Colin Sheridan: We need more, not less, of philosophical Roy Keane
NATURAL: Roy Keane, working for Sky Sports.
If you need cheering up this Monday morning, take five minutes and watch Roy Keane talk through his dozen career red cards. It’ll be an easy find, and an even easier way to spend a little bit of time away from your stresses and strains. Every sending off tells its own little story - animus with others, class snobbery, loathing of self. To be clear, Keane is supposed to be talking about football, but really, he is talking about everything. In doing so in such an unapologetic way, Roy Keane may have become our most important critical thinker.
You may not always agree with him, but his ability to simplify seemingly complex problems is a life raft for those of us drowning in a sea of spin and bullshit. They say seldom seen, more admired, but in Keane’s case it is the opposite. Those days he doesn't feature on our screens and in our timelines seem lesser. Emptier. Yes, there are cartoon character elements to his persona, which he undoubtedly plays for laughs - the biblical beards and the performative snarls - but, over time, something else entirely has emerged that has confounded all of us. Even the Saipan haters. His honesty was always obvious, the philosophical nuance, not so. The only shame is that his musings are confined to football.
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