February 17, 2011
By Staff Reporter
He is one of only two of the 13 used by Alex Ferguson when clinching the 1994 double at Wembley to still ply their trade in the Premiership. Of all the gifts Roy Keane brought to the table, nobody would have counted on longevity being just another one of them. That much was reinforced by his announcement last week that next year will be his last.
If he does call it a career in the summer of 2006, it will be 16 full calendar years since he arrived at Nottingham Forest for his first and (really) last shot at glory. He seized the opportunity with an intensity not matched by any Irish arrival since. For a footballer whose job has always necessitated a blood-and-guts element to his play, who has battled the sort of personal demons that curtailed so many other sporting lives, to endure so long is a tribute both to his development over time, and his sheer bloody-minded determination.
Truth be known, there were people in Cork in 1990 fully expecting to see him back living in the city long before that decade was out. Like all those English scouts who passed up on him when he was the midfield dynamo for Rockmount in schoolboys’ football, like all those midfielders arriving at Old Trafford in recent years figuring they might take his job, they grossly underestimated the strength of his will.
“Roy Keane is a great player who was still playing well and maybe he will be there for another two or three years,” Eric Djemba-Djemba said after moving to Aston Villa. “I can’t wait that sort of time and I want to play football. If I start to play and do well, then maybe one day I can go back there. But I am not thinking about that now.”
With Djemba-Djemba already gone, Corinthians of Brazil have reportedly agreed a