The most underrated modern great of them all.
Someone misremembered as a personality rather than a player. A footballer who made everyone better. A man who, even as he slowed, nobody could keep up with.It was always his way. Keane’s ferocious will to win is well documented, but in truth “will” doesn’t come close to covering it. Winning was his oxygen. It was a need. It was innate.
Turned down by Ireland Schoolboys for being too small, Keane persisted. English clubs all rejected him for trials. He didn’t stop. He signed for Cobh Ramblers, playing for their youth and first-team sides, often in the same weekend.
Forest took a punt for £47,000. Even then, the Forest players barely noticed him. Forest right-back Brian Laws recalled: "We were playing Liverpool away, and this young kid was sitting on the bus. 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. "We got to Anfield,and, as I thought, he was just pushing the skips into the dressing room and helping to put the kit out. Halfway through, he was putting the No.7 shirt out when Cloughie stopped him and said, ‘Now, son, I want you to try that shirt on.’ We all started laughing, and this poor lad was embarrassed. He reluctantly put it on, as though he wanted to get it off as quickly as possible. Cloughie said, ‘You look a million dollars – you look so good, you’re playing’. We still thought it was a wind-up, but he was deadly serious.
"He said to me, ‘You look after him: he’s playing right wing’. I thought, ‘What? I’m playing against John Barnes, and now I’ve got a rookie playing in front of me?’ I introduced myself. I didn’t even know his name – I had to ask him. I said, ‘Look, Roy, keep it simple and I’ll try to talk you through it’. But within five minutes of kick-off, Roy had stamped on Barnes, taken out another player, and when John was on the floor he just went, ‘F**k off’ in his face! There were five minutes of me looking after Roy, then he looked after me for the rest of the game.
“He was like a rat up a drainpipe, all over the place. It can be frightening to go out there at Anfield, but he had no fear. He didn’t care who he was playing against: he would have a go at them. What a debut.”
“You get it, you pass it to another player in a red shirt,” was Clough’s mantra. They served Keane well. Not long after, Bryan Robson overheard Sir Alex talking about signing Keane and butted in, something he would never normally do. “He’s nailed on,” he said.
Keane arguably became Ferguson’s most important signing. There isn’t a single United player or fan from that era (or maybe any era) who wouldn’t have had him as the first name on the team sheet. His personality was such that it outshone anything he did on the pitch.
It shouldn’t have. Keane didn’t just go toe to toe with the likes of Vieira, Lampard, and Gerrard. He outmatched them. Consistently. He wasn’t as flashy, but they weren’t as good. Even Zinedine Zidane was overrun by Keane - his energy, his passing, his decision-making, his goals too.
After that semi-final against Juventus, Keane was widely hailed as the best midfielder on the planet. It was a performance unlike any other: a player ruled out of the final, dragging his teammates to victory. Unplayable. Ferguson said Keane competed “as if he would rather die of exhaustion than lose. He inspired all around him. I felt as if it was an honour to be associated with this player.” Keane’s response, typically, was one of disgust. “Stuff like that almost insults me. What am I supposed to do?”He had the lot.
Too much, in the end, maybe.
Roy Keane. One of one.
Words by Lee Kelleher.
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