Fergie and Keane: no fairytale finale to this relationship

By Andy Ritchie

　

BROADWOOD, January 8 2006. Roy Keane’s glorious career was suffering more than mere signs of distress: it was falling apart in front of the sad eyes of a sell-out crowd.

He’d joined Celtic - the club had always dominated his boyhood dreams - and had taken part in the famous huddle. But the narrative was short of a Hollywood script writer.

I mean, if you were looking for a superstar on this day, you’d be sorely disappointed. The superstar of yesteryear had been left at Old Trafford. This vintage model was struggling very badly against a young and very energetic Clyde side in the Scottish Cup.

You remembered better times when Keane was robust, physical and appeared to have all the athleticism in the world. You knew that these attributes had disappeared, and that he was never going to get the ball down and stroke it around the middle of the park.

I was watching all this and attempting to analyse how I felt. I was going to say sad, but truly I wasn’t sad, because before me was this multi-millionaire who’d had a decent run round the racetrack. In your heart, it’s hard to feel sorry for rich men.

Besides, having been a footballer myself with Celtic and Morton, I knew you’ve got to be man enough to face reality: when your best years are over, that’s it. Nothing can recreate them. Cancel all thought of fairytale finales.

No, this wasn’t the Roy Keane I saw charging through the middle of Bayern Munich’s midfield, causing mayhem in German ranks. Nor the same Keane who stared down the big Arsenal boy, Patrick Vieira, saying: ‘Come on, you and me, we’ll sort it out on the big green bit.’

But I also knew another thing. When Fergie saw that incident in the Highbury tunnel, he would have had a great big smile plastered all over his face. For this was the Fergie modus operandi - the way he wanted men like Keane to be. It was all part of the master plan of domination for Manchester United.

So you can imagine my surprise this week when I saw Sir Alex, publicising his new book, turn round on television interviews and take more than the average length of stick to the character that Keane became. I don’t think it was really on. It was a bit tacky.

You imagine he should have been saying: ‘He was my leader. He was the guy who pulled me clear of the compost heap so many times.’ Instead, here was him savaging him, calling him a bully and insisting that the other players were frightened of him.

It may have been a bit more prudent if he’d just relegated that particular matter to a few inconsequential words - much like his version of the Rock of Gibraltar affair. He said that his row with John Magnier had been a misunderstanding. Some misunderstanding. It almost brought the club to its knees.

But rejoining the Keane debate, I’ll never forget the contribution he made to United’s glory years, or, for that matter, how quickly Ferguson forgot.

To bite the hand that fed him so consistently was somewhere over the top. When Keane was in the team, half of Fergie’s job was being done for him. And if I remember it right, the manager defended him tooth and nail when his skipper was putting himself about. Fergie wanted it that way. If he didn’t he wouldn’t have had him there in the first place. Hey, Fergie was the top man and he could have had him out of there as quick as manure off a hot shovel.

At his peak, any club in Europe would have taken Roy Keane. I’ll bet Arsenal would have taken him. But think on it: would you sell a Trident submarine to Iran, or North Korea? No, you wouldn’t want to be doing that unless your head was residing in your nether regions. So Keane stayed and his gaffer prospered.

Ferguson shares a lot of similarities with Jock Stein, my old boss at Celtic. The latter bullied players, without question. There were big personalities in the Celtic dressing room, but they weren’t bigger than Big Jock. Yes, there was fear at times and apprehension. But there was another factor: to be praised by him was something else. And see if he smiled at you. Haw! Bloody hell! You felt about 8ft tall, almost on equal terms with King Kong.

I saw him do it when I was a wee boy. Smiling and putting his arm round wee Jimmy Johnstone and others. These guys were great players, but you could take a tape measure and confirm that their chests were swelling with pride.

Now you could take that to the other extreme. When he went for you, it was like an early form of cage fighting - and there was no chance that you were going to exit that cage in one piece. There again, he could bring you down to an area when you could inspect snakes’ bellies. It only took one statement from him to do it.

I got a bit of Stein at the end, not the best years. But the aura was still there. And I imagine it was with Ferguson. He is a man with a phenomenal record and it’s been glory all the way with him, except for those first few years when his feet were encased in Old Trafford quicksand.

No doubt just one encouraging word from him would put the cap on a very satisfactory day. It would have driven players on. And I’d imagine that Keane, as his captain, was there to do just that: drive and cajole the team on to new platforms.

Keane, of course, has responded on television by questioning Ferguson’s interpretation of loyalty. I suppose he feels a bit betrayed and thinks his contribution has been diminished.

After all, can you imagine Ferguson going into the dressing room and telling him to pull out of tackles, encouraging him to let someone else boss the midfield?

Listen, when Fergie got out of that dug-out, came romping down the touchline and put his fist up, he wasn’t doing it to Olly Gunnar Solskjaer. He was doing it to Roy Keane. You can listen to the snarl if you indulge your memory.

There’s no getting away from it: he’s dumped on his first lieutenant. Which begs the question: would he have said the same about another of his great lieutenants, Bryan Robson? I think not.

The Gordon Strachan Show of old was a real bummer: it should never be reprised

By Andy Ritchie

Those scrambling to join the Hallelujah Chorus regarding Scotland’s football revival should put their diaphragms on pause for a moment.

It’s time for two questions of the 64,000-dollar variety: is the national side really back with us as a serious consideration? And has Gordon Strachan learned from past mistakes?

First up, Strachan. I’ve never been a great lover of the wee man in the past. I found him irritating. Some of his TV performances suggested he’d become a cross between Les Dennis and Les Dawson.

But my bunnet comes off to him here. He’s turned Scotland around like he’s turned things around at other places. On Tuesday, we did what we’re good at. If there was a top ten of international teams who put in a shed-load of effort and make a lot of tackles, Scotland would be in that. So, if you start from that base, everything else is a positive.

A word of warning for Gordon, though: just don’t let it go back to how it was before; let’s not have a reprise of the Gordon Strachan Show, a demonstration of how smart he can be.

I think he should concentrate on what he’s doing, for he’s obviously doing something right. And, if we could see a bit less of him on TV, pontificating about matches all over the world, so much the better.

Has he changed? Well, he looks more moderate, less abrasive and sarcastic - although there was a version of that sarcasm in his pre-match interview with the Beeb's Jonathan Sutherland.

Who knows, maybe he’s realised that all the previous places he’s been at as manager have always ended in people being not particularly unhappy that he’s going out the door.

If I remember correctly, there was no great weeping and wailing at Celtic Park when he left. Coventry, Southampton and Middleborough were the same. Okay, he did well at Celtic but, towards the end, it was becoming like a watered down Kenny Dalglish show.

Maybe age has taught him to be more clever. I hope so. The fact that there are one or two steadying influences around him would have helped. I see Mark McGhee does a couple of the press conferences, Stuart McCall, too..

In a way, they’ve dividing to conquer. But the longer the press boys get someone sitting in front of them, something will tickle their fancy and they’ll ask a question that Gordon doesn’t like and gets a bit bristly with. And then it becomes a personal situation between him and the Press.

My message to him is to leave that behind. Bury the fractious past and concentrate on the future. A hopefully bright future. Maybe the international job will suit him a bit better because there’s a considerable amount of time between games and he finds time to regroup.

Remember if he gets himself right, Scotland can prosper. Unlike the Craig Levein era. In my opinion, that guy sucked the air, the energy and everything else out of the team. I bet he was watching Tuesday’s match through his fingers - aye, and probably behind the couch!

At least Strachan has restored all that oxygen and energy. There’s not a lot different to what was there before. Only really the two big central defenders, Grant Hanley and Russell Martin, and the wee wide boy (if you’ll forgive the terminology) Ikechi Anya.

Hanley and Martin do what it says on the tin. The big guy from Blackburn, I mean, you wouldn’t want to step on his toes, while the other looks as if he’s quite a decent reader of the game. He’s quietly effective. Impressively effective, even.

Getting rid of the Gary Caldwells and Co. has been an additional bonus. I never fancied him at all. He’s made a very healthy living out of football for someone I believe to be less than effective. He’s not a reader of the game like Martin, and he certainly isn’t as robust or unlikely to stand on ceremony as Hanley.

Towards the end of his spell with Scotland, I think someone had told him he could be the reincarnated Alan Hansen. He wanted to step out and try and play a wee bit. It was someone that had never been seen before and you wouldn’t want to see it again, either.

Scotland were well structured on Tuesday. It was back to the 4-4-2 gig, with a couple of people up front and midfield players trying to get into attacking positions. You know, when you see that kind of formation put up on the blackboard 20 minutes before kick-off, it makes a great psychological difference.

Never mind the Levein nonsense about playing without a centre-forward in Czechoslovakia. If ever one moment consigned him to the waste basket as an international manager, it must have been that one. It was all downhill after that.

Up front, Steve Naismith was fantastic. Bright. Alive. Energy plus. So, I would ask the question: will Steven Fletcher be welcomed back with open arms when the wee guy puts in performances like that?

Which brings me to another wee fella. Anya did it in Croatia and he did it again on Tuesday. He’s been a major, major find. When he’s on the ball, people expect - and I don’t mean people on the terracing. I mean other players are expecting things to happen.

Big Snodgrass is also a good player. Even as a youngster, he looked something.. Obviously, over the last few years, he’s got himself tuned in to the hard-working side of the game. He’s useful on the ball and looks a gallus bugger. And if he’s got to do it in a brutish way, he does it.

Scott Brown, meanwhile, was quiet but effective and that’s when he’s at his best. Did you see those dead eyes as Flower of Scotland was being sung? A football person would tell you that was him being focussed.

Now, sadly, we must return to the negative. Croatia are usually a gang rather than a fitba team. And during all the time they had trouble within their country, outwith football, that’s exactly what they were. A gang has solidarity. I mean, if they’d been Poles, Lech Walesa would have been their manager.

But there wasn’t too much evidence of solidarity on the night. Just take in their performance.

The manager offered his resignation after the game: that tells you everything you need to know. They turned up because they had to fulfil a fixture. And it showed.

There were a couple of times the wee boy Modric drew out of things. It was as if he was saying to himself: ‘If I go back to Real Madrid and tell them I got injured in a game like this…’

No, this was a pale shadow exercise on their part. Still, Scotland took up the gang theme, just like in days of old. The 1-0 result over there was fantastic. But Tuesday night was better in the respect that they were doing it in front of their ain folk. It was taking that big first step forward. Long may the progress continue.

I enjoyed the 90 minutes so much that I tuned into the BBC highlights show. Was that not a mistake! What about Craig Gordon and Pat Nevin, eh? Nevin was calling the Croatian players world class. He was doing it in his up and down voice, looking at the camera like a ruptured Frankie Howerd. There were lots of oohs and ahhs and licking of the lips as he made his profound statements.

Craig Gordon, meanwhile, is quite an articulate boy, but he looked as if he’d been dragged through a forest backwards. Was he modelling Guy Fawkes’ new gear for November? He sported a half beard and there were two or three spots on his face. Had he been out all night? Perhaps not. Perhaps this was just a trendy young man on the telly.

The serious point of all this is that they showed the game for about 22 minutes and there was about 20 minutes of them doing their punditry. If you didn't know where you were in time, you’d have thought Scotland had won the World Cup.

Hey, the national team looked as good as it has done for a long, long time and it just shows what a wee bit of spirit can do. But cautions applies here. As Karen Carpenter once sang: ‘We’ve only just begun…’