Roy Keane: An Irish icon
A CORK COMPLEX
It wasn’t immediately obvious, to the wider world at least, that Roy was a bit special. Though clearly talented, with strong sporting genes on either side of the family, the young Roy Keane was considered a lightweight by football’s fortune-tellers. Pictures of him in his – admittedly all- conquering – youth-team days show a scrawny kid, one for who lack of inches looked to be critical when mixing it with the bigger boys.
A succession of knockbacks and overlooks might have done for some, but they make them strong in Cork.
“A superiority complex is the mark of a sound Corkman,”
he later observed.
When his mates chose Mayfield – the suburb of his birth – as their juvenile theatre of dreams, he instead plumped for the seven-mile round trip to renowned Rockmount AFC, where his uncles had played. Not for the last time was he taken to task for the boldness of his decision-making – those local encounters possessed an edge he would bottle for bigger battles on grander stages.
Plugging away at his game, spurred on to escape the grim economic backdrop faced by Irish teenagers at the fag-end of the ’80s, Keane, by now semi-pro at Cobh Ramblers in the National League of Ireland’s second tier, eventually alerted the attentions of Nottingham Forest for a trial.
A friendly, albeit at a deserted Tranmere Rovers ground, was an opportunity not to be passed up.
“I’d learned the trick of making the atmosphere in my head,”
he later recalled of the game that landed him a contract at Forest.
Where his role model growing up as a Spurs fan had once been the suave and sophisticated Glenn Hoddle, Keane was now in thrall to the man he’d end up replacing in the affections of the Stretford End, Manchester United’s Bryan Robson. For Keane, Robson was proof positive that
“you could be a great player without doing tricks”
.
As Alex Ferguson, fresh from his first title triumph in 1992/93, cast about for players who could drive the club on with a shared desire to build something concrete and lasting, it was no shock that he turned to Keane. The standout performer in a relegated Forest side – voted fans’ player of the year – it took a British transfer-record £3.75million to secure his services from under the noses of Blackburn Rovers and, not for the first (or last time), a furious Kenny Dalglish. This, Ferguson noted, was a player with the chutzpah to put Robson on his backside when United met Forest. Reputations didn’t seem to faze him.
Keane’s family were all Reds. This was a no-brainer. It was also the start of an education to be hungrily devoured. Everything about Old Trafford spoke of greatness to him – the history, the expectations on those who wore the shirt. His first season –
“a young player’s dream – learning what real attitude was, as opposed to mouthing off and posing”
– ended with a glorious Double, personal highlights among 54 appearances and eight goals including a post-Galatasaray last-gasp winner in November’s 3-2 derby comeback at Maine Road, enough in itself to secure beers to eternity in M16. As Bryan Robson, his hero and mentor bowed out, it was clear the torch had been passed safely on.
