Roy Keane’s ghost looms over new Man United treble documentary
ROY KEANE'S GHOST: Amazon’s ’99 is a three-part series that is associated with the same Studio 99. It involves all the usual personalities. Beckham, Ryan Giggs, the Nevilles, Paul Scholes, Denis Irwin, Dwight Yorke, Steve McClaren and Alex Ferguson are among the 26 different contributors. Roy Keane is not.
The Manchester United industry is dependent on the ability to mythologise. It’s all they have left. Duly, the one man reluctant to engage in such an exercise is absent from the latest article from this relentless production line.
Following on from Netflix’s David Beckham documentary comes Amazon’s ’99. A three-part series that is associated with the same Studio 99. It involves all the usual personalities. Beckham, Ryan Giggs, the Nevilles, Paul Scholes, Denis Irwin, Dwight Yorke, Steve McClaren and Alex Ferguson are among the 26 different contributors. Roy Keane is not.
For a club that remains in thrall to its own past and that is on the verge of a tipping point in terms of fascination at their dismal present, there now exists only one proven megahit. This kind of lore-dense, misty-eyed venture is endemic to a cycle of spin-offs, rehashes and by-products. The furnace needs some sort of fuel. 99 is a fitting follow-up to Matt Dickinson’s excellent 2022 book, 1999: Manchester United, the Treble and All That. The Times journalist briefly features in Episode 3 and was a consultant on the project.
These things tend to have a set template now. Match highlights, key interviews with players from the dressing room, their offices and home, grainy fan footage, few surprises but enough spine-tingling needle drops and montages to keep consumers invested. For Manchester United fans in particular, it offers a welcome injection of warm nostalgia to counter the current bitter demons.
Even now this crumbled empire is only interesting when being castigated by the icons who were once crucial in its construction. Tradition won’t solve these enduring woes but imagine what the club would be without it.
Keane’s absence is striking if not surprising. For someone who has flourished as one of the great contrarians in Irish sport, his feelings towards his former side have remained consistent ever since that acrimonious departure.
He still dominates the documentary. The section on hostility between team-mates starts with Teddy Sheringham versus Andy Cole and evolves to Keane versus almost everyone. Peter Schmeichel, (Yorke: “There is Roy Keane having a go at Pete, proper fighting going on in the dressing room.) Jesper Blomqvist, (David Fevre, physio: “I remember Roy pinging a ball at him and it came off his shin and Roy turned to the rest, ‘What the fucking hell have we spent five million quid on here?’) Sheringham, (“We had a fallout. Keany said why don’t you fuck off back to London and your fucking penthouse. I went, ‘Who the fuck are you? Why are you popping me out you Paddy? He turned around and grabbed me by the tie.’”)
A bolt from the blue? Not really. It is often treated as a surprise when victorious outfits reveal the internal disharmony that unfolded during their dominance. Really it would be more startling if they all got on. On every level, every star is subjected to the same. Then-chairman Martin Edwards recalls sending a written warning to Ferguson about his “outside interests” such as racing. He received a resignation letter in response. Apparently, the first Gary Neville knew about this saga was when informed on camera.
The key is ensuring personal fractures present as a united front in public. Keane needed committed team-mates and a strong-willed manager.
And Ferguson needed him. Almost every time he talks about the traits that powered their treble pursuit, the B-roll shows his Irish midfielder leading the charge. His colleagues laud him throughout. Eventually, his manager extols him by name. When it comes to that performance in the Champions League semi-final against Juventus, he couldn’t leave him out. A sensational showing and a significant yellow card that ruled out him of the decider.
“Everyone says it was Roy Keane’s best ever game,” says the 13-time Premier League-winning manager. “But his sacrifice, knowing he was not going to play in the final. It tells you something about what kind of character he is.”
It is a treatment table-lounging Phil Neville who makes the inevitable comparison between general and lieutenant. “Roy was almost a mini-me of the boss.”
Both brutal, aggressive, driven, a shared force of personality in an era where that creed had particular potency. As Ferguson starts sentences with ‘tactics matter, BUT…’ and rejects the criticism of his formation in Europe you can hear the same intense tone that still zaps around a Sky Sports studio to this day. At one point the boss even channels his former captain to deliver a charming twist on the ‘do your job’ maxim.
Ferguson does not mention the deterioration of their relationship. He doesn’t need to. The Sampson Collins-directed film illustrates perfectly how such ignitable qualities were as liable to flame out as they were to spark success. The shock is that it all combined so strongly, not that it ultimately erupted. 25 years on, 99 is a fine explanation of what they were and why they are where they are.
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