Never mind the bollocks: he’s as Keane as ever

Keano is back. And not before time.

The enigmatic Irishman has returned to club management at Ipswich Town. But which Roy Keane will we see? It probably doesn’t matter. Whether he’s good, bad or mad, the latest instalment of the Roy Keane saga is bound to be hugely entertaining.

In his first interview as Ipswich boss, he dismissed Sir Alex Ferguson’s suggestion that he might quit football for good after walking out on Sunderland. ‘What did he think I was going to do?’, Keane said. ‘Go backpacking around Mexico? I have five kids. Football is in my blood. I had just had enough at Sunderland. End of bloody story.’ Typical Keano. No vacuous PR-friendly platitudes. Keane says what’s on his mind and to hell with the consequences.

Roy Keane was always a bullshit-free zone. That was one of his endearing traits. Love him or loathe him, you had to admire his brutal, no-punches-pulled, honesty. Keane never did diplomatic. Time and again this got him into hot water. In 2002, he was handed a five-game ban and £150,000 fine for admitting in his autobiography that he had deliberately aimed to hurt Manchester City defender Alf Inge-Haaland. ‘I’d waited long enough. I fucking hit him hard. The ball was there (I think). Take that you cunt.’

I’d have gladly paid top dollar to witness first hand Keane’s famous verbal salvo at Ireland manager Mick McCarthy on the eve of the 2002 World Cup. ‘I didn’t rate you as a player, I don’t rate you as a manager, and I don’t rate you as a person. You’re a fucking wanker and you can stick your World Cup up your arse…You can stick it up your bollocks.’ Priceless. That memorable rant cost Keane his international career. A similarly outspoken attack on his Manchester United teammates on MUTV in 2005 hastened his exit from Old Trafford.

Keane divided opinions. Manchester United and Ireland fans revered him. But supporters of opposing teams loathed him. In part this was a symptom of the wider green-eyed Anyone But United sentiment. Partly it was fans parroting the sanctimonious tabloid line that Keane was a thug. Admittedly the red mist would descend every now and then. But I’d have had him in my team any day. Why? First and foremost, he was an outstanding midfielder. In his pomp there was no better box-to-box midfielder in Europe. But don’t just take my word for it; watch a video of the 1999 Champions League semi-final second leg between Juventus and United. That game was all about Roy Keane.

Secondly, Keane was a winner. He set himself very high standards and expected the same of his teammates. He hated complacency, loathed mediocrity. He wasn’t interested in the VIP lifestyle and WAG culture. He just wanted to win. In one of his witheringly honest rants he suggested that, thanks to the Rolex watches and fast cars, his United teammates had lost their hunger.

Keane was a great player, without a doubt, and a great leader on the pitch, too. But the jury’s still out on whether he can make a great manager. It all began so promisingly at Sunderland. For a start, he didn’t rant and rave. He stood on the touchline impassively, arms folded. He didn’t holler at referees. His post-match interviews were quite measured. And, most importantly of all, he guided Sunderland to promotion in 2007 and kept them up the following season.

But at the start of this season, things started to unravel. The team started the campaign poorly. Keane’s greying beard seemed to show that the Irishman was showing the strain. After a run of five defeats in six games, with Sunderland lying eighteenth in the league, Keane walked out on the club. Some pundits started to question whether he had the people skills to succeed in management. He was criticised for having been too aloof from his players. ‘Keane only does distance, he doesn’t do warmth’, wrote former Ireland international Tony Cascarino. ‘Bonding? No chance. It doesn’t matter how powerful or influential you are, whether board member or kit-man, he won’t want to be your friend or develop any relationship with you beyond the bare minimum.’ (1)

Keane, of course, sees it differently. ‘[Niall Quinn] was talking to me about the players needing to come into work with a smile on their face. That really concerned me. The day I walked into Sunderland, putting a smile on the faces of well-paid players was the last thing anybody wanted me to do. Players had been taking the piss out of the club for years. If they wanted them smiling all the time they should have employed Roy Chubby Brown.’ (2) A great soundbite as ever from Keano but it doesn’t dispel the question marks over his man management skills.

A more damaging accusation, following Keane’s decision to walk out on Sunderland, is that he’s a quitter. ‘When the going gets tough, you head for the exit’, wrote Tony Cascarino. ‘So as hard a man as you are, and though you were never a shirker as a player, I have to conclude that you’ve not wanted to face the challenge of digging deep and turning around Sunderland’s season.’ Cascarino pointed to what he called Keane’s ‘previous’: walking out on Ireland and burning his bridges with Fergie with his MUTV rant.

Keane’s own account of his departure from Sunderland suggests that differences with the club’s majority shareholder Ellis Short were to blame for his exit. Whatever the truth, Ipswich Town’s ambitious new chairman Marcus Evans evidently thinks that Keane is worth taking a punt on. Ipswich may be his last chance saloon as a manager. If he ‘does a Kevin Keegan’ and walks out on Ipswich when things get difficult – which they will as it’s a devilishly difficult league to get out of – then the quitter tag will stick.

Duleep Allirajah is spiked‘s sports columnist.

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(1) When the going got tough at Sunderland, Roy Keane decided to get going, The Times (London), 5 December 2008

(2) The box office awaits the return of a matinee idol, Irish Times, 21 February 2009