Evening fieldmarshall. I think a lot of it starts and ends with the press, you only have to look at the coverage of the Arter / Walters piece, which O’Neill has addressed but his explanation of events doesn’t make for particularly good headlines. They created a caricature of Keane as crazy. At the same time I remember the S*n printing back pages with England players in tin hats before we play the Germans. The anti-Irish prejudice is out there in the general population and it colours how these characters are portrayed. I don’t think you can bundle him in with Vinnie Jones and, to a lesser extent Barton because particularly Jones contributed little in terms of footballing skill. Still, Vinnie is painted as a hard man rather than someone who lacks control. Suarez is a fair comparison and if he spent more of his time in the Premier League I’m sure he would be an even bigger target than Keane was. And by the way, I was disgusted far more by his cheating handball in the 2010 World Cup than his silly biting, but his talent is undeniable. I do think there’s an element of ‘he’s one of ours / isn’t one of ours’ that seems to be more powerful for a baddy than a goody - Maradona is a hero to Argentinians but a villain to the English. At the same time we all seem to admire Messi and Aguero. When I look at Keane’s footballing career, I see a great footballer who occasionally took his aggression way too far. As a manager, I see a promotion at Sunderland and a poor but not catastrophic spell at Town. I see someone who was at the top of his profession as a player who is unable to convert that to management, primarily because of the skill and application of the players under his guard. But I don’t see this object of detestation that I read about on here or the crazy man that I read about in the press. Whatever is the reason for this, whether it’s because of his nationality is a valid question to ask. Whatever you think I’ve implied about any individuals on this forum, I absolutely have not.
I can't see Keane playing the race card himself and I think it's unfair to think you can't criticise someone just because it could be seen as racism. It's a bit like the situation with Israel and anyone who objects to their actions automatically being portrayed as anti Semitic.
I seem to remember he once commented that he’d rather cut diving out of the game big al. If you want to take Israel as an analogy, that is a much more complex issue. There is no nuanced debate and even though both sides of the press vs Labour would like to paint it as binary, it isn’t. Nobody dares talk about it and that’s what the Israeli government is taking advantage of.
If the cap fits.. In all seriousness, I'm still not sure what points you're still trying to make. A few of us have explicitly listed some other loathsome players that we all consider to have displayed disgusting actions on the football pitch (regardless of technical ability) And regardless of nationality... Keane is just another name in that list.. He, like many others has earned his detractors from his actions on the pitch.
The point is pretty clear, why don't Englishmen get equivalent criticism? I've never heard anything but praise for Paul Scholes for example. He was sent off for violent tackles, talks about the game in exactly the same way as Keane.
I don't think Keane was a thug any more than Scholes / Shearer / Pearce / Ince / Ruddock / etc, there were a lot of players like that in the early Premier League era. All the accounts of that Manchester United era from ex-players including people like Gerard Pique are that you had to be tough or you wouldn't make it there and that was Ferguson's way as much as Keane - and players like Patrick Viera and Dennis Bergkamp gave as good as they got too. All good footballers who probably would approach the game a bit differently if they were playing today. Nowadays that mentality has been replaced in favour of CDMs, defenders and goalkeepers having to be a lot more skillful to pass out from the back and I don't think that leaving a mark on a player would be tolerated anymore. Two feet off the ground never used to be an automatic red card, from Nat Lofthouse bundling the 'keeper into the net in '58 to the dirty Don Revie Leeds side of the 70s the game has progressively softened.
Gentlemen, shall we call time on this debate? I for one have been lucky to have travelled and worked in many countries & been a keen sportsman...in my prime..ahemm!...and now nudging 70, follow several sports. I rank watching Ipswich FA Cup and England 1966 semi-final as 2 of my greatest treasured memories. I do not like violence or cheating on or off the pitch, square, court, pool whatever, or amongst fans either - it all sets a bad example for the young. And it is the young, their future that I worry about. Back to our own Ipswich. Let's all hope for another win this Saturday, a bit of a run, a surge in confidence, a great revival, new shoots and onwards & upwards we go.
