Roy Keane is a Premier League legend who is credited with being a key part of the Manchester United side that dominated English football in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
Keane was a warrior and created many incredible and memorable moments for fans of Manchester United. Furthermore, his standards were incredibly high, both on and off the pitch.
While there are many examples of these high standards, an amazing story involves the signing of charity footballs at Manchester United – which exemplified Keane’s approach to life at the club.
The Charity Ball story
Gary Neville had the fortune of playing with Keane week in, week out for almost a decade. In that time, the duo won everything there was to win. For example, this included league titles, cups and the Champions League in 1999.
Neville, like so many other United legends, has been very complimentary towards Keane in the past. He was speaking in a podcast, when he spoke about the standards that Keane set for the club as captain.
Neville pointed out there were little things that he did – yet they contributed to an overall standard of excellence. Moreover, Neville told the story of charity balls – and how it exemplified Keane’s approach to the club.
Neville spoke of a club employee called Wendy. Wendy used to get the players to sign charity footballs – which would in turn be sent to charities across Manchester.
Every Thursday there would be 30 to 40 balls for the players to sign. These balls would be greatly appreciated by charities, and helped them to raise money.
But Neville pointed out that not all of the players would sign the balls. Neville said that there was an attitude of “we’ll do it later”, or being in too much of a rush to sign them. Furthermore, Neville said other excuses were made – such as needing to do stretches or go and get a massage.
Then, one day Keane was walking past Wendy, only to see she was upset. It turned out that only 5 of the 23 players in the squad had signed the balls on that particular day.
After this, Keane went upstairs to tell the manager Sir Alex Ferguson about this. Neville said that Keane “absolutely killed us” (‘us’ meaning the rest of the squad) over it.
Neville said that Keane saw the action of ignoring Wendy as a “dereliction of duty”, and a lack of respect towards her. In the future, she wasn’t ignored – with the standards greatly improving.
Neville used this as an example of Keane having high standards. These standards rubbed off on other players, and helped to instil a winning mentality at the club.
The Takeaway
Roy Keane was a key cog of an all-conquering Manchester United team, and will always be remembered. This story is an example of his leadership.
While it may not go down in history in the same breath as with his performance against Juventus in 1999, this story is a reminder of his greatness, and how he never let his standards slip.
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