ON THIS DAY

In his day Roy Keane was considered a great footballer in a playing career which included him playing 67 times for his country, the Republic of Ireland, and making over 300 League matches for Manchester United.. He was also known as someone who had his say! The Republic of Ireland had qualified for the 2002 World Cup Finals in South Korea and Japan with Roy Keane due to captain his country. But he wasn’t happy with his country’s preparations for the finals and came close to packing his bags and returning home from Ireland’s pre-tournament training camp on the Pacific island of Saipan such was his disillusionment with those preparations. But on May 23rd came the ‘Saipan Incident’ when Keane and Irish manager Mick McCarthy had a public row of serious proportions. Roy Keane wasn’t happy with the tournament preparations, the training camp, the playing strategy and tactics, the food, the travel arrangements etc etc. He also told Mick McCarthy that he never ranked him as a person, as a manager or as a player and that he wasn’t Irish anyway with McCarthy being a former Irish international player who was born in very un-Irish Barnsley. There was inevitably only one possible outcome of the ‘Saipan Incident’ – Keane was told to pack his bags and return home!

Any lingering hopes that England were the best in the world ended in their final warm-up match for the 1954 World Cup finals. England lost 7-1 to Hungary in Budapest, a result which is still England’s record international defeat.