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Keane and Ferguson still in a personal feud

By on October 7, 2014

It has been nearly a decade since their infamous bust-up, but Roy Keane and former Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson are apparently still at it. Usually, after a decade these kind of stories lose their steam, or the pair make up, but the two’s personalities will not allow for either. Keane, in leaked fragments of his second autobiography to be publicly release on October ninth, has taken yet more digs at Ferguson. The battle clearly has been personal for a long time.

When Keane was a captain at United, while his personality lead to many more fights than he should have gotten into, as a captain of the players it was more or less his duty, and at least acceptable, to stand up against Ferguson to an extent. But namely towards the end of his United career, Keane should have carried less of a personal feeling of responsibility to be that figure. He clearly lost the respect of some players in the dressing room, and his relationship with Ferguson degraded over time. The final staw, he said, was a fight with United’s then assistant coach Carlos Queiroz, not his infamous interview with MUTV, which even that he downplayed.

In fact, in his book, “The Second Half”, he somewhat apologised, or at least as close as he will probably ever get, for a few other old battles as well. Keane said that while he took a dig at Alf Inge Haaland in a 1998 Manchester Derby, he did intend not to injure the player as he did. The Ireland international almost apologized, but at least explained his infamous altercation with Patric Viera ahead of United’s meeting with Arsenal in 2005, and also explained his fight with Peter Schmeichel on a pre-season tour in 1998. He was still his old fiery, explosive personality in his writing, and still full of criticism and opinions, but at least explained himself for a lot of battles, ending any long kept resent with another player or manager.

However, he only further ignited his feud with Ferguson, providing his side of the story in detail on his exit from United. Keane claimed that, and it certainly seems that, towards the end of his United career they lost their mutual respect. The player-turned-manager said that he also regretted apologizing for his fight with Queiroz, writing: “I apologised. But afterwards I was thinking, ‘I’m not sure why I apologised.'” He highlighted the fact that as manager of Sunderland, when his side met Ferguson’s the United manager failed to meet him for a class of wine after the match, and criticized Fergie for taking legal action in a scandal that saw the Scot settle over legal rights of the racing horse Rock of Gibraltar.

Elsewhere in his book Keane did say that Ferguson was a “brilliant” manager, however, that hardly begins to settle the feud and resent that have seem to hold against each other for almost a decade, and Keane only light the fire again.

About Alex Morgan

Alex Morgan, founder of Football Every Day, lives and breaths football from the West Coast of the United States in California. Aside from founding Football Every Day in January of 2013, Alex has also launched his own journalism career and hopes to help others do the same with FBED. He covers the San Jose Earthquakes as a beat reporter for QuakesTalk.com and his work has also been featured in the BBC's Match of the Day Magazine.