The Sunday Mail
WITH Roy Keane’s new autobiography ‘The Second Half’ making waves in a slow news week, FFT’s James Maw ponders why the former Manchester United and Republic of Ireland midfielder is such a miserable chap . . .
“When I look at Roy Keane, I often see myself,” Sir Alex Ferguson once said of his former captain, presumably not being literal. “I equate to his passion, desire and striving for perfection. He cares. He’s a born winner.”
‘Winner’ is a word often used to described Keane. Throughout a career that saw the Corkonian lift seven Premier League titles and four FA Cups, he was famous for his full-blooded approach to the game. So much so, in fact, that the technical ability is often overlooked.
Keane was an imposing figure on the pitch, but he also was a superb reader of the game, possessed a brilliant range of passing, and had the canny knack of surging forward into the opposition box at exactly the right time — often in the biggest games. He wasn’t just a defensive midfield thug. He wasn’t Vinnie Jones. To focus solely on his more animalistic attributes is to do him a massive disservice.
But as time goes by, that’s what seems to be happening, and it’s a problem largely of his own making. Keane has become a caricature of himself — a renowned misery who seems to exist to do little more than pick at the weaknesses of others. It came as no surprise to learn his new book was largely a bile-ridden journal of who he hates and why (although, it has to be said, sometimes he’s bang on the money — it’s like football’s version of Richard Nixon’s enemies list.
Some 49 percent of the fans polled this week by respected Manchester United fanzine United We Stand said they “wished he’d shut up” — and unsurprisingly, some of his ‘victims’ agree.
“It seems like he needs to criticise players, managers and directors to keep selling books as he is not able to do anything else in football,” Pablo Couñago — the Spanish striker who (occasionally) played for Keane at Ipswich — told Ipswich fan site TWTD earlier this week.
“It is a very sad ending for a person that was so big as a player,” the one-time Portman Road cult hero added, having been labelled ‘lazy’ by his former boss.
“I just hope he can find happiness in his life as, in my opinion, being that miserable must be very mentally draining. I could say lots of awful things about him, but I don’t feel right speaking about him; I feel sorry for him.”
Keane’s largely unheralded second autobiography is full of tales of little ‘moral victories’. The former midfielder even tells of how he only returned his Manchester United ‘company car’ after the paperwork confirming his Old Trafford departure had been sorted, 12 weeks after he’d actually left the club.
“This was three months after the last meeting,” Roy proudly explains. “So I got an extra three months out of it: I drove some f***ing miles in that car — every little victory is vital.”
A fully-grown man speeding up and down a darkened M6, perhaps occasionally changing down to a gear too low just to take his manifest frustrations out on the engine, doesn’t exactly scream ‘winner’.
And that’s the thing with Keane. As great a player as he was, and as ‘driven’ as he may be, many of the episodes for which he is most widely remembered actually suggest he’s as much of a lovable loser as he is a flawed genius.
There’s no questioning the fact Keane enjoyed a hugely successful career — after all, he captained United to Champions League glory in 1999. Except he kind of didn’t. He missed the final through suspension, tainting arguably his greatest-ever performance — the semi-final win over Juventus.
Clearly, both skipper and club will have been more than content with the way the whole thing worked out, but it’s hard to imagine Keane doesn’t look back with some regret. — FourFourTwo.
