Yorke pinged his old Manchester United team-mate a heartfelt
phone text, commiserating with him after Keane dramatically quit
Sunderland. But Keane's blunt three-word reply still shocks his
fellow United Treble winner to this day.
And Yorke reveals: "The rumours of his departure had been flying
around for a while, but when it happened it was still a surprise.
"So I sent him a text saying how sorry I was how things had turned
out, but thanking him for the chance at Sunderland and wishing him
all the best for the future.
"Ten minutes later, I got my reply: 'Go f*** yourself.'
"I've still got that text on my phone. I keep it because to this
day it shocks me - and yet at the same time, doesn't."
Former Manchester United skipper Keane had signed Yorke from his
Aussie club in Sydney in 2006 after pleading with him to return to
England.
But Keane walked out on Sunderland on December 4 last year with
the club in a desperate fight to avoid relegation from the Premier
League.
There were rumours of huge bust-ups in the club and Yorke
recalls how Keane completely lost the plot during one explosive
foul-mouthed dressing-room rant in which he:
SMASHED a tactics board with a kung-fu
kick.
SLAPPED skipper Dean Whitehead round the
head.
SCREAMED at all the shocked players: "I can't
trust any of you."
Sunderland were losing 1-0 to then League One side Northampton
in a Carling Cup tie in September last year.
And in his new autobigraphy, Born To Score, Yorke says: "The
manager's darkening mood was made only too clear on an ominous
night for his regime. There were the first signs of tension between
Keano and the Sunderland supporters. But that was nothing compared
to the eruption we witnessed at half-time. We knew we were in for a
tongue-lashing. We waited for the fireworks. Keano emerged from the
washroom, quietly, calmly.
"He asked our kit manager if he can get the tactics board.
'Sure, boss, it's over here.'
"The board goes up. And Keano takes a running jump and smashes
it over with a kung-fu kick. He screamed at Danny Collins: 'Never
come to me and ask for a contract again.' And then the captain,
Dean Whitehead, is next. 'Captain? Captain? Some f***in' captain
you are,' he rages, slapping Dean about the head in the process,
before turning on us all. 'I can't trust any of you!'
"No one knew Keano's moods better than me and I sensed
his regime was heading for a point of no return." Sunderland
scraped through 4-3 on penalties after salavaging a 2-2
draw.
The following month Keane produced another explosive
dressing-room rant as his side trooped off at half-time following a
goalless first-half at Stoke. "That didn't prevent a furious
reaction from the manager," explains Yorke. "Keano once again
delivered a kung-fu kick on the tactics board which sent it
crashing. He launched into a tirade at the team that began with his
telling me that I was being substituted.
"I took the decision on the chin. We lost 1-0, which did nothing
to improve his temper and I later learned he was unhappy with me
because I had not reacted to his decision to substitute
me.
"When I got the chance to speak to him, I told him my view. 'We
still had 45 minutes to play and I didn't want to bring the
dressing room down any more than it already was,' I argued. 'The
players needed encouraging, not slaughtering.'
"I stick by that; ranting at the players made no sense when
there was still half a game to go.
"Two days later, Keano said to me: 'Listen, Yorkie. You've been
great for me. But I've had enough of you. And as a manager I've got
to make a decision. I no longer want you to train with us.' I was
banished to the reserves.
"Five minutes before that showdown, a first-team meeting had
been arranged downstairs and, gloomily, I made my way
there.
"Arriving at the same door from the opposite direction was
Keano. He stopped me in the corridor. 'No no, Yorkie, you're not in
this meeting,' he said. 'You're outside with the reserves.'
"I have no doubt that, had I actually got to the meeting before
him, he would have frogmarched me out in front of the whole
squad.
"After that, the atmosphere around the club plummeted still
further. For three, sometimes four days a week, we would see no
sign of Keano and not too many players were disappointed when there
was no sign of his car in the mornings.
"The dressing room started to get disconnected, splitting into
little cliques and groups of self-interest.
"Paranoia rampaged through the club, players were at each
other's throats and fighting one another; it was disintegrating
before our very eyes.
"For the next five weeks it was like this and the results
inevitably crumbled still further. And then, suddenly, I got a call
from our elusive manager, who had not spoken to me since I was
banished from the meeting.
"'Yorkie, I know things haven't been great between us but I just
want to know if you're on board with me,' said Keano.
"I was so stunned to receive the call, never mind the question,
that I couldn't think of an answer.
"Instead, I said I would pop in and discuss it with him the
following day.
"Twenty minutes later I got a text from him: 'Don't bother - I
think I've got my answer.' It would have been easy for me to tell
him I was on board. I guess that was what he wanted. I'm sorry I
couldn't do that.
"I'm not saying I would not have thrown my support behind Keano
eventually; such is the immense respect I had for him as my leader
then I probably would have. But we needed to talk first.
"By now I was convinced that club management was not for
Keano.
"I don't think the 24/7 care of a club manager is suited to his
temperament. I don't think he can deal with everything that lands
in the tray of a club man. But his standing in the game is such
that he could still take a group of players and get a positive
reaction from them for a couple of games - and then march off and
walk his dogs for a month or two.
"I think he is an impact manager, which is why I believe he
could be ideal for the international stage."
Keane is now under pressure as boss of Championship side
Ipswich. The Tractor Boys are contemplating their worst start to
the season for 45 years and bookies have slashed their odds of
Keane leaving Portman Road before Christmas. But Yorke says: "Keano
is very much his own man. His aura and personality are what make
him such a big force in the game; they provoked a kind of fear in
playing for him, a fear if you did not come up to
scratch."
Their relationship had been so different when Keane called Yorke
to beg him to sign for him.
Keane had just been appointed the Black Cats manager when
Yorke's phone rang. "'Hello, how ya' doing, Yorkie?' said the
distinctive tones at the other end of the line.
"'I want you to come and play for us,' Keano said. 'I'll look
after you. I won't mess you around. No bulls***. I'm not going to
bring you back and not play you.' He persisted, stressing my help
was needed to 'sort out the dressing room' and get some old United
qualities in there.
"He kept calling, saying: 'Yorkie, come on, I really need you
here' and dangling the bait of a £15,000-a-week, two-year
contract.
"He even invited me to call him Roy but I declined. He was the
gaffer - I had too much respect for him to take liberties. Keano
and I had been great team-mates at United and had socialised - but
we were never buddy-buddy.
"However, it was Keano I came back to England for. It was only
my old skipper who could drag me out of Sydney. Our success over
the first two years, winning promotion and then keeping the team in
the Premier League, were of great credit to him.
"The intensity which drove the team to those successes, however,
never let up and, I think, ultimately, doomed Keano's managership.
Even when we had secured promotion at the end of my first season,
he wasn't satisfied. He wanted the title.
"He warned players he would not settle for anyone taking their
foot off the pedal. It was leadership by inspiring fear.
"Keano had days when he would join in with the five-a-sides and
any player on his team who misplaced a pass or miscontrolled the
ball would be subjected to a stream of vicious lecturing or
abuse.
"It reached the stage where nobody wanted to be on the same side
as him.
"'Gaffer,' I said to Keano, 'you're scaring the s*** out of the
players.'
"However, a general can only lead his troops this way for so
long. The players began moaning about him. It was difficult for him
to accept that he was not in a top-flight team that did not win the
majority of its games - all that he had known at United. And when
Keano left there was a sense of relief he had gone."
Extracted from Born to Score by Dwight Yorke, published by
Macmillan on October 2, price £17.99. © Dwight Yorke.
