Sporting Feuds '08

Some of the major sportings rifts of the past year recalled.........

Roy v Eamon

• They were once the Scarlett O'Hara and Rhett Butler of Irish sport, but having burned so brightly, to quote the rabbit song, it all suddenly burned so pale in 2008, their passionate flame well and truly extinguished. First Dunphy accused Keane of being a "bullshitting . . . rent-a-quote".

"Eamon's had an outburst, has he? It's not like Eamon, that," Keane responded, before pointing out their friendship was so close they hadn't spoken in four or five years. Would they make up? Well, come December Dunphy declared that Keane wasn't "cut out for management", that he had "lost the plot" and that he was "beginning to believe the Roy Keane mythology". From the man who was insisted that "ROY'S RIGHT ABOUT EVERYTHING!" it was one heck of an about-face.

We could be wrong, but it's doubtful there'll be a sequel to their book.

Cork v Cork

• The Cork footballers' dispute with their county board, which lasted until February, was finally resolved when, after arbitration, Teddy Holland stepped down and Conor Counihan was appointed manager. Peace in our time?

Yep. But. Upon Gerald McCarthy's reappointment as hurling manager all hell broke loose again. Seán Óg Ó hAilpín intimated that McCarthy's coaching regime was of a "mickey mouse" quality, while McCarthy responded with an eye-popping attack on the player, in which he spoke of his "on-off role with Cork" and how he had benefited financially from his career.

As we speak? The stalest of mates.

Faldo v Monty

• Between them they've probably had more spats with folk in the golfing world than Darren Clarke has had cigars, but earlier this year they announced that their own feud was at an end after they'd fallen out again following the 2007 Seve Trophy when Faldo criticised Montgomerie for "being difficult".

But it would be incorrect to say they ever became bossom buddies, and although Montgomerie's non-selection for the Ryder Cup team was hardly a shock, it didn't best please the Scot.

"I only managed to leave a voice message - apparently he was watching football or shopping," said Faldo when asked how he'd broken the bad news.

Monty, though, was supportive after Europe lost in Kentucky.

Kidding. How had Faldo done? "Going to America for the first time as odds-on favourite and to lose 16.5 to 11.5 — it's very difficult for me to say," he said. And he's called for Faldo to be replaced by Sandy Lyle for the 2010 Ryder Cup. Apart from that, they're best mates.

Shaquille O'Neal v Kobe Bryant

Two of the biggest names in basketball were Los Angeles Lakers team-mates for eight years, but there was a "this town ain't big enough for the both of us" quality to their relationship for much of that time.

Bryant talked of O'Neal's "childlike selfishness and jealousy", accused him at one point of being "fat and out of shape" and of faking injuries.

O'Neal reached a stage where he refused to mention Bryant by name, referring to him only as "that guy".

But then they made up. And everything was grand, even after O'Neal departed for the Miami Heat. But then O'Neal stepped up to do a little rapping at a party in a New York nightclub earlier this year and, well, in reference to a Lakers defeat (with Kobe in the team) he declared: "Kobe couldn't do it without me" and "Kobe, tell me how my ass tastes."

And that was only the start of it. We're feeling no love here.

Trapattoni v Reid

• We'd have been slow enough to categorise it as a feud until the friendly against Poland in November came along. It wasn't that Reid was left on the bench, once again, to twiddle his thumbs - he didn't even make the Irish squad.

Now, Trapattoni insists it's nothing personal - Reid just doesn't fit in to his plans - but then admitted he had an altercation with the Sunderland man in Germany back in September when a guitar-strumming Reid broke the curfew in the team hotel.

"'Go in bed, you must go in bed'," Trapattoni said he told Reid, but the player opted to strum on. "If he was my son, I would go boom," said the manager, while kicking an imaginary person in the bottom.

- Mary Hannigan