Inside the crazy world of Roy Keane: the truth about his ‘flamethrower’ personality, his threats to quit and the fan who really did fight him in a car park

There’s a lesser-told yarn about Roy Keane and car parks that warrants an airing. For some it will confirm a stereotype, but it also serves as a warning to any Ipswich Town fans faced with an invitation to step outside.

This one dates to January 2006, when Keane was nearing the end of his playing days at Celtic. His debut was a cup tie away at the part-timers of Clyde, where the ground was tiny and words tended to carry on the breeze, which Paddy McDonnell may not have factored in.

He is a successful comedian these days, but back then he was a Celtic-supporting doorman who had downed a few too many drinks on the ferry crossing. When his team went behind on their way to an embarrassing defeat, McDonnell made a couple of comments over the railing.

‘I was really drunk and was shouting at them because Celtic were getting beat,’ he told Mail Sport this week. ‘At some point I said a bad thing — I called Keane a Cork gypsy and I shouldn’t have said it.

‘I knew Neil Lennon pretty well and he’s obviously on the pitch with Roy. Lennon comes over and was like, “Will you stop shouting?” When Keane sees this, he starts going to Lennon, “You know that guy?”

Irish comedian Paddy McDonnell told Mail Sport about a run-in he had with Keane in a cark park

During his playing career, the Manchester United legend did not shy away from confrontation

‘Long story short, six weeks later I was coming over for a home game. Neil said if I came over after training on the Friday he’d give me a couple of signed shirts. I just had to meet him in the car park.

‘So I get there, see his car and jump in. Next thing I know, this arm comes from the back seat, grabs me in a headlock and a voice goes, “Don’t ever say that to me again or I’ll f****** do you in”. Neil is going, “Come on, let him go!” and Keane is like, “Never call me that again”. Well, I agreed — I was nearly choked out!

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‘Keane then gets out the car and calmly walks off. Lennon is sitting there and says, “I didn’t know he was going to do that!”

‘To this day I don’t know if the whole thing was a joke. But it certainly put me in my place and I’ll tell you what, when the thing happened at the weekend with the Ipswich lad, my phone didn’t stop going from all my mates.’

If there is a predictable moral to the story, it is that Keane-baiting has seldom been the smart play, irrespective of whether it comes from the mouth of Alf-Inge Haaland or a fan fresh off a boozy boat.

It is equally true that a desire to go in hard has transferred to Keane’s punditry. It is the vocation he forever seems willing to ditch, but one where he has emerged as the most compelling analyst on our screens. In a realm where too many apply gentle touches, Keane is delightfully uninhibited, a flamethrower in an age of safety matches.

There is more to his style than that, and always was, but he has made a virtue of not holding back.

As ever it was the great Des Lynam who put it best. ‘There are hundreds who don’t have an edge,’ he told Mail Sport on Tuesday. ‘I can’t name one who has Roy’s kind of edge. I’d have quite liked to work with him, but you’d also be a little nervous about asking him a silly question. He might jump down your throat. It is good television.’

Neil Finbow (above), one of the fans who confronted him, has admitted that he ‘hates’ Keane

Keane holds a tense relationship with many Ipswich fans after his managerial spell at the club

After the incident, the pundit spoke with new Man United manager Ruben Amorim on Sky Sports

The mystery is how much longer he chooses to remain in his broadcasting posts and that brings an earnest relevance to the incident on Sunday, when an Ipswich fan hurled abuse at Keane as he went about his pitchside duties for Sky Sports after the 1-1 draw against Manchester United.

The supporter, Neil Finbow, has since posted on social media about the confrontation that culminated in Keane’s suggestion that they meet in the Portman Road car park.

Given the nature of Keane’s time managing Ipswich, a period between April 2009 and January 2011 when he oversaw only 28 wins in 81 games, Finbow had a lot to say.

‘I mentioned about him walking out on a World Cup and breaking Haaland’s leg and putting it in his autobiography,’ he wrote on Facebook.

‘I hate the bloke and that’s been boiling up since he got sacked all those years ago. I was reminding him that he set us back five years and ruined our football club.’

To see Keane’s anger in response was to be reminded of something he said earlier this season, during one of his regular appearances on the Stick to Football podcast.

It is the forum where his humour is given room to breathe, but he was candid in admitting these hostile exchanges could drive him away.

To contextualise what the worst of these can look like, he referenced the encounter from September 2023 when a thuggish Arsenal fan headbutted him after a match at the Emirates.

An Arsenal fan was banned in June for headbutting Keane after a Man United match last year 

The former Red Devils midfielder told the court he was left ‘in shock’ after the fan attack

‘Hopefully, I’ll be out of this rat race in about 12 months,’ he said. ‘I love football, but the hassle of matches, getting to games and the hassle of fans… I was in court a few months ago with somebody headbutting me. Do you think I enjoy that side of it? Absolutely not. Being a pundit in 10 years? Absolutely not, I guarantee you that.’ 

It is a prospect that ought to fill Sky executives and their viewers with dread.

Indeed, sources at Sky say they have had multiple conversations this week about what happened at Ipswich and are sympathetic towards Keane, who since the fracas has kept his head down at the Soho Farmhouse, a luxury retreat in the Oxfordshire countryside.

But, inevitably, there will be a thought in the back of minds that one day the former United captain could act on those impulses to walk. To decide the flak is not worth it for a wealthy guy at the age of 53. Most would hope the actions of a few morons do not snap his patience.

Currently, Keane is contracted to do around 20 Super Sunday broadcasts a season and, while it is understood he will be on screen again before Christmas, it is not yet known if he will resurface this weekend.

The long term, or rather Keane’s 12-month prognosis, is less clear, and no one is in the business of second-guessing a character who made no secret of being a reluctant, accidental pundit. It was via Keane’s autobiography, The Second Half, that we learnt he only accepted the offer from ITV to be part of their production of the 2011 Champions League final because he read his horoscope on the morning of their call.

It told him: ‘You can’t keep saying no to people.’ Feeling a little bored having just left Ipswich, he did it to kill some time.

Sources who know him well maintain Keane would prefer to still be involved in management. Sure, he can live without being on the grass, and has spoken of how much he values being able to pick and choose how he fills his days. That he can hate the feeling of being ‘trapped’ by football’s structures. But he is convinced he could make the grade.

The Man United legend admitted these hostile exchanges could drive him away from punditry

While on punditry duty for ITV, Keane joked that his daughter’s engagement to Taylor Harwood-Bellis, who scored his first goal for England this month (right), ‘is not done and dusted yet’

That remains the case even now, almost a decade-and-a-half after leaving his last top role at Ipswich and five years after his last coaching position, having worked at Aston Villa, Nottingham Forest and the Republic of Ireland.

Earlier this year, he held talks about taking over from Stephen Kenny with Ireland and he has said that role is a ‘dream’ of his. He also lamented that the ‘ship has sailed’.

It is no doubt a cause of some frustration to Keane that, since leaving Forest in 2019, the microphone has been his prime tie to the game.

If there is an irony, it is that the forthrightness of his opinions on television, or rather the perception that he could start a fight in an empty room, will have put off a few owners. One former Premier League chairman told Mail Sport he would have had the same reservations, even in appreciation of his leadership at United and years spent under Brian Clough and Sir Alex Ferguson.

They might well be right on all that — it is a stigma Keane has been complicit in cultivating, and acted up to, possibly, which may have inadvertently built one of those ‘traps’ he so dislikes.

But the caricature of Keane is also misleading. One prominent Sky source this week described him as an ‘absolute joy to work with, no fuss, no aggro’. Another said: ‘Brilliant professional and colleague. Puts in the hard work and is genuinely funny.’

That was shown recently on ITV when he discussed the England debut of his prospective son-in-law, the Southampton centre back Taylor Harwood-Bellis.

After he scored against the Republic of Ireland, Keane was asked about the 22-year-old’s engagement to his daughter, to which he didn’t skip a beat in saying: ‘It’s not done and dusted yet — a lot can change in the Keane household, let me tell you.’

The ex-Republic of Ireland star is contracted to do around 20 Super Sunday broadcasts a season 

His humour and no-nonsense style has made Keane one of the most popular pundits in football

His one-liners are sometimes lost in the clips of outrage and critique. But there is a softer core, as most know by now.

It was in January that Graham Coughlan, then the manager of Newport County, told Mail Sport one such snippet, tracing back to 2007 and Keane’s time in charge of Sunderland. Playing against him for Sheffield Wednesday, Coughlan had his face caved in by a goalkeeper’s knee.

‘My nose, my teeth, my palate were all busted up,’ he said. ‘I was sparko.

‘Next thing I know Roy has followed me on the stretcher down the tunnel and into the dressing room. He stayed with me, making sure I was OK.

‘When my wife came down, Roy said, “OK, better get back to managing the team”. He did a lot more than my Wednesday boss, Brian Laws, bothered to do.’

Sky would have reason to be calm on the notion of Keane walking away — Mail Sport understands he has often shared those reflexes with his colleagues, dating back to 2014, when he told ITV his heart was not in it any more.

He can usually be talked around, believe it or not, and that is the lot of an emotional figure.

He is the kind of man who might jump you from the back seat of Neil Lennon’s car. The kind who will always be up for a ruck. The kind who invariably makes any broadcast better.