Rebel rouser

SO ROY KEANE says that Liam Miller’s being from Cork is a factor in the Sunderland player’s omission from the Irish squad for today’s game against Wales and Wednesday’s against Slovakia.

I say Roy Keane is wrong. But then I’m from Dublin. So I would say that, wouldn’t I? On the other hand, my dear old ma hailed from Mayfield. Does that make my credentials less suspect?

It certainly helped the first time I encountered Roy Keane. I was the new Sunday Press soccer correspondent at the time and, understandably, the Cork man didn’t know me from Adam when I suddenly pounced on him in the car park outside the City Ground in Nottingham.

It was May, 1991, a couple of weeks before the FA Cup final between Forest and Spurs, and it probably didn’t help either that the man I was waylaying was hobbling on crutches after sustaining an ankle ligament injury.

Keane, being made of stern stuff, would go on to make his Wembley debut but Gazza, being made of weaker stuff, stole all the headlines that day when contriving to crock himself, as Spurs left the Cork tyro with a loser’s medal for his troubles.

All that — and, down all the years, so much more — was still to come, as I made my pitch to a visibly wary Roy Keane who was already in the process of being toughened up by the attentions of the tabloids. But, as I recall, one mention of childhood holidays spent in his home place and you could practically hear the crack of the ice breaking. The interview was duly arranged an, after that, Keane was always a good and friendly source of enlightening comment.

It’s stating the bleeding obvious to say that Keane’s loyalty to Cork runs deep. But even a cursory flick through his Eamon Dunphy-penned autobiography quickly uncovers its corollary — a sense that, in soccer at least, his home place struggles to get an even break.

A few quotes: “The first step on the road to England was selection for the Irish Under-15 international team, a prize that to us seemed reserved for stars on the Dublin schoolboy scene.”

Or this: “We headed off to Dublin by train. The only lingering doubt we shared concerned the perceived pro-Dublin bias for which the international selection committee was notorious, at least in Cork.”

Or this, when Cobh Ramblers youths lost 4-0 to Belvedere: “If I played like a demented man it was because I was one. Even when I knew the game was lost, I kept going. I’d show those Dublin bastards that I could f**king play.”

Ironically, it was that inspired personal performance which caught the attention of the Nottingham Forest scout who duly kick-started Roy Keane’s career as a professional footballer. But I think you get the bigger picture. And in case it’s still a bit fuzzy, try this: “Laughter is something I’ll always associate with my own home and city. Laughter through good times and bad. Laughter at conceit or pretence. And laughter at any poor fool not blessed by being born in the Rebel County. A superiority complex is the mark of a sound Cork man. And the women are worse.”

A superiority complex is one thing. A persecution complex something else. That said, Keane’s comments the other day about his own experience of being overlooked at international under-age level are not necessarily the product of a paranoid mind.

Going back over the years, you will find that for a long time there was indeed a consensus in Irish football that the Dublin schoolboy game ruled the roost to an unfair degree.

Even FAI chief executive, John Delaney, seemed to be acknowledging same when, in this paper yesterday, he talked about “a position a large number of years ago when there was a different focus in the Association”, and contrasted that with an FAI today which he said is based on the “total development of football in every part of this country.”

The point is that you don’t need to side uncritically with the blazers or the suits to appreciate that was then and this was now. There is simply little or no evidence that Keane’s accusation, rooted in the past, holds up in the present.

Even a few random observations appear to hole the theory below the waterline. As recently as two years ago, another Rebel footballer, George O’Callaghan, was named the eircom League player of the year. Just a few months ago, Cork City had two players — Joe Gamble and Roy O’ Donovan — included in the Irish ‘B’ team which played Scotland at Dalymount Park. And as for Liam Miller: he was not only included in Steve Staunton’s first squad but marked his appearance with a splendid goal. And, of course, Stephen Ireland is one of the new young guns on which much hope for the future is based.

Roy Keane is quite entitled to say that Miller should be in the current Irish squad ahead of Jonathan Douglas or Darren Gibson.

That’s a persuasive football argument with which I, for one, would not disagree. And a lot more of what he said in Dublin this week was honest if hard-hitting opinion which, it must be remembered, he was invited to give by those of us in the media who asked the questions.

But the Liam Miller left out because he hails from Cork? Loyalty to place is all well and good but who was it who recently said: “There’s a fine line between loyalty and stupidity”?

Answers on a postcard to our Cork office, please.