Up the f**king stairs now, into my office. Everyone. Let’s go and watch that f**king video.”
The entire Manchester United squad had just been ordered to gather around the television inside Sir Alex Ferguson’s quarters at the club’s Carrington training ground. They were unsure what they were about to witness.
Roy Keane stood anxiously in front of the TV, aware of what was at stake. His career, a reputation he had built over 12 glorious years at Old Trafford, rested on this. When the tape reached its conclusion on this biting November 2005 afternoon, Ferguson let rip. “It’s a disgrace, this f**king video.”
The squad had just seen Keane’s withering MUTV assessment of their recent 4-1 defeat at Middlesbrough; his first act of punditry, so blunt that it was never aired, and deemed so incendiary that reports suggested the tape was destroyed – “like it was a nuclear weapon or something,” as Keane would incredulously describe it later.
Inside Ferguson’s office, the 34-year-old attempted to stand his ground, believing that he had done nothing wrong and that he had the support of his team-mates. For once, this was a battle he couldn’t win.
“Why don’t you shut the f**k up?” he asked Edwin van der Sar, when the goalkeeper spoke in favour of Ferguson. “Do you always make love to your wife in the same position?” he randomly blurted out towards assistant Carlos Queiroz, while forcefully insisting that training was becoming monotonous. “You as well, gaffer: we need f**king more from you,” Keane raged at Ferguson, before storming out of the room.
Days later, his Manchester United career was over. In the end, the determination, the standards, the relentless drive that saw him push his team-mates to seven Premier League titles, four FA Cups and a remarkable Champions League triumph, was also the cause of his downfall.
It was why the Irishman was box office from the very start of his career, and why he continues to be box office today. Greatness teetering on the brink of explosion. Roy Maurice Keane has never been boring.
WATCH OUT, JOHN BARNES
Perhaps it’s no surprise that Keane could have been a boxer. In his home city of Cork, he won all four of his bouts as a youngster. His tenacity was unrivalled. Eventually he chose football – as a Spurs supporter, he had idolised silky playmaker Glenn Hoddle, the antithesis of what Keane later became.
His dream was to go and play in England. Believing he had impressed during trials for Ireland’s national schoolboys squad, the 14-year-old was heartbroken not to earn selection, deemed “just too small” by chief scout Ronan Scally. The same reason was given when Brighton offered him a trial but backed out 24 hours before he was due to travel. Rejection letters came from Chelsea, Derby, Aston Villa, Sheffield Wednesday – even Nottingham Forest. A disconsolate Keane would often stay in bed until 1pm, getting up only to watch Neighbours. As a teenager, he lurched from job to job and was variously employed as a labourer and a potato picker.
His big break eventually came in unlikely circumstances: an FAI Youth Cup match for Cobh Ramblers Under-18s, which the team lost 4-0 to Belvedere after nearly missing kick-off because of heavy traffic. Enraged by that bad build-up, Keane played out of his skin, refusing to give up when his team-mates had long since done so, and catching the eye of a watching Forest scout.
A trial followed, and then a contract. After spending pre-season with the reserves, the 19-year-old ascended to the first team in time for the second game of the campaign.
“We were playing Liverpool away, and this young kid was sitting on the bus,” former Forest right-back Brian Laws tells . “Brian Clough would regularly take kids with us to get experience. I don’t think anyone spoke to him – no one knew who he was.”
