by Roy Keane
‘Maybe he’s not the psycho.’
Football’s a small world. Whether good or bad, people talk. Players go back to their clubs. And Martin’s an intelligent man, yet he brought me on board.
‘He can’t be that big a head case.’
The opportunity came to go to Aston Villa, to work with Paul Lambert. At Villa, I’m the number two – and it suits me at the moment. I can keep the Ireland job; Martin and Paul, the FAI and Villa, are happy with that. My family doesn’t have to move. It’s back in the Premiership, with a club that I have a soft spot for. And I like the prospect of working with Paul Lambert. To be a good coach you need to get your hours in. Working alongside Paul, day-to-day, watching games at close hand, can only help me; it will make me a better, more experienced coach. And I can bring that experience, and what I’m seeing every day, to the Ireland job.
What will be will be. I think the Ipswich experience will stand me in better stead than anything else – all the lessons I learnt. The ‘nearly there’. Just remember, it’s hard to win football matches.
A big part of the Ireland job is going to matches, to see the Irish players. Martin will ring me, or I’ll ring him.
I’ll go, ‘There’s a game coming up next weekend, on Sunday. I’ll cover it, is that okay?’, and he’ll go, ‘Right, you go to that one.’
Everton, Stoke, Hull – where a lot of the Irish lads are playing.
It can be a bit of a gamble. I went to West Brom and Norwich last season, and Shane Long – this was before he moved to Hull – and Wes Hoolahan, the men I’d gone to see, were both on the bench. But the time is never wasted. I went to another game, at Hull. Again, most of the Irish lads were on the bench. Paul McShane, who’s also with Hull, made the point: ‘Well, I hope you watched the warm-up.’ And I fuckin’ did. I watch the players’ body language and humour, the way they warm up before the game, or when they’re on the bench. Then I’m looking at the team out on the pitch, and I’m thinking, ‘Why aren’t you in that team?’
If they’re on the bench, do they get warmed up as if they want to go on? You can tell with some subs, they just don’t want to go on. They should be chomping at the bit.
I try to watch the players in different surroundings. Home and away – or against a team where you think they’re likely to get beaten, to see how they carry themselves, and if they keep going.
James McCarthy and Seamus Coleman have been doing really well at Everton. I saw them play, at home to Stoke. A very comfortable 4–0 victory; the two of them strolled through the game. A couple of days later, they were at United. And I thought, ‘Now I’ll watch them.’ So I went to Old Trafford – big setting, difficult fixture – and the two of them were excellent.
I think it’s important that when the squads for international matches are named all the players, whether they’re in or out, will be able to say, ‘Well, they have watched me.’ They might be disappointed but at least they’ll know we saw them play. We’ll be keeping an eye on them all the time.
I’m not one for writing many notes about players. I’ll have a team sheet and I might jot down a word or two. But I don’t do a match report or a scouting report. I’d end up missing the match! I’m there to look at one or two of the players. I’m not examining set pieces or team shape.
I’m learning a lot more about the football clubs. And I’m finding out the clubs I really like. When I was a player, I was very robotic. I’d go in and just do my business; I didn’t care what club it was. But I’m looking around now, and I’m thinking, ‘What good clubs.’
The more I go back to a club, I begin to develop a routine. Getting to Everton’s quite easy, and Stoke; and Wigan’s a doddle. For other games, I tend to leave the house earlier; I don’t want to be turning up ten minutes after kick-off. I need to be professional. I have to get a suit on. I have a role while I’m there. I’m the assistant manager of Ireland; I don’t want to be turning up like I slept in a ditch. I generally travel alone, although it’s nice to have a bit of company sometimes. Especially at half-time. Because when I’m on my own, I can see some people thinking, ‘Ah – I’ve got an open invite.’ Most people who come up couldn’t be nicer. But sometimes people seem to think they’re on a mission.
‘Who are you here to watch?’
‘Have a guess,’ I say to myself.
‘Some of the Irish lads,’ I answer.
I’ve always been a bit wary. Always ready for the bit of abuse. But it never happens. The smart comment, or something sarcastic – never. I had abuse thrown at me when I was a player and a manager, but that was from thousands of people, the opposition fans. It’s part of the game. But not from individuals; no one going, ‘Hey – you wanker’, or anything like that. But I’m ready for it. And I hate that about myself.
In all the years I’ve been in football, and whatever I’ve done, people have shown me massive respect. They mightn’t like me, or like the way I played – opposition fans, anyway – but I never had anyone come up to me and go, ‘Oh, you – you—’ whatever.
I just wish I was a bit more relaxed, although I still think I have to be on my guard. In the past, when I have relaxed and let people into my space, they let me down – I’ve had that experience. So I think I have to keep that guard up, a little bit. But not to the extent that I have in the past.
I went to Everton last season. They were playing Norwich. The lad beside me was chatting to me, and he was talking quite cleverly about the game. I was enjoying the conversation, and I thought, ‘I’ll ask him who he works for’, because he was talking about players and the game; he knew his stuff.
So I went, ‘Who do you work for – what club are you involved in?’
‘I’m Roy Hodgson’s driver.’
I was laughing at myself; I’m glad I dropped my guard because I enjoyed his company. I think there’s ego involved, too, when I go, ‘I’ll keep myself to myself.’ He was a nice bloke and, being Roy’s driver, he probably saw more games than I did.
Everton’s another top club. The day Aiden McGeady signed for them from Spartak Moscow, I was thinking, ‘Great move for you, Aiden. Another Irish lad going to Everton – brilliant.’ It’s good for Ireland. He’s got other Irish lads around him and they’ve got a good manager. They can get into the Champions League in the next year or two, which can only be good for Ireland. Because the problem for Ireland is that most of the lads aren’t playing at the top level.
When I was a young player, the ambition was to play for one of the big teams. You wanted to get to the very top – the trophies and the financial rewards. Today, a lot of players can become very wealthy without reaching the very top. They might play for a mid-table club, or a club in the lower half of the Premiership, or even a Championship team, and still become multi-millionaires. I don’t know if that drive, that hunger, is there to get to the very top.
There’s never been a time when loads of young Irish players have come through. It’s always been one or two, every couple of years. I just hope they still come through. Seamus Coleman and James McCarthy, at Everton, are young, but they’re not teenagers – they’ve already been found. And they’re the type of players we’ll be hanging our hats on. Jeff Hendrick, at Derby – I like the look of him. But senior players will always play a massive role. We’re always looking for players but we’re not going to unearth seven or eight diamonds. And I think we can take encouragement from the fact that smaller countries did quite well in Brazil, in the World Cup. Uruguay has a population of three and a half million – smaller than Ireland’s. But if we start calling ourselves a small country, we might be beaten before we start. We can look at our own football history; we’ve done it before. We have a nucleus of good young players.
I’ve never been against players who weren’t born in Ireland playing for the country. If they want to come on board and they qualify, then great, as long as they’ve a feel for it. I think, in the past, there were one or two players who probably declared for Ireland as a career move – and I can understan
d that, too. They did well for the country, but I look at some of them now and I wonder if they’ve been back to Ireland since. So I think the attitude should be, ‘Listen, if you’re going to come on board, get a feel for it – have a warmth for the country. But don’t just do it as a pure career move.’
But, then again, who am I to say? Love of country is a hard thing to measure. But if you see a player on the TV who played for Ireland, singing ‘God Save the Queen’ in a play-off final, you might just say, ‘Oh, right. Maybe he’s not really all that Irish.’ Matty Holland would be an example. For me, Matty is as English as David Beckham. He played for Ireland and he obviously has the roots. But he played for Ipswich in a play-off final, in 2000, and he was singing ‘God Save the Queen’ at the top of his voice. I don’t think he could have sung it any louder. Some of the other Irish lads saw him, too, so at the next couple of international matches we were going, ‘Turn that rebel music up a bit.’
I think it’s important that lads plug into Ireland a little bit – and the ways of the country. And I think, generally speaking, they do. They don’t have a choice, I suppose. I was at an FAI dinner recently, and John Aldridge was the guest speaker. Aldo would be an example of a player born in England who gave as much to Ireland as any Irish-born player. There has to be that feeling, and a warmth for the country.
Often a manager gets the job and his first game is the next day. But our first Euro qualifier came almost a year after we were appointed. The friendly matches were important and we wanted to build a bit of momentum and get to know the players, but I was dying to get at the qualifiers – and to qualify. And justify my role. Try to win people’s respect. Work with the younger players. Let them go out and enjoy it, and express themselves.
I got a call: would I go and have a chat with Dermot Desmond, Celtic’s majority shareholder? I’d met him once before, in 2005, when I was signing to play for Celtic.
I met him for a cup of tea. It was in the middle of an international week, in Dublin.
At the end of the chat, he said, ‘The job is yours.’
It was all pretty straightforward. There’d be one or two restrictions, about staff. They’d already picked the man who’d be my assistant, and they were insisting on him.
It didn’t scare me off, although it did get me thinking. It wasn’t an ideal start. Were they doubting me already?
I came back to the team hotel and spoke to Martin. I told him I’d have a think about it.
We had a game against Italy, at Craven Cottage, in London, on the following Saturday. We were busy, travelling to London from Dublin, getting the team ready. The fact that I’d spoken to Dermot Desmond had become public knowledge. It had to, because Martin had a press conference, and a few things had been leaked – as usual. It didn’t worry me too much. It was a friendly match; I didn’t think it was going to upset the camp, although – again – it wasn’t ideal.
But I was delighted. It was a massive compliment. Over the years, when chatting with people about football and Celtic, I’d always said, ‘If you’re offered the Celtic job, you don’t turn it down.’
So I was now in a predicament – with myself, in a sense. And my gut feeling was getting back to me – ‘You’re on your own with this one.’
I asked Paul Gilroy, the League Managers’ Association lawyer, to speak to Celtic, to discuss terms. Money hadn’t been mentioned yet. I got in touch with Celtic’s chief executive, Peter Lawwell, and asked him to give me a ballpark figure, before negotiations got going.
He mentioned a figure, and he said, ‘But that’s it.’
So, Paul Gilroy spoke to Celtic. He told me there were a lot of clauses in the contract that he wasn’t happy with. And the figures were non-negotiable.
I got my head around that. But it felt a bit too familiar. I’d been down this road before, when I’d signed for Celtic as a player. They were playing the part – ‘It’s Celtic’ – you should almost go up there for nothing.
I felt Celtic wanted me, but they weren’t showing how much they wanted me.
We played the game against Italy on Saturday. We drew, 0–0 – a good result. I had a message on my phone on Sunday from Dermot Desmond. They wanted a heads-up by tomorrow, Monday.
In the meantime, I flew back to Dublin. We had a few days off before heading to the USA, to play friendlies against Costa Rica and Portugal. I’d left my car in Dublin, so I was getting the ferry back, from Dublin to Holyhead. I was by myself, and I’d booked a cabin – a bit of privacy.
I thought about the Celtic offer. It wasn’t rocking my boat. They weren’t convincing me – ‘Listen, you’re the man for us.’
I got home to Manchester on Sunday night. I was tired. I went to Paul Gilroy’s house – he lives five minutes from me. There were things I wasn’t happy with in the contract. But I know, if you examined every clause too carefully you’d never sign anything.
I rang Dermot Desmond on Monday, and said, ‘I’m really honoured you’ve offered me the job, but I want to stay with Martin.’
My decision wasn’t influenced by other job offers or potential offers. I wasn’t playing games; it was a straightforward decision. Had Celtic shown me enough in their negotiating – ‘We’ll move this, and you can move that’ – a bit of give and take, I might have hesitated. But Celtic didn’t give me enough of a headache. They just didn’t show me that they wanted me, and I was happier staying in the Ireland job. Working with Martin has given me back a love of the game, and I’m all for showing a bit of loyalty. I’d only been in the job two minutes. We hadn’t played a competitive game yet.
My wife said to me, ‘I haven’t seen you this happy in a long time. Why jeopardise that?’
I felt powerful saying, ‘No.’ I felt good. But I still wondered if I was making the right decision.
Right job, wrong time.
You need challenges and stresses, but all my life I’ve been chasing contentment. I was happy when I won trophies, but that kind of satisfaction doesn’t last long. Contentment – a sense of relaxation – feels strange. It’s almost like I’m missing a bit of chaos. Fighting myself. I’m not sure if I’ve relaxed in the last twenty-odd years. Maybe this is my time to start relaxing. But at the same time, I want to go to work. I want to work in football. I’ll be bringing that sense of relaxation with me – for the first week!
When the Ireland job eventually comes to an end, if the question is hanging over me, ‘Did I really give it everything?’, I want to be able to say, ‘Yes.’
When I was in America with the Ireland squad, there was some difficulty with the travel arrangements – a couple of mishaps. But my attitude was different now.
We got stuck on the train from Philadelphia to Newark. We’d been in Philadelphia for the game against Costa Rica, a 1–1 draw. We were getting off in Newark, in New Jersey – the players and the staff. We were using two doors to get out of the carriage, but the FAI official said that we should all get off through the one door.
The door shut, and myself, Martin, Seamus, Steve Guppy, three medical staff and Aiden McGeady were stuck. The train moved off.
The lads – the players – on the platform were pissing themselves laughing.
It was like a school trip.
Panic stations – people going mad and Martin was a bit annoyed.
But I was quite calm about it. I texted one of the FAI staff – It’s Saipan all over again. But I was joking.
We went on to Penn Station, in Manhattan – about half an hour. We were lucky it wasn’t Boston or Chicago. And we eventually got back to Newark, and out to the team bus. The players were sitting there, dead quiet. The two people who organised the travel were pale – white.
Everyone was quiet – very tense.
Then one of the lads put on the music. They’d gone off and bought some speakers while we were on the train. I don’t know the name of the band, but the song was ‘Runaway Train’, and they all started singing with it:
Runaway train, never going back –
&nbs
p; Wrong way on a one-way track –
It was brilliant.
PLATE SECTION
The tackle on Håland in a match against Manchester City. Was I going around for years thinking, ‘I’m going to get him, I’m going to get him’? No. 21 April 2001. (Mirrorpix)
Man United playing against Sporting Lisbon. I saw how good Ronaldo was that day. 6 August 2003. (VI/PA)
I was in the dressing room when Ferguson kicked the boot. Beckham had to have stitches. (Martin Rickettt/PA Archive)
Alex Ferguson consoling me after I came off injured. Charlton Athletic v. Manchester United, 13 September 2003. (Andrew Cowie/Colorsport)
Against Leicester, 27 September 2003. I didn’t score as many goals as I used to. My role in the team was changing. (Adrian Dennis/AFP/Getty)
With Ferguson after winning the FA Cup match between United and Arsenal at Villa Park, 3 April 2004. (John Peters/Manchester United/Getty)
Peter Schmeichel. He would come out shouting at players, and I felt sometimes that he was playing up to the crowd. (Mark Thompson/Allsport/Getty)
Playing for United against Rangers in the Champions League – 22 October 2003. It was brilliant. (Alex Livesey/Getty)
Diego Forlán playing for United. I remember when Diego Forlán came in, and it wasn’t quite happening for him. If a player tried – and Diego did – we’d drag him with us; we’d try and help him. (Manchester United/Getty)
Against Millwall, 22 May 2004. It was the only time I’ve played in a Cup Final that I knew we were going to win. (John Peters/Manchester United/Getty)
We wore replicas of Jimmy Davis’s top when we were going up to collect the trophy and our medals. (Action/Darren Walsh)
