. . . it is still stunning how fall out between Mick McCarthy, the manager of the 2002 World Cup qualifying Republic of Ireland team, and Roy Keane, the squad’s team before the start of the tournament held jointly between Japan and South Korea became such a binary Yes or No national referendum issue for the Irish people in general.
To recall, the irreconcilable differences between the two led to one inevitable outcome – Keane was sent with his bags packing to his Cheshire home to walk his dogs while the Republic embarked on the third World Cup journey of their history. The saga of this spectacular denouement to the relationship between Mick and Roy and the sub-plots and backstories are told in the film Saipan which has just gone on general release (in the UK anyway) and which I attended at the weekend.
The tragedian aspect of the whole episode as depicted in the film lies in two conflicts: one between footballing cultures and the other between differing aspects of Irishness or Irish identity. Regarding the former, Mick McCarthy, played excellently by Steve Coogan, brings to the table the experience of a 57 times capped Irish international and a post-retirement managerial stint at Millwall (he would after the World Cup go onto manage Wolves, Sunderland, Ipswich Town, Cardiff City, Apoel Nicosia and Blackpool with varying degrees of success at a mostly English second tier level). He comes across as solid, pragmatic in a Yorkshire sort of way. He is a native of Barnsley and a “football man” who understands the culture of the dressing room and the wiles and foibles of the characters who pass through it. He has been a teammate of some of his charges but knows how to set the appropriate boundaries between him as the gaffer and players who come from a mixture of English Premiership and Championship.
Roy Keane, played equally convincingly in the film by Eanna Hardwicke, was then captain of Manchester United from 1997 to 2005 and for twelve years was the lynchpin of the most successful Manchester United side ever under the tutelage of Sir Alex Ferguson, the most prolific trophy winner in the history of the English game. He is easily the most honours decorated Irish international of all time, having won seven Premierships, four FA Cups and one European Champions League. He has made a reputation for perhaps the most effective box-to-box midfielder in the English game; a determined tackler, immaculate passer and a real nose for goal having scored 50 goals. Arguably the most combative midfielder at the top tier since legendary Leeds United captain Billy Bremner, Keane was a classic enforcer on the pitch and renowned for not suffering fools gladly.
The tragedian aspect of the whole episode as depicted in the film lies in two conflicts: one between footballing cultures and the other between differing aspects of Irishness or Irish identity. Regarding the former, Mick McCarthy, played excellently by Steve Coogan, brings to the table the experience of a 57 times capped Irish international and a post-retirement managerial stint at Millwall (he would after the World Cup go onto manage Wolves, Sunderland, Ipswich Town, Cardiff City, Apoel Nicosia and Blackpool with varying degrees of success at a mostly English second tier level). He comes across as solid, pragmatic in a Yorkshire sort of way. He is a native of Barnsley and a “football man” who understands the culture of the dressing room and the wiles and foibles of the characters who pass through it. He has been a teammate of some of his charges but knows how to set the appropriate boundaries between him as the gaffer and players who come from a mixture of English Premiership and Championship.
Roy Keane, played equally convincingly in the film by Eanna Hardwicke, was then captain of Manchester United from 1997 to 2005 and for twelve years was the lynchpin of the most successful Manchester United side ever under the tutelage of Sir Alex Ferguson, the most prolific trophy winner in the history of the English game. He is easily the most honours decorated Irish international of all time, having won seven Premierships, four FA Cups and one European Champions League. He has made a reputation for perhaps the most effective box-to-box midfielder in the English game; a determined tackler, immaculate passer and a real nose for goal having scored 50 goals. Arguably the most combative midfielder at the top tier since legendary Leeds United captain Billy Bremner, Keane was a classic enforcer on the pitch and renowned for not suffering fools gladly.
However the downside of this aspect of his career was a disciplinary record of eleven red cards of which seven were received in the Premier League which is a record tally for that competition. A darker side to Keane’s character when in his autobiography he openly admitted to a deliberate foul on Alfe-Inge Haaland of Manchester City (father of current City striker Erling) in October 2001 which effectively ended his career; this was in retaliation for a tackle by Alfe-Inge on Roy Keane while playing for Leeds United at Elland Road four years previously and which had caused Keane to sustain an ACL injury which ended his 1997-98 season (Haaland stood over him and accused him of feigning injury). For his refusal to apologise (it was “an eye for an eye” was his candid admission) Keane earned a further five match ban from the English FA and a £150,000 fine on top of an earlier three match ban and £3,000 fine.
So Roy Keane brought to the squad not just the uber professionalism and an on-field reputation befitting the captain of one of the world’s preeminent football clubs and a passionate commitment to the cause of the Irish national team but also a capacity to hold grudges and an intolerance for those he deems to fall below the standards he sets for himself and others. It was a combustible mix which as the film patiently, perhaps tantalisingly, builds up to would inevitably lead to a confrontation which although tragic at the time for Irish soccer fans, had led to the double catharsis of the Irish team bonding in the aftermath of Keane’s departure and going on to enjoy a respectable World Cup, and for Roy Keane of slaying his demons around the incompetent organisational culture of Irish soccer.
But the tragic aspects of Saipan relate to the clash between two dimensions of Irish identity. The story of Mick McCarthy is the story of the Irish emigrant experience in Britain. Like tens of thousands of Irish men and women down the generations forced to migrate owing to the lack of work in the home country, Mick McCarthy’s father left to go down a coal mine in Yorkshire. Despite his birthplace, love and loyalty to his mother country burns deep in his heart and soul and he served it as a rugged centre half on 57 occasions (as well as for Barnsley, Manchester City, Celtic, Lyon and Millwall). As he says in a motivational flourish in the film, he reminds the squad that they are playing for the generations of Irish people forced to leave the old country for work. They are playing for the sake of the Irish diaspora as well as for the new and modern Ireland of the Celtic Tiger era. And it is Roy Keane who is an exemplar of this New Hibernia. The most successful Irish footballer of his or any generation who has played under two of the most iconic managerial figures in English football history – Brian Clough and Alex Ferguson – and he has internalised the success ethic of Fergie in particular. Having got to where he has through overcoming youth trial rejections and determination and hard work, he has little time for the way that things used to be done in Irish soccer (and perhaps in wider Irish society).
The stage is thus set for the slow burning but steadily rising discord which explodes so dramatically in the final squad meeting before departure for Japan. Before these set of ructions on Saipan, I confess to have only heard once before of this US dependent territory in relation to exploitation of labour in the garments industry. I have since learned that it was from Saipan that the Enola Gay set off to drop its terrible cargo on the Japanese city of Hiroshima on 6th August 1945.
So Roy Keane brought to the squad not just the uber professionalism and an on-field reputation befitting the captain of one of the world’s preeminent football clubs and a passionate commitment to the cause of the Irish national team but also a capacity to hold grudges and an intolerance for those he deems to fall below the standards he sets for himself and others. It was a combustible mix which as the film patiently, perhaps tantalisingly, builds up to would inevitably lead to a confrontation which although tragic at the time for Irish soccer fans, had led to the double catharsis of the Irish team bonding in the aftermath of Keane’s departure and going on to enjoy a respectable World Cup, and for Roy Keane of slaying his demons around the incompetent organisational culture of Irish soccer.
But the tragic aspects of Saipan relate to the clash between two dimensions of Irish identity. The story of Mick McCarthy is the story of the Irish emigrant experience in Britain. Like tens of thousands of Irish men and women down the generations forced to migrate owing to the lack of work in the home country, Mick McCarthy’s father left to go down a coal mine in Yorkshire. Despite his birthplace, love and loyalty to his mother country burns deep in his heart and soul and he served it as a rugged centre half on 57 occasions (as well as for Barnsley, Manchester City, Celtic, Lyon and Millwall). As he says in a motivational flourish in the film, he reminds the squad that they are playing for the generations of Irish people forced to leave the old country for work. They are playing for the sake of the Irish diaspora as well as for the new and modern Ireland of the Celtic Tiger era. And it is Roy Keane who is an exemplar of this New Hibernia. The most successful Irish footballer of his or any generation who has played under two of the most iconic managerial figures in English football history – Brian Clough and Alex Ferguson – and he has internalised the success ethic of Fergie in particular. Having got to where he has through overcoming youth trial rejections and determination and hard work, he has little time for the way that things used to be done in Irish soccer (and perhaps in wider Irish society).
The stage is thus set for the slow burning but steadily rising discord which explodes so dramatically in the final squad meeting before departure for Japan. Before these set of ructions on Saipan, I confess to have only heard once before of this US dependent territory in relation to exploitation of labour in the garments industry. I have since learned that it was from Saipan that the Enola Gay set off to drop its terrible cargo on the Japanese city of Hiroshima on 6th August 1945.
Having got these historical anecdotes out of the way, let’s look at how Saipan’s role in this history making moment is depicted on screen. The film starts with a pastiche of vox populi reactions among the Irish public to the sporting cataclysm that has leaked out from the camp onto the daily news bulletins on RTE and the front pages of the newspapers. Opinions are broadcast from all corners and sections of Irish society from the taxi driver to publican to kids at school to women out shopping right up to high politics in the person of then Taoiseach Bertie Ahern. Views polarise around the legalistic and professional position that the decision of the manager has to be final and that the maintenance of squad harmony is paramount to a more emotional allegiance to the Keane corner because of his totemic status as the most successful ever Irish footballer ever and sympathy with his fury about the facilities at the camp and what he sees as the lackadaisical culture within the camp. It is impossible to make a definitive assessment as to where the critical mass of Irish public opinion was eventually to be found but it is fair to say that there would have been near total unanimity in favour of Keane in his native county of Cork; the Rebel County always rallies to its own.
It is worth commenting that in a not so distant but vanished era in Irish history, that of the supreme hegemony of Gaelic games and the disapprobation of ‘foreign games’ the idea of any Minister of State never mind the Taoiseach getting into a lather about soccer matters would have been unthinkable. It is fair to ask where the concern from Irish governments was when a succession of dubious refereeing decisions in Paris, Sofia and Brussels conspired to keep what was then the best ever Irish international sides out of the World Cups of 1978 and 1982.
Anyway, the film continues with scenes of Roy Keane kicking a ball around the streets of Cobh as a boy; it cinematically narrates his steady progress through junior football; his breakthrough at local League of Ireland side Cobh Ramblers and then his journey to the stratosphere of English first tier football; first at Nottingham Forest and then for a then British transfer fee of £3.75m to the inaugural Premier League Champions Manchester United in the summer of 1993. The rest, as they say, is history. But along the way there is a hint of a grudge with somebody over Keane being passed over for an important selection at junior level.
The viewer’s sympathy for the dilemmas which Mick McCarthy has to handle surely rises in an evocative scene where prior to the second leg of the World Cup qualifying play off tie with Iran in Tehran in which Ireland hold a 2-0 lead from the first leg, he has to contend with a volley of F words on the phone from Alex Ferguson over Roy Keane’s fitness to play in Tehran. It is made clear from He Who Must Be Obeyed that a leg injury precludes any participation from his club captain in this qualifying decider. The extent and nature of Roy Keane’s injury is one of the sub plots of the entire imbroglio, but Fergie invokes the four-day rule whereby a club manager can mandate the withdrawal of a club player who has been selected for international duty on fitness grounds. But throughout the film, the exact reasons for Keane’s withdrawal are never made explicit which keeps the pot of suspicion brimming if not actually boiling over.
Qualification secured after a nervy 1-0 defeat in Tehran, the action shifts to the departure of the Irish team bus to pre–World Cup base. Keane sits quietly at the rear of the bus; conspicuously not joining in the bonhomie and craic that the rest of the squad engage in. It is the same on the plane where he buries his head in a book, and the aloofness continues throughout the five-day sojourn in Saipan. But this aloofness soon morphs into discontent over the facilities for a team in preparation for the biggest team sport event in the world. The training pitch is pock marked with numerous divots which make five a side games, goalkeeping practice routines and round the pitch laps impossible. Only keepy-uppy training drills are possible. The most farcical defect is the absence of footballs for players to practice with the basic tools of their trade! The catering appears to consist of sandwiches for breakfast, if not for lunch and evening meal. Keane struggles to get the air conditioning on in his hotel room, a situation hardly conducive to the cultivation of cool, rational reasoning in the Pacific humidity.
He does not take part in the squad high jinks which could have come from the set of Mike Bassett Football Manager the highly claimed mockumentary starring Ricky Tomlinson as the hapless manager of the England World Cup squad which came out in late 2001. He relays his frustrations back to his partner in Cheshire. He has stand up rows with the FAI officials whose lackadaisical attitudes seem designed to permanently distort his vision with the colour red. McCarthy tries, in turn, to emolliate and cajole him by trying to get him to understand “where he is coming from” and inquiring whether he would talk to Alex Ferguson in the same manner that he is coming on to his international boss.
Eventually, matters come to a head for the first occasion when after a fractious debate within the squad about the facilities Roy decides he has had enough and announces his intention to depart the squad. Somehow Mick uses patient diplomacy to persuade Roy to stay. So has harmony broken out in time for the task ahead? The answer comes when after an off-the-record conversation in the hotel with a female journalist in which Roy candidly reveals the shortcomings of the Irish preparation, a newspaper is passed around the top table of the squad with the headline “Fail To Prepare, Prepare To Fail” despite the verbal promise of the honourable lady of the press to embargo publication until after the tournament.
Roy is called down from his hotel room to explain the provenance of this article and is asked to apologise. Roy refuses to apologise for telling what he believes to be the truth. The volume of the exchange between Roy and Mick rises to decibel shattering levels when Roy embarks on his notorious volleys of personal abuse against Mick who he describes as a “c..t”, “w…r” and most hurting of all, a “Plastic Paddy”; not a “real Irishman” at all. It does not require a sociological PhD in othering, racialised language to understand that the point of no return had been passed. On top of this invective, was disparagement of Mick’s career achievements and then the opening of the wound that Roy has carried since his early teenage years when Mick reportedly laughed at Roy’s failure to make the grade for that junior team selection all those years ago. Fisticuffs are narrowly averted by Roy being physically restrained by fellow squad members who all weigh in behind their manager. Keeping his calm and dignity throughout, Mick formally sends Roy home for this ultimate act of indiscipline.
It is reasonable to ask why the FAI did not do due diligence on Saipan as a World Cup preparatory venue. Why was the situation allowed to escalate when legitimate grievances over essentially working conditions which any shop steward worth their salt should have been able to make; which Roy articulated albeit sometimes in a passive-aggressive manner became the crisis which almost derailed Ireland’s World Cup campaign? What if serious injury had been sustained by one of the squad because of the glorified sandpit of a training pitch? Mick does one make one last ditch phone call to Roy saying a place is available for him in the squad and a plane is made available at Manchester Airport or him to fly to Japan. But Roy makes it clear that that particular ship has sailed.
As things transpired, it was “all for the best.” Ireland come out of their group with creditable 1-1 draws with Cameroon and Germany and a 3-0 win over Saudi Arabia. In their round of 16 tie with Spain they achieved another 1-1 draw but exited the World Cup through the dreaded penalty shoot-out.
It is worth commenting that in a not so distant but vanished era in Irish history, that of the supreme hegemony of Gaelic games and the disapprobation of ‘foreign games’ the idea of any Minister of State never mind the Taoiseach getting into a lather about soccer matters would have been unthinkable. It is fair to ask where the concern from Irish governments was when a succession of dubious refereeing decisions in Paris, Sofia and Brussels conspired to keep what was then the best ever Irish international sides out of the World Cups of 1978 and 1982.
Anyway, the film continues with scenes of Roy Keane kicking a ball around the streets of Cobh as a boy; it cinematically narrates his steady progress through junior football; his breakthrough at local League of Ireland side Cobh Ramblers and then his journey to the stratosphere of English first tier football; first at Nottingham Forest and then for a then British transfer fee of £3.75m to the inaugural Premier League Champions Manchester United in the summer of 1993. The rest, as they say, is history. But along the way there is a hint of a grudge with somebody over Keane being passed over for an important selection at junior level.
The viewer’s sympathy for the dilemmas which Mick McCarthy has to handle surely rises in an evocative scene where prior to the second leg of the World Cup qualifying play off tie with Iran in Tehran in which Ireland hold a 2-0 lead from the first leg, he has to contend with a volley of F words on the phone from Alex Ferguson over Roy Keane’s fitness to play in Tehran. It is made clear from He Who Must Be Obeyed that a leg injury precludes any participation from his club captain in this qualifying decider. The extent and nature of Roy Keane’s injury is one of the sub plots of the entire imbroglio, but Fergie invokes the four-day rule whereby a club manager can mandate the withdrawal of a club player who has been selected for international duty on fitness grounds. But throughout the film, the exact reasons for Keane’s withdrawal are never made explicit which keeps the pot of suspicion brimming if not actually boiling over.
Qualification secured after a nervy 1-0 defeat in Tehran, the action shifts to the departure of the Irish team bus to pre–World Cup base. Keane sits quietly at the rear of the bus; conspicuously not joining in the bonhomie and craic that the rest of the squad engage in. It is the same on the plane where he buries his head in a book, and the aloofness continues throughout the five-day sojourn in Saipan. But this aloofness soon morphs into discontent over the facilities for a team in preparation for the biggest team sport event in the world. The training pitch is pock marked with numerous divots which make five a side games, goalkeeping practice routines and round the pitch laps impossible. Only keepy-uppy training drills are possible. The most farcical defect is the absence of footballs for players to practice with the basic tools of their trade! The catering appears to consist of sandwiches for breakfast, if not for lunch and evening meal. Keane struggles to get the air conditioning on in his hotel room, a situation hardly conducive to the cultivation of cool, rational reasoning in the Pacific humidity.
He does not take part in the squad high jinks which could have come from the set of Mike Bassett Football Manager the highly claimed mockumentary starring Ricky Tomlinson as the hapless manager of the England World Cup squad which came out in late 2001. He relays his frustrations back to his partner in Cheshire. He has stand up rows with the FAI officials whose lackadaisical attitudes seem designed to permanently distort his vision with the colour red. McCarthy tries, in turn, to emolliate and cajole him by trying to get him to understand “where he is coming from” and inquiring whether he would talk to Alex Ferguson in the same manner that he is coming on to his international boss.
Eventually, matters come to a head for the first occasion when after a fractious debate within the squad about the facilities Roy decides he has had enough and announces his intention to depart the squad. Somehow Mick uses patient diplomacy to persuade Roy to stay. So has harmony broken out in time for the task ahead? The answer comes when after an off-the-record conversation in the hotel with a female journalist in which Roy candidly reveals the shortcomings of the Irish preparation, a newspaper is passed around the top table of the squad with the headline “Fail To Prepare, Prepare To Fail” despite the verbal promise of the honourable lady of the press to embargo publication until after the tournament.
Roy is called down from his hotel room to explain the provenance of this article and is asked to apologise. Roy refuses to apologise for telling what he believes to be the truth. The volume of the exchange between Roy and Mick rises to decibel shattering levels when Roy embarks on his notorious volleys of personal abuse against Mick who he describes as a “c..t”, “w…r” and most hurting of all, a “Plastic Paddy”; not a “real Irishman” at all. It does not require a sociological PhD in othering, racialised language to understand that the point of no return had been passed. On top of this invective, was disparagement of Mick’s career achievements and then the opening of the wound that Roy has carried since his early teenage years when Mick reportedly laughed at Roy’s failure to make the grade for that junior team selection all those years ago. Fisticuffs are narrowly averted by Roy being physically restrained by fellow squad members who all weigh in behind their manager. Keeping his calm and dignity throughout, Mick formally sends Roy home for this ultimate act of indiscipline.
It is reasonable to ask why the FAI did not do due diligence on Saipan as a World Cup preparatory venue. Why was the situation allowed to escalate when legitimate grievances over essentially working conditions which any shop steward worth their salt should have been able to make; which Roy articulated albeit sometimes in a passive-aggressive manner became the crisis which almost derailed Ireland’s World Cup campaign? What if serious injury had been sustained by one of the squad because of the glorified sandpit of a training pitch? Mick does one make one last ditch phone call to Roy saying a place is available for him in the squad and a plane is made available at Manchester Airport or him to fly to Japan. But Roy makes it clear that that particular ship has sailed.
As things transpired, it was “all for the best.” Ireland come out of their group with creditable 1-1 draws with Cameroon and Germany and a 3-0 win over Saudi Arabia. In their round of 16 tie with Spain they achieved another 1-1 draw but exited the World Cup through the dreaded penalty shoot-out.
Dissatisfaction with Irish football decision making and administration did not begin and end with Roy Keane; Eamonn Dunphy has been a particularly trenchant critic of the FAI’s stewardship of the Irish game and the subsequent scandals surrounding John Delaney’s tenure as that body’s Chief Executive Officer which he had to cede after investigative journalist probes into FAI finances.
Keane’s own tragedy is his failure to find a permanent post-playing career anchor in the game despite spells as mangers of Sunderland (winning promotion to the Premier League in 2006-07), Ipswich Town and as assistant to the then Republic of Ireland manager Martin O’Neill. Frustration at the failure of others to live up to his high standards was a factor in his brief tenures at both Championship clubs. Surely, he has more to offer the game than punditry at which thankfully he is not a nodding dog.
⏩Barry Gilheany is a freelance writer, qualified counsellor and aspirant artist resident in Colchester where he took his PhD at the University of Essex. He is also a lifelong Leeds United supporter.
