INTERVIEW ROY KEANE

HE’S IN good form. Yep. Good form today. No. He seems relaxed. He was in earlier. . . Laughing and joking he was. The mood is good! Think you’ll find he’s happy today . . . He seems to be in a good mood . . . Ah you know, he looks happy.

Go on in. He’s grand.

This is how it must be. Forest. United. Celtic. Sunderland. Ipswich. His mood is discussed like the weather. Those who have sampled it each day comment on it. Is there a trough of bad form moving in? Should we expect sunny spells? Ah hopefully we’ll get the weekend out of this good mood.

It’s Thursday in Croke Park. The Irish Guide Dogs for the Blind gig. Nobody can remember him ever sprouting horns and devouring a Labrador puppy at one of these things, but still everyone who comes into contact with him reports back meteorologically on his humour. We’re enjoying an unusually fine spell of Roy today.

He seems generally amused by the mild chaos of these days and grins even at the dishevelment of us hacks who come to gather the quotes he leaves strewn about. And there are dogs. The mood is always good.

He flew in the night before which meant missing the United versus Arsenal game on the television but what the heck. United and Arsenal is only a Balkan feud if you are still being paid to be a Balkan. Now he is manager of Ipswich Town, as genteel a club as exists in the English game and his son, Aidan, is a young man who as you would expect has his own distinct tastes.

“Eh Aidan is an Arsenal fan,” smiles Roy Keane. “ Which goes to show, in life you are going to deal with setbacks! He came out of the closet! He likes Arsenal. He’s his own man though, he has his own life to live. It’s a bit of fun.”

This morning he is surrounded as usual by a maelstrom of people who need a piece of him. There aren’t enough ways in which he can dice and splice himself.

The Late Late Show which originally thought that it would have him sitting in a seat before a live studio audience is reluctantly having to pre-record a slot. Between Roy and The Late Late Show there would only ever be one winner.

Were they annoyed? “I’m back at work, though, so they had to change the plans. They could get annoyed all they want but to be fair there is not much I could have done about it. I left it to the Guide Dog people to deal with them.”

In this, for all his differences from the common herd, he is a quintessential professional football man. The games demands have a tidal pull on him. The fixtures list is a series of religious rites which override almost other non-familial duties.

Thus it is that he can spend months worrying about changing his car and longer weighing up the pros and cons of a holiday destination but in matters of football lifechanging decisions can be made in an instant.

“I didn’t need too much time to think about Ipswich. Couple of days. Max. Before you know it you are taking a training session; I’ll take a long time thinking about trivial things, even Theresa (his wife) will be rolling her eyes. But making a decision about moving the whole family, the kids. I’ll make that in an instant. That’s me.

“That sums me up I suppose. I’ll lose sleep over something trivial. I left United. I made my decision in two minutes. I didn’t say I wanted the weekend to think or some time to myself or to speak to 10 people who would advise me.

“Ipswich was the same. Theresa was down for last few days. She is shattered. Her head is spinning more than me I suppose. But that’s a football life.”

He has lived in the Hale/Altringham area just outside Manchester for a decade and a half or so and has always insisted despite appearances to the contrary ( he commuted to Glasgow and Sunderland) that he had no special ties to the place.

Cork is home. Everywhere else is a lodging.

“Maybe it was just time for a change.” he says “Couple of months ago there was a picture of myself and my kids on one of the papers walking through Hale. I didn’t like that. I’ve put a complaint in about it through Michael (Kennedy).

“A couple of years ago that would never have happened. A Sunday morning with your kids?. I don’t know. There comes a point where you have enough.

“I know there is a full-time photographer lives in Hale. You see the pictures. Players live around there, a lot of the cast of Coronation Street. You see the pictures of people out walking or in coffee shops. Last Sunday morning I came out the gate at home and there was a photographer and a reporter there. That’s not for me. Anyway change is good.

“We’re very easy on that side of things. We’ve spent three years building a house in Hale but bricks and mortar that’s all it is. Everyone is advising me not to sell it. So I probably will!”

So change. If football employed matchmakers rather than subject itself to the whimsy of millionaire chairmen Ipswich and Roy Keane would be an unlikely fit. One party, the club, would describe itself in a personal ad as “nice, homely.”

The other Roy, would describe himself as “nice, but . . . ”

Yet when Michael Kennedy passed on word of interest from Ipswich something clicked which it hadn’t done when previous expressions of courtship had been made from other clubs. He travelled to London to meet Marcus Evans, owner of Ipswich Town and a man whose craving for privacy makes Keane look like Amy Winehouse by comparison. Their ambitions matched.

“I am attracted to those clubs with a bit of tradition. They have a reputation from years ago but a proud reputation. They have had some top managers. You have a chance to do something after them. I don’t think what happened at Sunderland will necessarily happen at Ipswich. Not that quick. We’ll got some players but not at the rate we did at Sunderland, which was needed in it’s own way, but ultimately I think we can get them into the Premiership.”

So you came home and said, Ipswich! What did your wife say? “She said (pauses) WHAT! Nah. It was grand. We knew there would probably be a move. She has been down looking at houses and schools. I haven’t had a chance to drive around in the evening. She found one or two nice areas. There’s a place called Woodbridge everyone says is nice.”

So it went. He made his call. And click before he knew it he was doing media. Same old same old.

“I got the first media done and well you saw what happened.” What happened! It was presented as Jack Nicholson driving the axe through the door in The Shining. Johnny’s Home!!!

His explanation as to why none of his classmates, including himself, from the Manchester United sides of the early 1990’s, especially the 1994 side, had become as he saw it world-class managers got lost in translation and was turned in some papers into a verbal lashing of Mark Hughes and Steve Bruce. Wild man Keane brands old pals losers! He made the calls to his old friends and explained the context and the intent.

And he found himself mud wrestling with Tony Cascarino. “I think I have to be above that in future. That was the end of it. You have to try to be a bit better than that be above that. I went into a press conference. It gets thrown at you and when you respond it takes away from what you are there for. Cascarino, McAteer these people constantly giving their opinions about stuff. Hopefully I will rise above that . . .”

And when asked had he seen much football while he was away he gave a list of six matches, finishing with the most recent, a reserve game. He was speaking of Manchester United’s reserves, as he keeps in touch with Ole Gunnar Solksjaer but a posse of papers decided that he must have been a vulture like attendant at Ipswich’s last reserve game before Jim Magilton was moved on. What can you do! You can’t keep track of each falling rock.

“I need to keep an eye on it. “ he says of his press conferences which have become in Cantona Speak the trawlers which seagulls follow because they know there will be sardines.

“It has to stop. That was annoying that first day . . . As if I had said of Brucey and Sparky that they were losers. They are smart men. Thankfully they understood.”

Everything else has been more pleasing to him. He got to see a bit of Sunderland’s set-up before he signed on. This time he was hoping that what he would find in Suffolk would match what his gut instinct had promised him.

“ I had a walk around training ground and ground. I liked it. I like the people. There were a few things straight away that will have to change. The training ground is too open. It has to be a working environment. There are too many people wandering in and wandering out! But I like it. The pitches, canteen, the place. It feels good.”

This, you say to him, is your second management job, what consciously will you do differently. And he looks at the ceiling and wonders. Good question, he says.

Not the first time he has pondered the question but articulating it with Sunderland still a sensitive issue and with expectations.

“Second job. Mmmm. Consciously do different. Hmmm. Not sure. I don’t know. I’d like to learn from my mistakes obviously.

“For instance I’ve gone in and people are talking about players’ contracts, I have decided not to get too far ahead of myself this time. I’ll go with the gut feeling. I’ll try not to do too much too soon.

“People think I am in there signing eight nine, 10 players. No chance this summer. I will be a lot more patient. You have to plan obviously, but I’m going to try not to let myself get too far ahead, try to keep things within the day, not to get carried away.”

And were there any conditions laid down by Ipswich as regards attendance. He bristles at first but the mood is too good.

“No of course not. Why would they? I will do it the way I think it is right. Any given day I’ll judge. I have been in there last few days. It depends on what I think the team needs on any given day. It is dictated by the team.”

He pauses and grins “And my mood of course!” His first day at training. He hadn’t put a pair of boots on in five and a half months and yet there he was with Tony Loughlin, starting off again. He was never moving without Tony, his batman and friend.

So here they were in Suffolk a team waiting to hear the familiar voice but this time directed at them. Everywhere he goes in professional football stories about him must precede his arrival. In a situation like that is there a temptation to play up to being Roy Keane.

He grins.

“Sometimes. But usually I go the other way. Maybe some players would be fearful. Some of the young Irish boys there especially you don’t know what they might think.

“I took the team on Saturday at Cardiff say and I was relaxed but at half-time I had to give a couple of reminders of what we were about. I don’t want to be like a robot, though. Some players will always be fearful. The physio at Sunderland says that one senior international was too scared to come and see me. I was nice to him. (Pause) Too nice!”

“That first day I just gave them five minutes. I just said I want to get us into the Premiership, that some of them would come and others would fall away to the side. That’s a fact. A lot of players are happy at 80 or 90 per cent.

“I said I’ll judge ye on what I see not what I hear.”

You are nodding. Good stuff . . . he bursts out laughing.

“Any day that I am in that is! Ah no! People think you will come in and give a big lovely speech. I had a few one to ones. I think the players maybe needed that brief chat. A few minutes, and out to the training pitch. You can talk too much.”

And so the treadmill started moving. On the Friday they had to leave Ipswich at half eleven for the journey to Cardiff.

A whole new geographical reality he hadn’t really considered. Timing escapes from Ipswich to many parts of England involves judging the quickest way to get through or around London.

“If we don’t leave at half eleven to get to Cardiff it’s six or seven hours of a journey by the time you get across London. We got to Cardiff in five hours by leaving then and training at half nine. And it just felt like being back in the swing of things. I’ll put my own mark next season on travel arrangements etc but I like that. It’s a football club. There are lots of things going on, lots to do.”

And he repeats his mantra of the last 10 days or so. It’s a nice football club. Everyone is nice. But . . . He has a good feeling he says. No club would ever tick all the boxes for him but Ipswich ticked lots. He’s been thinking that Colchester, which isn’t far away, has lots of army barracks. Must be courses he can put the team through, see what they have, challenge them a bit.

Suddenly Ipswich, nice genteel old Ipswich are box office and life will never be the same again. Meanwhile the form is good.