Maturing Keane learns from mistakes

The first thing about Roy Keane’s latest book is that it’s brilliant. Or since it was Roddy Doyle who ghosted it, and not our old mentor Cormac MacConnell, it’s f**king brilliant, deadly altogether, writes Kieran Shannon.

Some will be disappointed that there isn’t even more in this. That he doesn’t explore why he stopped drinking, like he would were this book in the hands of a Paul Kimmage, that with such a proven and exceptional ghostwriter, we’d get to know a lot more about the man away from football whereas here only one of his children is even named for the reason she shares the same name as one of Martin O’Neill’s.

But this isn’t Full Time. It is The Second Half. It is not Keane’s autobiography but rather a memoir, documenting 12 years of his career, starting right where his last book left off. While he may have kept some things to himself, he is still plenty generous to the reader.