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Roy Keane

Roy Keane

Roy Maurice Keane, born Cork, Republic of Ireland, August 10, 1971. Roy Keane was without doubt one the greatest footballers ever to come out of the Republic of Ireland Ireland. At Manchester United, the midfield maestro amassed well over 300 Premier League appearances for the Old Trafford team under Sir Alex Ferguson until he left Manchester in a storm of controversy on the 18th of November 2005.

Hailing from the Mayfield suburb of Cork, Roy Keane began his sometimes glittering, and always controversial, football career with Cobh Ramblers where he clocked up 23 League of Ireland outings before he joined English First Division club Nottingham Forest for a bargain fee of £47,000 in the summer of 1990. Keane was the sheer epitome of a Brian Clough player, being richly blessed with an abundance of energy and willpower, and the talented starlet quickly stamped his authority on the pitch. The galloping area-to-area workhorse was granted his competitive first team debut for The Tricky Trees in a 2-0 Division One defeat to Kenny Dalglish´s Liverpool at Anfield on the 28th of August 1990, and notched up his first Football League goal for the City Ground side in a 3-2 defeat against Sheffield United at Bramall Lane on the 22nd of December the same year. He finished his debut season with 35 First Division appearances and eight goals and was a vital part of the Nottingham Forest team that reached the FA Cup Final in 1991, only to suffer a 2-1 defeat at the hands of Tottenham Hotspur. During his second campaign at City Ground, Keane netted eight goals in 39 First Division outings and helped Forest reach the League Cup Final at Wembley where they were beaten 1-0 by Manchester United, with Brian McClair scoring the only goal of the game in the 14th minute of the play. The following campaign proved to be a disaster for Nottingham Forest, however, as the team struggled to win matches throughout the season, and the club eventually found themselves relegated to the second tier at the end of the term.

Following 22 goals during 114 Football League appearances for Nottingham Forest, Roy Keane was brought to defending Premier League Champions Manchester United by manager Alex Ferguson for a British record transfer fee of £3.75 million in the summer of 1993. After settling down at Old Trafford, Keane made his first team entrance in a closely contested 1-1 draw against longtime adversaries Arsenal at Wembley Stadium in the FA Community Shield on the 7th of August 1993, and the new boy was handed his Premier League debut for the club in a 2-0 win over Norwich City at Carrow Road on the opening day of the 1993-94 campaign. He scored his first goal for Manchester United in a 3-0 Premiership victory over Sheffield United at Old Trafford three days later, and went on to amass 37 Premier League appearances for the club during his inaugural season in Manchester. A natural born leader of men both on and off the football field, Kean emerged as one of the most important players at Manchester United and he would take over as the captain of the Old Trafford outfit following the somewhat sudden and unexpected retirement of French international Eric Cantona on the 17th of May 1997. The Irishman was a dedicated and determined dog of war who would break up the opposition, as well as setting up attacks, and he helped Ferguson win six English Premier League Championships, including two doubles in 1993-94 and 1995-96, three FA Cups, four FA Community Shields, one Intercontinental Cup, and one UEFA Champions League title during his twelve-year stay at Manchester United.

Conceivably, Roy Keane had his greatest game for Manchester United when he led his side to a narrow 3-2 win over Juventus at Stadio Delle Alpi in the Champions League Semi Final Second Leg on the 21st of April 1999. The Italian Serie A team were 2-0 ahead within the first ten minutes of the match thanks to goals from Filippo Inzaghi, but Manchester United fought back as Keane converted a corner from David Beckham on 24 minutes before Dwight Yorke headed home a brilliantly crossed ball from Andy Cole ten minutes later to make it 2-2. Carlo Ancelotti´s legionaries threw everything at Manchester United as the second half progressed, but it was the English Premier League club who scored the final goal when Cole found the back of the net with a close range effort in the 85th minute of the tie to seal a 4-3 aggregate victory for the visitors. The downside for Keane, however, was that he would miss the Champions League Final with Bayern Munich at Nou Camp Stadium in Barcelona due to a yellow card he picked up for a rather heavy challenge on Zinedine Zidane during the first half at Stadio Delle Alpi. Anyway, as the story goes, representatives of the Fiat-owned Juventus team, who were desperate for success in Europe during the early part of the nineteen-seventies, had approached the match official before the European Cup Semi Final First Leg encounter with Brian Clough´s Derby County side in Turin on the 11th of April 1973, and after the game, which The Old Lady accidentally won by 3-1, the referee drove away from the stadium in a brand new expensive Italian sports car. Not so this time.

The game between Manchester United and Manchester City at Old Trafford on the 21st of April 2001 wrote itself into the history books for other reasons, though. Both of the teams had their opportunities to score as the first period progressed, but it was after the half time break that things really started to happen. On the hour mark, Scottish striker Paul Dickov brought down Wes Brown inside the eighteen-yard area and The Manchester Reds were awarded a penalty by match official David Elleray, only for Paul Scholes to watch his effort go wide. But ten minutes later, Elleray handed United yet another penalty following a foul by Manchester City defender Richard Dunne on Norway international Ole Gunnar Solskjaer inside the box, and Teddy Sheringham converted the subsequent spot kick to make it 1-0 to the home team. The Sky Blues worked hard for a goal and finally had their equaliser when a right wing corner from Dickov ended up at the feet of Steve Howey who managed to notch up the final goal of the encounter with a close range effort after 84 minutes. Then, in the 85th minute of The Manchester Derby, Roy Keane launched a violent challenge on Manchester City midfielder Alf Inge Haaland that left the Norwegian with a devastating anterior cruciate ligament injury which ultimately ruined his professional soccer career. Needless to say, Keane immediately received his marching orders from David Elleray and he was later handed a three-game suspension and fined £5,000. The following year, the Manchester United captain more or less openly admitted that he had deliberately tried to injure his fellow midfield man as part of a long-standing feud between the two players, and he was banned for a further five games and fined an extra £150,000 following investigation. As for Haaland, the Maine Road bulwark underwent surgery on his left knee and went into the property business after failing to recover full physical fitness.

While with Manchester United, Roy Keane proceeded to amass a highly impressive 326 first class appearances in the English Premier League before the aggressive and competitive midfield motor suddenly decided to leave the Manchester club for Scottish Premier League giant Glasgow Celtic on a free transfer midway through the 2005-06 campaign. According to Sir Alex Ferguson, however, Keane´s behaviour worsened during the autumn of 2005, and several of his teammates felt increasingly intimidated by his presence and wanted him to leave. Anyway, the playmaker debuted for Celtic in a surprise 2-1 Scottish FA Cup Third Round defeat to Scottish First Division side Clyde in front of a crowd of 8,000 people at Broadwood Stadium on the 8th of January 2006, and he made his Scottish Premier League debut for The Celts in a 4-2 triumph over Kilmarnock at Celtic Park six days later. Unfortunately, his active playing career was cut short because of medical reasons, and he only managed to play in ten top flight matches for The Bhoys while at Parkhead. A rather deep and complicated man, Keane had his own ideas about the game of soccer, and he later went into football management, spending comparatively short spells in charge of first Championship team Sunderland, whom he led to promotion to the Premier League during his first season at The Stadium of Light, and then Ipswich Town, where he achieved little success. After being given the sack by the Suffolk club midway through the 2010-11 season, he became assistant manager to Republic of Ireland Head Coach Martin O’Neill and was part of the management that took The Boys in Green, also known as Na Buachailli Glas, to the 2016 European Championship tournament in France where they reached the last sixteen stage, losing 2-1 against the hosting nation.

As an international player, Roy Keane earned himself 66 full caps for the Republic of Ireland, and was a regular member of the Irish National Football Team for more than a decade after being handed his long awaited senior debut by former Middlesbrough, Sheffield Wednesday, and Newcastle United gaffer Jack Charlton in a one-all friendly fixture draw against Chile at Landsdowne Road in Ballsbridge in Dublin on the 22nd of May 1991. And although the Football Writers and the Professional Footballers Association voted him their Player of the Year in 2000, his behaviour often raised eyebrows by number, and the man from the Rebel County was involved in a number of newsworthy incidents which severely damaged his reputation. Ahead of the 2002 World Cup tournament in Japan and South Korea, Keane claimed that the training facilities on the island of Saipan were not up to standard, and he wanted to return back to Manchester. But even though he was persuaded to stay, he continued to express his dissatisfaction, and was ultimately dismissed from the Irish squad. A swashbuckling character if there ever was one, he once described a round of drinks for his fellow Manchester United teammates as twelve Budweisers, six Becks, a couple of shorts, and a bottle of Champagne for Eric Cantona, and two Cokes for Gary and Phil Neville. Regardless of who, where, and when, Roy Keane never ended up losing his own personal integrity, though, and the wayward Leesider would always decline to accept the prawn sandwich brigade at Manchester United Football Club. Roy Keane Playing Career: Cobh Ramblers, Notingham Forest, Manchester United, Glasgow Celtic. Managing Career: Sunderland, Ipswich Town.