure the bad language will upset my parents. Even myself, reading the book, I thought, ‘Ah, there is a lot of it’, but that is the way it was. A lot of the stuff was in heated arguments, sometimes drink was involved, and that’s how we spoke. If we had softened it, it wouldn’t be the book I wanted.”
Keane saves his sporting passion for what matters to him, Manchester United. The club is at a crossroads and he sees no certainty in the future. United are no longer the Premiership’s best team: “Arsenal and Liverpool have gone past us. They have good managers, they have bought well, and the teams they now have are hungry.
“We’ve been at the top for a long time; it’s human nature that you slacken off. I am not talking about teammates, I’m talking about me as an individual, the team as a whole. Who did well last season? Ruud (van Nistelrooy), I would say, and Becks (David Beckham). That’s it.”
For some time, he has known the key question. Can Beckham, Giggs, Scholes, Butt and Gary Neville be to this team what Robson, Pallister, Bruce, Hughes, Schmeichel and Cantona were to the old one? “I love the lads I play with, and this is not being critical of them. They’ve worked damn hard for what they’ve achieved, but they mustn’t let it go. They’ve been at United from the age of 14 or 15 and they’ve had a great life. I don’t know if they’ve ever had the fear that it wasn’t going to work out. “When people like Robbo and Brucie came to United, they came from smaller clubs and it was a case of, ‘Okay, here we go, let’s see what we can achieve’. They brought with them the ability to grind out results. Last season we didn’t have that. People said our defence was the problem. Bull****. We lost six games at home last season: Bolton, West Ham, Liverpool, Chelsea, Middlesbrough and Arsenal. In those six games, we scored one goal.
“We have identified the problem. Now we’ve got to deal with it. Put it another way: the penny is in, now it has to drop. But isn’t this great? Doesn’t it give us a challenge this season? If things are not working, the gaffer is going to get drastic, and that’s as it should be. This is Manchester United we’re talking about.”
He thinks about the club and the players he has soldiered with. Mark Hughes was one of the warriors, a player who had his respect. But at the time of Hughes’s departure, the affection was laced with disdain. Hughes left because he was no longer certain of being in the first team: “No player should be guaranteed a game at Manchester United. Same for Arsenal, Liverpool, Real Madrid, Bayern Munich. Doesn’t matter who you are, what you’ve done for the club. I think it’ll be a miracle if I see out my current contract as a first-team player at Man United. That’s the name of the game. I’ve spoken to one or two players recently. ‘It doesn’t look like I’m going to get a game,’ they say. ‘You make sure you do,’ I tell them. ‘But it’s a big squad.’ And I just say, ‘F*** sake man, okay, go somewhere where you’re guaranteed a game, get into the comfort zone’. What is the world coming to?” The same question was asked when Keane and the Republic of Ireland went their separate ways at the World Cup. He wants to move on from Saipan, but cannot stop himself going back. Maybe there is more clarity now, but there is no less hurt. He has been critical of manager Mick McCarthy, Niall Quinn and Steve Staunton, and feels it is time to let it go. He’s had good times with these people. But that thought cannot banish the others.
Three months have passed since Saipan. Some things have moved on. He accepts he will not play for Ireland under McCarthy: player and manager have decided they are not meant for each other. He is similarly certain he will again play for Ireland: “Things will work out okay in the end. I believe that. I will play for my country again. I can’t imagine finishing my international career on the note I have. What goes round, comes round.”
Less easy for him is his sense of betrayal by former Irish teammates. “I wouldn’t have done what the other players did to me. In that room in Saipan, it came down to me and Mick, it had been brewing for years. But it was the press conference afterwards that really galls me; 15 minutes after a private meeting between management and players, you have a press conference. And for three players to sit alongside Mick and denounce me, that bothers me. It really does. Then, the next morning, when they were leaving for the World Cup and I was getting ready to go home, not one f***** came to my room, nobody except the physio, Mick Byrne.
“You know it has happened at United, a player has been 100% out of order, but I have stuck by him. Players should always stand by a teammate. The Irish players didn’t do that. Then they came home to Dublin, big reception, gallant losers, full of ****. I deserved to play in the World Cup. I did my bit, like everybody else. After what happened, I never wanted to go back. If I had, before the Cameroon game I would have said, ‘Lads, before we go out, will you do me a favour, take the knife out of my back’.”
To the suggestion that Ireland performed admirably in his absence, he politely disagrees: “They should have beaten Spain. I watched the extra time, Spain had 10 men, their legs were gone. Spain were dead, happy to go home. Typical Spain. There for the taking. I wanted the lads to go through. Not for the manager’s sake, for their sake. But they didn’t, and at the end there were fellows on the pitch crying. F****** grow up.”
And England’s performance? “Poor. The English mentality is not far behind the Irish. They came back as heroes, kind of heroes anyway. They beat Denmark in the second phase; the keeper threw two goals in. The best thing that could have happened to England was (David) Seaman let that goal in (against Brazil), because Seaman took the heat.
“You analyse that game. Men against boys. Some England players were more interested in swapping their shirts at the end of the game. It was obvious: England were overawed by Brazil. Brazil with 10 players, men against boys. You could see England’s body language at the end: ‘We’ve done okay, haven’t we? Got to the quarter-finals’.
“England should expect to be in the semi-finals or final every time. Come on lads, wake up! I spoke to Butty (teammate Nicky Butt) about them concentrating on swapping tops. He didn’t disagree with me. There’s nothing wrong with swapping tops, but it shouldn’t be the priority in the quarter- final of the World Cup.
“I studied Roberto Carlos after the whistle in the World Cup final. Walking around the pitch like he was in his local park. He wasn’t waving flags, wasn’t crying, wasn’t kissing his boots. You could see what he is about. ‘This is what I expect, this is what I deserve’. Class player.”
TO leave you with the driven Keane is to leave you with one aspect of the man. For sure, the most important, but maybe not his most endearing trait. He spoke about his adviser and friend, Michael Kennedy. He said he hoped Kennedy respected him. From Keane, that was an unusual observation.
Kennedy has negotiated all of Keane’s contracts but has refused to accept any payment for the work: “A few weeks ago, Michael was up to see me about some contract or other. ‘For Christ’s sake, Michael, this has gone on for 10 years. We’ve got to sort something out’. He just laughed, ‘Another time, Roy, another time’.”
Keane tells a story about his last contract with United, and how the board were reluctant to commit themselves to a long contract until they were sure he had fully recovered from serious knee surgery. When the board were satisfied Keane was as fit as ever, they wanted him to commit his future to the club. He made them sweat.
“Actually, Michael’s timing was just superb. He strung things out until close to the January 1 deadline. Then I would have been free to negotiate with other clubs. The meetings had gone on for months, but it came to a head on the Sunday before Christmas. Sir Roland Smith, chairman of the shareholders or something like that, was involved. It was two o’clock in the afternoon, and Michael rang me at home.
“He said, ‘Roy, this is what they are offering, and the deal has to be done today. The club’s representatives are sitting next to me’. I said, ‘Yeah Michael, that’s great, the figures sound good, let’s do it, let’s go for it’. And he said, ‘What? You’re not happy with that?’ And I am saying, ‘No, no, it’s great’. And he said, ‘Okay, I’ll see what I can do’.
“The deal ended up being a lot better for me. Michael’s been brilliant. I owe him so much that when the time comes to pay him, I’m going to do a runner.” That would be a first.
David Walsh Sunday Times