Gary Pallister: Roy Keane and I fell out for a year at Manchester United
Gary Pallister, the former Manchester United and England centre-half, has revealed how, after a falling-out on a pre-season tour, he and Roy Keane didnât speak to each other for the whole of the formerâs final season at Old Trafford in 1997/98 â when United finished second to Arsenal in the Premier League â the pair only finally making their peace on Pallisterâs very last day at the club.
âWe didnât speak for the last year that I was at United,â Pallister said, speaking at a Ford Summer Sales event in Dublin yesterday.
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âWe just had a falling-out on a pre-season tour. We ended up not speaking. It was weird. It wasnât like we hated each other. We were just both stubborn enough not to say âhere...â We should have both put our hands out after that and got on with it. But we just wouldnât be the one to say âletâs forget about thisâ. Thatâs how stubborn we were.
âBut when I left to go to Middlesbrough, I went to get my stuff out of the dressing rooms at the Cliff and Roy was walking up the stairs as I was walking down. He started laughing, I started laughing. We shook hands and he said, âI wish you all the best, big manâ and we started talking again after that. (It was) something as daft as that, two people being stubborn and immature, really.
âLast time I saw him was over at one of the Champions League games. He came to the hotel and we sat down for a coffee and a chat and a catch-up. Heâs good company. I admire Roy for the way he is and the fact he always speaks his mind. Heâs forthright in his views and says what he feels â whether thatâs always right or itâs wrong, youâve got to admire that.
âListen, Roy was an unbelievable player and as much as we didnât talk, we would always shake hands and get on with the game and be professional about the game. Coley (Andy Cole) and Teddy Sheringham didnât speak for years while they were at the club.â
As it happens, this wasnât the first difference of opinion between Pallister and Keane, the aforementioned Andy Cole having previously aired the tale of how, when he first joined United, heâd seen Pallister throwing a punch at Keane outside the teamâs hotel in Marbella.
âThat was a good night,â Pallister said with a laugh yesterday. âHis watch fell on the floor. He was more concerned about that. It must have been a very expensive one [laughs].
Yeah, it was handbags. It kind of happened on a playersâ night out. You hear things and things are said and I donât think there were any connections with any punches. But we managed to keep it quiet from the gaffer â that was always important.â
Gary Pallister was on the pitch on the night of the Lansdowne riot 20 years ago and, ahead of Sundayâs Ireland-England rematch, shared his recollections of that bleak occasion.
âThe whole build-up, it wasnât about football hooliganism per se, it was about more than that, with The Troubles and how that would be perceived with England playing the Republic of Ireland,â he recalled. âSo I donât think it was a shock to many of us but you were kind of hoping football would be the winner on the day and it wouldnât come to that. But that wasnât the case.
âWe were aware that there was something happening in the stand and I can remember looking up and seeing things being thrown and immediately you think âwell, thatâs not goodâ. It kind of escalated and got worse and spread. I mean I saw the stuff that was getting thrown across. I wasnât aware who was throwing it but I could just see there was mayhem in the stands and I was thinking, âsomeoneâs going to get seriously hurtâ.
âYouâre representing England and if itâs English fans causing the mayhem then youâre disappointed and let down by the people who provoked all this kind of trouble. There is nothing we can do, or the English FA. You canât police everyone and there is always going to be someone who goes out and makes trouble and thatâs what happened on the night.â
On a lighter note, we asked if maybe things might have been different had his defence had been able to keep a clean sheet?
âIf weâd kept a clean sheet? (laughs). In fact I think it was me who played Dave Kelly onside for the goal, if I remember. Listen, whoever was in the ground and wanted to cause trouble that night was going to cause trouble and use the political situation, or whatever, to their own advantage.â
But itâs a very different climate for Sundayâs game?
âYou get that sense, yeah. Itâs a new stadium. Maybe things can be better organised as well. It was an old stadium, Lansdowne, wasnât it? Probably didnât lend itself to good segregation, and what have you. But, yeah, I think the climate has changed and I donât think thereâs any talk in the papers of any trouble in the offing or any hangover from 1995. I expect it to go off pretty well.â
