In an age where football media conferences are more and more bland Roy Keane’s explosive views and revelations have been welcomed by an audience eager for an insight into the real game.
Keane’s relationship with Alex Ferguson was the backbone of a decade of success for Manchester United but nine years later the fall-out between the two men only gets wider and wider.
While Ferguson is lauded as a guru of man management, motivation and inspiration Keane is portrayed in an altogether different light.
Celtic fans who can remember the pre-Manchester United Fergie will easily be able to recognise the firebrand described by Keane.
At a question and answer session promoting his book Keane gave a telling insight into the real Fergie, the man who was controversially sacked by St Mirren and who lost his claim for unfair dismissal at an Industrial Tribunal. The man who fashioned his Aberdeen side on the ‘silky skills’ of Doug Rougie, Alex McLeish, Neale Cooper, Neil Simpson and led by Willie Miller. The man who didn’t speak to the BBC for seven years after they highlighted the close links his agent son Jason had with a number of United transfers.
Opening up on the aura that surrounds his former Old Trafford boss Kean explains: “You have to defend yourself. A lot of people are sitting around here and people are frightened of him.
“You (journalists) can’t go against him because you’ll never be allowed to speak to him again but, thank God, I don’t have them problems. Why do people let him get away with that? People sit back and are frightened to death of him.
“He was never critical when we were winning trophies and he was getting his new contracts, getting this and that named after him – Sir this, and whatever else. He was not pulling me or other players, saying: ‘Listen, you need to relax a bit.’ That was the game and I appreciate the game. The game finished, and we finished, but it was all the carry-on afterwards.”
Getting into his stride Keane added: “For Alex Ferguson, not just to criticise myself, but other players who were part of a team that brought some good days to lots of supporters … for him to criticise that when you think of what he made out of it. He made millions of pounds out of it. He got his statues. He got his stand named after him. To come back and criticise … I wasn’t too bothered about myself, but to criticise people who brought him success was just ridiculous.
“Will I ever forgive him? I don’t know. The stuff that has been said about me over the years, even from ex-team-mates, is a pack of lies, just lies and lies and lies and sometimes you just say: ‘Listen, I have to get up and say something myself and defend myself a little bit.’ Hopefully the book will reflect that. A lot of stuff I let go – lots of stuff I let go – but eventually you have to go: ‘Nah, nah, enough’s enough’.”
The popular version of events is that an interview with MUTV in which he slated team-mates, notably Darren Ferguson, led to the parting of the ways between Keane and Manchester Utd but typically that’s not a version that the Ireland No. 2 agrees with.
“There was a lot of nonsense and propaganda coming out from United about this leaked [MUTV] video,” he explained. “They were quite happy to let that come out. They’d just been knocked out of the Champions League. There was a disagreement about the video but it was just nonsense. None of the players had an issue about it except Ferguson and (Carlos) Queiroz and they had already made up their minds about me anyway.
“That wasn’t the issue. It was afterwards. When people are telling tales about me, saying this and that. It was the way it was handled, the statements and stuff coming out about me. I’m pretty sure I know the source of where it was coming from. Obviously Ferguson had friends in the media. There are a few of them here today. I can spot them a mile away. He was pals with them and he put little snippets about me out there. It was lies, basic lies. So I had to come out and say ‘listen …’ and now is the time. I had to bide my time and I’ve waited long enough, so there you go.”
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