The Second Half

by Roy Keane

  I remember saying to Michael, ‘Michael, I’m not fuckin’ interested in the money side of it.’

  He came to my house later that afternoon. He was as white as a ghost; he still couldn’t believe it.

  I said, ‘Michael, it’s for the best.’

  And he went, ‘Well, I believe you, Roy.’

  I had to put up a front, in front of Michael and my wife and family. I was the tough guy; I had to play the role that day – even though I’d been crying in the car a few hours earlier. I was trying to hide my hurt from my wife, although she’d have seen right through me.

  There was also an element of relief; it was almost over.

  I said, ‘No, it’s for the best.’

  And, actually, it was for the best. Whatever happened or was said afterwards, the timing was right. We’d come to the end.

  But I still don’t know exactly why it happened. If the manager thought I’d been out of line with the villa incident, or the interview, he surely could have said to me, quietly, ‘Look, Roy, be careful – you stepped out of line there, boy. You’re out of order.’ He’d done that before, when I’d been drinking or I’d been arrested, or after I’d committed a bad tackle, or when I’d chased the referee Andy D’Urso, There’d been times when he’d take me aside and say, ‘Hey, you fuckin’ crossed the line there’, and he’d have a go at me. I was his captain.

  I think back to Portugal and I wonder ‘Was it that?’ The whole thing might have been a bit awkward, but I’d been looking after my family. It was no big deal. It was only a villa, the house we were going to stay in. As team captain, I’d always pushed for team spirit. Family get-togethers, the Christmas dos, match tickets for families – I’d sorted all that. Myself and my wife would go out of our way for any of the players, particularly the foreign lads.

  Then there was pre-season, and Carlos not wanting me back after I’d hurt my hamstring, and throwing the bib at me. Was I missing something? Did Carlos see me as some sort of threat? And, if so, did the manager feel he had to back him up? Carlos had been away at Real Madrid for a year, and then he came back. He might have felt that I was a bigger presence in the dressing room. But I didn’t go looking for that status; it comes with games, appearances, trophies. It just comes your way. But when Carlos came back, he might have felt, ‘Mmm, what’s this guy about?’ Even though I’d worked with him previously and got on well with him. But I was intelligent enough to know that if the manager felt that this was between myself and Carlos, then he’d have to back his number two.

  I knew when I got into the argument with Carlos, when I said, ‘Do you make love to your wife in the same position?’, I knew he wouldn’t like it. To be honest, I didn’t use the words ‘make love’; I think I said, ‘When you shag your missis, do you change positions?’ I think some of the lads were going, ‘Fuckin’ hell, where did that one come from?’ In the heat of an argument, you go, ‘Here, you fucker—’, and say things you might not normally say. And why did I bring up the horse syndicate with the manager? I’d like to know. But I wasn’t going to sit back and be passive. You know – you fight your corner.

  I’ve thought since that I should have insisted they show the interview on MUTV; I should have checked if I could do that, legally: ‘Show the video. ’Cos you’re tarnishing me. You’re making out I’ve said something really bad. And I haven’t.’

  Apparently, I described Kieran Richardson as a lazy defender. But Kieran Richardson isn’t a defender. Some players, out of position, defend lazily; they don’t get back quickly enough. So the comment was taken out of context. I signed Kieran later, when I managed Sunderland. I was critical of Darren Fletcher. Apparently, I doubted why people in Scotland raved about him.

  I might have said something like that, almost tongue in cheek. Sometimes you’re rated more highly in your own country than you are in any other. I always rated Darren and I used to push him. I think the lads I was really critical of were the ones I rated. ‘I think you’ve got a chance of being a top player – I think you could do better.’ There’s always a compliment in that. The players I didn’t want to speak about, they were the ones who should have been worried. I went to Old Trafford not long ago; United played Liverpool in the League Cup. The first player to walk over and shake my hand was Darren Fletcher. Darren knew that I would have backed him to the hilt.

  A lot of the comments I’ve been expected to defend over the years, I’m not actually sure I made them. I’m supposed to have said about Rio Ferdinand, something like, ‘Just because you’re paid a hundred thousand pounds a week and play well for England doesn’t make you a top player.’ But I don’t believe I ever said that. I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned a player’s wages in any interview, in my life. And, again, when we had that chat in the dressing room, Rio and Fletch were there, and they were the two I was supposed to have hammered. Fletch took me the way he knows me. And that was – I meant well. And remember, I said it all in an in-house studio. Could they not have just edited the stuff they objected to? If they thought it was so bad that it had to be destroyed, why were they fining me £5,000? Why weren’t they going, ‘A week’s wages for that. You’re bringing the club into disrepute.’ Or, why didn’t they just say quietly, ‘We’re not going to use it’? I think the video – the interview – was just an excuse.

  It’s been said that I brought up the Rock of Gibraltar affair, the manager’s legal dispute with the horsey crowd – Magnier and McManus – at the same time that he showed the video to the other players in his office. But I didn’t. I’d had that conversation a couple of months earlier, in private. Somebody I met in Ireland had told me to tell him, ‘You are not going to win this.’ I mentioned it to him. And I told him I didn’t think it was good for the club, the manager in a legal dispute with shareholders. I felt I was entitled to say that. He was just a mascot for them. Walking around with this Rock of Gibraltar – ‘Look at me, how big I am’ – and he didn’t even own the bloody thing.

  I’d done an interview on MUTV earlier in the season, and I’d mentioned that, come the end of the season, it might be time for me to leave. This was after the Portugal incident. That might have annoyed the manager. He’d said before that when players got to thirty-two or thirty-three he’d discuss their contracts at the end of the season. He’d said it in a radio interview; I remember I was driving when I heard it. That irritated me a small bit. Because other older players had signed deals well before the end of the season, in the past. I felt as if I was back on trial.

  As for the idea that I thought of myself as the manager, it was nonsense. I knew my boundaries. I came into work every day and I did my best, and that included pushing the players. That was my job. Leading by example. I think it was one of my strengths. Pushing people, and patting them on the back. I was the captain; I managed the dressing room. It was the job. When you become a manager and you speak to other managers, one of the first things they complain about is lack of that leadership out there among players. Nobody’s taking the lead roles. They want the manager and the coach to play the game for them. I didn’t. We had a good dressing room and we sorted out the problems; we tried to make the manager’s job easier for him. I worked with top players – Ronaldo, Scholes; Laurent Blanc, when he came to United. I knew how to treat these men, how to speak to Laurent Blanc, a player I had massive respect for. Or Darren Fletcher, a young Scottish lad; or John O’Shea, a young lad from Ireland. I knew how to speak to people, in different ways. The Dutch boys – the arrogance of some of them. But I got on well with them. And we were winning trophies. There were good characters in that dressing room. Ferguson was clever enough to know that, whenever I was gone, there’d be enough senior players and leaders still there; it wasn’t going to crumble.

  Chelsea were strong at the time. They’d won the Premiership the season before, 2004–5, and that was going to continue; they were looking even stronger. Ferguson might have been looking at the team, and thinking it needed a drastic change. He was rising to Mourinho’s challenge. But
when you’re a player and a team like Chelsea come on the scene and – this is a personal point of view – you’re thirty-three or four, you start to think, ‘I’m past it. I’m not like the player I was.’ But Ferguson wasn’t an ageing player. He’d just have seen it as a challenge.

  Things were changing. Rio had come to the club, and Ronaldo and Rooney – all decent lads, top players. But the game was changing slightly as well. I would make a point about the lads being on their phones and their PlayStations: ‘Come on, lads. This is a dressing room, you know.’ Maybe that was me being an old fuddy-duddy – I don’t know. They were younger than me. I knew I wouldn’t miss the players that much when I left. I’d miss them, but there was no one in there who’d make me go, ‘Oh, he was one of my best pals.’ Those men had left. It’s what happens with football clubs. Different characters come and go.

  My leaving the club, the way I look at it now, it was definitely for the benefit of Manchester United. If the manager and Carlos felt that I was up to whatever they thought I was up to, if there was that awkwardness, then it was best for everybody that I go. And let me suffer the consequences. Let me cry in my car for two minutes. If it benefited Manchester United, so be it. I think it was for the best. Not from a football point of view, the playing side of it; I could still have contributed. I could look after my body. They knew my body as well as anybody; I would have played fewer games. But from a club point of view, if they felt I had crossed that line – and, again, I don’t think I did – then it was for the best; forget about payments and statements.

  When the paperwork had finally been sorted and I’d given back the car – this was three months after the last meeting, so I got an extra three months out of it; I drove some fuckin’ miles in that car; every little victory is vital – I went to see the manager and Carlos, and I apologised.

  But now I kind of wish I hadn’t.

  Sometimes you feel a justified anger; sometimes you feel you’ve done something wrong. I apologised: ‘Listen—’ But afterwards, I was thinking, ‘I’m not sure why I fuckin’ apologised.’ I just wanted to do the right thing. I was apologising for what had happened – that it had happened. But I wasn’t apologising for my behaviour or stance. There’s a difference. I had nothing to apologise for.

  There probably isn’t a good way to leave a club. But is it always the player’s fault? It can’t be. A lot of people left United on bad terms. Good players – Beckham, Van Nistelrooy, plenty of other names. Deep down, I might have accepted that it was not going to end well. Whether it was the video, or if we didn’t have any trophies at the end of the season, or if my contract wasn’t renewed – it was coming to an end. I was getting older. But I think the best way the manager could have dealt with it, given his experience and man-management skills, would have been to take me aside, and go, ‘Listen, Roy, we’re having issues with you. But keep your head down, play a few games and, come the end of the season, we’ll say that it was best for you to go.’ Not in mid-November, when I’d been injured, and I couldn’t play for another team until January. It wouldn’t have been champagne and ‘Ah, he’s leaving’, but they would have shown a bit of class. But they didn’t show it.

  I loved everything about United. From the day I signed for them. I just think it suited my personality. I loved the team, I loved the way we played. I liked all the lads, I liked the training, I liked the way we travelled. I liked the pressure. I liked the United fans. I thought they were pretty switched on, even when we lost – they’d be going mad, but a nice mad. I liked the demands. The kit. The badge. The history. I liked living in Manchester. I got on well with the manager. There was trust there – a big word in football. I liked the staff. Everyone at the training ground. The groundsmen. The different coaches over the years. Brian Kidd. Jim Ryan. Steve McClaren. Walter Smith. Carlos Queiroz. Micky Phelan. And winning – I enjoyed the winning.

  I still have that soft spot for United, and thank God I do. I took my son to the Champions League final, between Bayern and Dortmund, at Wembley, in 2013. He was going on about different teams, and I asked him, ‘Which team do you support?’

  He said, ‘United.’

  He would have known I still had that little bit of resentment.

  So I said, ‘Why do you support United?’

  And he said, ‘Well, I was born in Manchester and I’m not going to support City, am I?’

  I said, ‘Okay.’

  That was a good enough reason. And I thought to myself, ‘I’d better get us some season tickets.’

  We went to see them recently, and I was going, ‘Come on—!’

  Fuckin’ hell – come on.

  I want them to do well.

  When I moved to Celtic I used to get an early flight up to Edinburgh or Glasgow, and I’d hire a car and drive from there to the training ground. I’d stay a couple of days up there. One morning, a taxi driver picked me up, to bring me from my house to Manchester Airport. I got into the taxi at about six. My flight was at seven. In the middle of winter. And the taxi driver asked me, ‘Do you miss being at United?’

  It was six in the fuckin’ morning; it was freezing – black outside. I looked at him and I went, ‘What do you think?’

  We laughed.

  FIVE

  I lay on the bed. And my hip – I’ve never known pain like it. My hip was fuckin’ screaming.

  I was going for bike rides around where I live, trying to keep fit. I’d no one to train with, in terms of kicking a ball and twisting and turning – the type of work I needed after being out injured. I was even kicking a ball against my garage door. Inside the garage, striking the ball against the door. It was like being a kid again, back in Mayfield, kicking a ball against a wall. I’d a punchbag in the garage, too, and a skipping rope – I’d do some skipping. And I’d do a few press-ups. It was basic boxing training – anything to make me feel a bit better.

  Michael Kennedy started ringing me; there were clubs interested in talking. I’d have choices. But, instead of enjoying it all, I was thinking, ‘I’m starting all over again. Back to the beginning.’

  But another part of me thought, ‘A new dressing room; I’ll learn something a bit different.’

  But I wished I’d had a few games under my belt. I hadn’t played for five or six weeks, and I couldn’t play again until January. It wasn’t ideal. People at a new club might think, ‘We’re signing fuckin’ Maradona’, because of what I’d done at United.

  Real Madrid offered me a year and a half year deal. Everton, on my doorstep, wanted me to go to them. I met their manager, David Moyes, at his house, and I was impressed by what he said. Bolton – also on my doorstep; I met Sam Allardyce, too. But I went to Celtic for fifteen grand basic a week. I know it was a lot of money but I’d been earning a lot more. It was a massive pay cut.

  When a club is interested in you, the manager generally sells it to you: ‘Listen, we’d love to have you here.’ But I met Gordon Strachan, the Celtic manager, in London – I met him in the majority shareholder Dermot Desmond’s house – and Gordon told me, ‘I’m not really too worried if you sign for us or not. We’re okay without you.’

  So I said to myself, ‘Fuck him, I’m signing.’

  I think it was one of the reasons I signed for them – to prove Gordon wrong. To be fair to Gordon, they were doing well in the League and he already had Neil Lennon playing in my position, and Stiliyan Petrov; he had a good team. So I wasn’t sitting back, shocked, going, ‘Show me the love.’ I thought, ‘All right. That’s the game.’ He was letting me know they weren’t desperate for me; he was being a bit coy and I was fine with that. But there was a bit of defiance there, too; like, ‘You might be fifteen points clear but, if I join, you might go twenty points clear. You might even need me next year in Europe.’

  Michael had been over to Madrid and he’d negotiated a deal with Real. They spoke to me, too. Butragueño rang me. Emilio Butragueño – what a player he was. Michael had given me a heads-up that Butragueño would be phoning, so I took my mobi
le everywhere with me. And – how’s your luck – he rang me when I was sitting on the toilet. He said, ‘Look, Roy, we’ll be glad to have you.’ The club’s board just had to sanction the deal; it was standard procedure.

  I was going, ‘— okay’, hesitating.

  Michael was going, ‘What are you doing, Roy?’

  Then Real needed time to rubber-stamp the deal – this was a few weeks before Christmas – and I just ran out of patience.

  I should have appreciated Real’s offer more. It was the most attractive challenge in front of me, but I didn’t accept it. With hindsight, I should have said to myself, ‘Go. Go to Spain, live there for a year and a half, learn a different language, learn the culture. You might end up loving it. You might even stay there.’

  I took a negative approach, I think, instead of saying, ‘This is amazing, what a chance for me.’ It could have been great for my kids. The weather and the training might have given me another lease of life, another two years of playing; I might have picked up new techniques for my stretching. But instead – as usual – I was looking at what might go wrong. ‘Hindsight’ is a fucker of a word. At the time, it felt like the right decision.

  I didn’t want to move to Spain. As much as anything else, it was fear that decided me – fear of the unknown. And I threw excuses in front of me – family, language, the kids’ education. I could imagine myself going to Madrid, and into the dressing room. I’d be starting all over again, and I was in no mood to be doing that. I’d had a tough career. Physically, I was struggling.

  It’s no good playing for a club; or, it’s not just about playing for them. It’s about having an effect on the club, having a big influence. That was one of my concerns when I left United.

  I was thirty-four, an experienced player. Real Madrid might just have wanted someone to do a job, sit in the middle of the park for a few games. But I wanted to go in and have an effect on a team. Yes, it was Real Madrid but, to me, football is still the same; it doesn’t matter about the level. Would I go back to Cobh Ramblers next week? No, because I wouldn’t be able to affect the team. When I hear people say, ‘I played for United’, or ‘I played for Sheffield Wednesday’; lots of men have played for these clubs, but it’s about affecting them. Affecting their history. Having an impact. Some of the top players can do that. Rooney, Ronaldo, Messi. Or Cantona and, at Forest, Stuart Pearce – all top players who had an effect, in their different ways. I could affect games with my presence, by breaking play up, imposing myself, even in the tunnel, before we went on to the pitch. But I was thirty-four, and I played a hard, physical game. I’d watched older players going to new clubs and it hadn’t worked out.