How Roy Keane went from grand pronouncements to debates about biscuits
Roy Keane is a natural performer. A little Mona Lisa smile is never far away as he throws out grenades, with that distinctive Cork accent going up a couple of octaves the more worked up he gets. Really, he's a TV pro. It's a fair guess that, once the
It was a sleepy Sunday lunchtime in October, 2014, and Joe Brolly was flexing his muscles.
He was in a Newstalk studio to review the sport in the Sunday papers so could move out of his comfort zone. No need to concentrate on Gaelic football, for a change.
So, as has been the way in the Irish media for the guts of 30 years, the conversation turned to Roy Keane. "Keane is interesting and for the media it is fantastic, it’s like having a soccer-coaching Kardashian,'' said Brolly.
“But Roy will never be a leader, he couldn’t be a military leader, for example. His towering rages, the way he behaves, the constant craving for publicity. The guy would walk over crushed glass to get to a microphone.”
Whatever anyone thought of Brolly's words, he hit on an essential contradiction at the heart of Keane's words and actions. Again and again over his career, he stressed how he abhorred the public glare and, in true Greta Garbo style, just wanted to be left alone.
But then he said and did things that ensured - and he must have known this - that he stayed in the headlines.
Before Christmas, a video clip from The Overlap podcast series did the rounds. Keane was travelling in a car with Ian Wright and Gary Neville and posed one of the great existential questions of our time.
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"If you were a chocolate bar, which one would you be?''
There was a time in Ireland hung on Keane's every word. He was the ultimate oracle, the only truthteller in a country of spoofers.
What do they think of Keane and his chocolate bars now? More importantly, what does Keane make of what he has become?
During Keane's playing career, he regularly went public on his disdain for TV pundits and the very idea of punditry.
He often boasted proudly of watching games with the sound muted, so that he wouldn't have to listen to commentators or analysts.
But we've gone from there to a situation where he is THE box office pundit on Premier League coverage across all the different stations that cover it.
Just look at social media whenever Keane is on Sky. Every time, every single time, he ends up trending.
A few years back, he did a fundraiser for his old club, Rockmount, in Cork and was challenged on his move to the dark side - initially with ITV.
"Four days before the Champions League final, I picked up the paper and read my horoscope,'' said Keane.
"It said 'you can't keep saying no to people'. I'd turned down approaches from four different TV companies at that stage.
"I thought about it and decided to give it a go with ITV. You say things and then things change over time.
"I don't know if I'll do it after this season but I've enjoyed it, enjoyed working with Adrian Chiles and Gareth Southgate. They're good lads."
Keane did stick at it after that season. The good lads gang now includes Wright, Neville, Jamie Carragher and Jill Scott, and you can be sure Sky will offer whatever it takes to keep him on board for a long time.
He is a natural performer. A little Mona Lisa smile is never far away as he throws out grenades, with that distinctive Cork accent going up a couple of octaves the more worked up he gets.
Really, he's a TV pro. It's a fair guess that, once the cameras and mics are switched off, he switches off too.
Keane is often lauded for his openness and honesty, but it's always been selective. He only ever talks about what he wants to talk about.
In his first autobiography, Keane hits out at '‘bluffers, spoofers and media whores’' in football.
Not many would accuse Keane of being a bluffer or a spoofer but he has certainly earned a few bob from media contracts over the years.
They had a bitter parting of the ways but Keane's choice of Eamon Dunphy as his ghostwriter for that book was telling too.
He could have chosen any journalist in England or Ireland to do the job. Quite a few actively campaigned for the gig, but he chose Dunphy - known for his acerbic punditry with a jagged edge.
It's fair to assume that Keane knew what he was getting with Dunphy, and his own punditry career has plenty of echoes with that of the older man.
Keane’s advocates make a virtue of his frankness and make nothing of his sometimes overbearing self-righteousness.
He was applauded for the honesty of his autobiography in 2002 and yet people forget how selective that was – opting not to name names when it came to criticism of some players that he was still playing with.
The image of Keane never quite matches the reality. Lorraine O'Sullivan, then of the Inpho agency, has been justly praised for her wonderful photograph of Keane and Mick McCarthy shaking hands after Ireland's win over Holland at Lansdowne Road in September, 2001.
McCarthy is reaching towards Keane, who has turned away from his manager.
But dig out the video of that game, and the television cameras captured a very different scene.
Keane turns to face McCarthy and looks him in the eye when shaking hands. O'Sullivan just captured that split-second when the Ireland captain was moving on to head to the dressing-room.
In our rush to over-analyse their relationship when Saipan exploded, we read things into that handshake that weren't there.
Keane has often been a mass of contradictions. Quick to question the commitment of others to the cause, he went AWOL before Ireland's 1996 trip to the US Cup.
Eventually, he was found enjoying the corporate hospitality at a rained-off cricket match between Lancashire and Gloucestershire. Presumably, his beloved prawn sandwiches were on the menu.
Brolly's point about him crawling to a mic could have some merit.
Remember, Keane seriously considered taking up an offer to go on 'I'm A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here!'.
At 53, he is now on Instagram. Within hours of him joining the site, he had over a million followers.
Maybe Tik-Tok dance routines will be next. With Keane, nothing can ever be truly ruled out.
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