The voice of reason?: Roy Keane exercises his vocal
chords
Roy Keane, the hard man who quits a lot, started his
unlikely new life at Ipswich last week in typical style - shouting
his big mouth off about all and sundry. The main targets of his ire
were, with almost laughable predictability, his former Manchester
United colleagues Steve Bruce, Mark Hughes, Bryan Robson and Paul
Ince.
Men who many would say were four of the greatest players in
British football history. But then who can honestly live up to
'Keano' - that Goliath among pygmies?
Not his United team-mates, certainly. Nor his Irish
ones - you may recall him walking out on them, too, in another one
of his legendary fits of disgusted pique. And as for Sunderland,
Keane's withering contempt for all things Black Cat was plain to
see at his Press conference on Thursday - the board broke promises,
interfered too much and couldn't be trusted.
Three character failings that could never be levelled at that
bastion of truth, honesty and non-interfering decency, Mr Keane. I
watched his extraordinary performance with a mixture of amusement
and sadness. It's never very edifying watching a oncegreat sporting
hero turn into a bitter and twisted twerp. But as I watched, my
mind turned to another man in the news.
Another United star, as it happens. Another Reds legend, in
fact. A player whom even Sir Bobby Charlton calls the greatest of
them all. Paul Scholes played his 600th match for United last week
and did his talking, as always, with his boots. He was terrific
during the game and his usual Trappist monk self off it. Scholes is
a strange cove by modern footballer standards.
He doesn't speak. He barely smiles. He doesn't do bling or WAGs.
And he certainly doesn't slag off people in public. He just plays
football and does it extraordinarily well.
Personally, I hate the gingerhaired swine because, like his
equally taciturn colleague, Ryan Giggs, he has been a massive,
great big spikey thorn in Arsenal's side for over 15 years. I
always thought Scholes was just as hard, powerful, relentless and
dangerous as Keane.
Example: Keane should learn a little grace from
Paul Scholes.
He just didn't make such a meal of it, be quite so
vicious, or attract so many headlines. He's ridiculously modest,
committed to an almost religious degree and phenomenally
loyal.
Sir Alex Ferguson said this week that no other club had ever
made a bid for Scholes because 'they knew he wouldn't leave'.
Can there be any greater testament to a footballer's devotion to
one club than that? It was a quite astonishing revelation and yet I
believed it. Scholes, like Giggs, could only ever play for
United.
They get nosebleeds every time they move out of Salford. When
Scholes finally retires he won't go into management. How could he?
He'd handle the games and players OK but all those interviews would
kill him.
No, my guess is that he'll just disappear as quietly as he
arrived. But what won't disappear is his status in British
football. He has been, quite simply, a colossus. A towering,
magnificent, epic player of supreme quality and integrity.
Keane was in the same league but somewhere along the way his
gigantic ego got in the way and turned him into a serial whinger
and world-class pain in the backside.
He may or may not succeed at Ipswich. But judging by his first
public appearance as Ipswich manager, Keane's self-destruct button
is already primed and ready. In all honesty I'd give it until
Christmas before he's off out the door, moaning about how everyone
is utterly useless, apart from him.
With every new outburst like the one he spewed last week, Roy
Keane's legend and reputation diminish just a little bit further.
And with every second of silence that Paul Scholes continues to
exude, his legend and reputation grow ever larger.