In a bookshop in Limerick, the poster that advertises this book has the line at the bottom that announces: The Truth! Of course, one man's version of history is as valuable and valid as another's, even when the real author of this book is Eamon Dunphy and not Roy Keane himself. I will assume for the purposes of this review that everything in the book is true, unless I say otherwise!

Nevertheless, I enjoyed reading this book since the only thing that I knew about Roy Keane up until then was that he left the Irish squad in the Far East in the summer of 2002 as he argued with the manager and the management of that team during their preparations for the World Cup.

Keane's attitude to his work reminds me of Kevin Keegan: I always thought that Keegan was over rated as a player except that his attitude to his job was first rate. Keane talks about highly paid players being unmotivated and moaning minnies for whom football and the attendant life style is a right and not a gift or a privilege.
Keane talks at length about working hard, training hard, giving your all and not compromising when it comes to the match.

Then again, he talks about sloping off home to Ireland at the drop of a hat, drinking heavily and fighting a lot: these counter balance the hard work and positive attitude and tend to cancel each other out.

Still, there are those with a far more valuable opinion than mine who believe that Keane is the best [modern?] player ever to grace an Ireland shirt. I used to watch Johnny Giles in the old days and think he might deserve that accolade more than Keane.

I think the impression comes through very strongly that Keane and Dunphy wrote this book knowing that they needed to demonstrate the eating of some humble pie: there is a lot of apologising from Keane throughout the book. Apologies for behaviour, for doing and not doing and apologies for this and that: post world Cup 2002 this is a sop to his Irish public and he needs to apologise for that!

I was interested to read Keane's views on Jack Charlton: he didn't think much of the way Charlton managed the Irish team. Charlton was an England and Leeds United player of high repute and entered management at Middlesbrough in 1973. He took the Boro to the first division, now the Premiership, in his first season: he did well there. He had similar successes elsewhere, including Sheffield Wednesday and Newcastle United and finally the Ireland team. Charlton had a patently clear style: make do and mend. Keane had no time for Charlton. Still, Charlton is a legend in Ireland and it is true that whatever Charlton is guilty of, he did restore some Irish pride and he did, let's be honest, achieve more for Ireland than any recent England manager has done for England.

I would say that Keane is money mad: he talks about money a lot. He talks about flying business class, staying at good hotels, training in first rate conditions … he even talks about being a millionaire … he never talks about dipping his hand in his own pocket except to buy tickets for games for his family and friends from home: laudable but he comes across as stingy!

In spite of everything, Keane doesn't rate English players and the English leagues at all. All of Keane's praise is reserved for European teams and players. He suggests that Manchester United is the best of a bad lot. Well, Roy, the opportunities are doubtless there for you!

Keane talks about going into management when he hangs up his boots: following the way he dealt with Mick McCarthy, he will have a lot to prove if he is to command the respect he would need. I would suggest that his best performances would come from taking over at a second or first division team and building them up to Premiership standards. After all, his attitude to the game and to work would be perfect in the lower leagues where I suppose they are more amenable to Keane's philosophy than the players he seems to revile in the Premiership.

Mick McCarthy, the current Ireland manager comes in for a hard time in this book; and if Keane really is telling the truth then McCarthy and the FAI have a lot to answer for: it seems to me that man and football management leave a lot to be desired in those quarters. As they all bicker and squabble among themselves, let me give them an insight into the part of the football game they might not be paying too much attention to.

During the World Cup 2002 competition, I met two Irishmen who had just come back from a trip to South Korea: they had decided, on the spur of the moment, to go to Seoul from Tashkent where they were working, for the weekend. Their trip would allow them to take in an Ireland qualification game. They spent their hard earned cash, they watched the match, they enjoyed themselves … they SUPPORTED THEIR TEAM.

Keane, McCarthy and the rest of the squabblers let those two lads down. Even though the whole of Ireland, and most of England, Scotland and Wales, too, were cheering them on, could the same be said of the people at the centre of the Irish game? I'm not sure.

Keane's book is most famous for revealing that he would avenge an incident of three years or so ago. He told the story of the incident and he did it well enough, I thought: he branded someone involved in it a liar and a cheat, even though the man had only hurled abuse and nothing else. Keane said he would set the record straight … and lo and behold he did just as the book was being published. He was seriously ill advised to write that page and he is now the subject of a potentially very expensive legal action as a result of it.

Moreover, Keane's passion has stirred up a lot of discontent in the Irish squad: read the article in the Irish Sunday Independent of 15 September in which Jason McAteer talks to Paul Kimmage about Keane, among other things. McAteer said "Don't ask me to work him out. I'm not the person to tell Roy Keane what's right and wrong but I can't understand why he brought he book out now." I can, it's a defence mechanism and an apology of sorts; but it's backfired, I'm afraid.

In the same edition of the Sunday Independent, Dion Fanning wrote another piece about Keane: not very well written, this one, consisting of populist clap trap in my opinion. If Fanning has read Keene's book, you wouldn't know it.

There you are: Keane has put together a good story of rags to riches. Along the way Keane has put together a hit and be hit list, he has mangled many relationships and he has been punched to the floor by Brian Clough! An easy read that gives one man's account of life in English and Irish football: you decide how near the truth it all is, though.

© Duncan Williamson
4 October 2002