Authors: Roy Keane,Roddy Doyle
The Second Half (29 page)
He mentioned a figure, and he said, ‘But that’s it.’
So, Paul Gilroy spoke to Celtic. He told me there were a lot of clauses in the contract that he wasn’t happy with. And the figures were non-negotiable.
I got my head around that. But it felt a bit too familiar. I’d been down this road before, when I’d signed for Celtic as a player. They were playing the part – ‘It’s Celtic’ – you should almost go up there for nothing.
I felt Celtic wanted me, but they weren’t showing how much they wanted me.
We played the game against Italy on Saturday. We drew, 0–0 – a good result. I had a message on my phone on Sunday from Dermot Desmond. They wanted a heads-up by tomorrow, Monday.
In the meantime, I flew back to Dublin. We had a few days off before heading to the USA, to play friendlies against Costa Rica
and Portugal. I’d left my car in Dublin, so I was getting the ferry back, from Dublin to Holyhead. I was by myself, and I’d booked a cabin – a bit of privacy.
I thought about the Celtic offer. It wasn’t rocking my boat. They weren’t convincing me – ‘Listen, you’re the man for us.’
I got home to Manchester on Sunday night. I was tired. I went to Paul Gilroy’s house – he lives five minutes from me. There were things I wasn’t happy with in the contract. But I know, if you examined every clause too carefully you’d never sign anything.
I rang Dermot Desmond on Monday, and said, ‘I’m really honoured you’ve offered me the job, but I want to stay with Martin.’
My decision wasn’t influenced by other job offers or potential offers. I wasn’t playing games; it was a straightforward decision. Had Celtic shown me enough in their negotiating – ‘We’ll move this, and you can move that’ – a bit of give and take, I might have hesitated. But Celtic didn’t give me enough of a headache. They just didn’t show me that they wanted me, and I was happier staying in the Ireland job. Working with Martin has given me back a love of the game, and I’m all for showing a bit of loyalty. I’d only been in the job two minutes. We hadn’t played a competitive game yet.
My wife said to me, ‘I haven’t seen you this happy in a long time. Why jeopardise that?’
I felt powerful saying, ‘No.’ I felt good. But I still wondered if I was making the right decision.
Right job, wrong time.
You need challenges and stresses, but all my life I’ve been chasing contentment. I was happy when I won trophies, but that kind of satisfaction doesn’t last long. Contentment – a sense of relaxation – feels strange. It’s almost like I’m missing a bit of chaos. Fighting myself. I’m not sure if I’ve relaxed in the last twenty-odd years. Maybe this is my time to start relaxing. But at
the same time, I want to go to work. I want to work in football. I’ll be bringing that sense of relaxation with me – for the first week!
When the Ireland job eventually comes to an end, if the question is hanging over me, ‘Did I really give it everything?’, I want to be able to say, ‘Yes.’
When I was in America with the Ireland squad, there was some difficulty with the travel arrangements – a couple of mishaps. But my attitude was different now.
We got stuck on the train from Philadelphia to Newark. We’d been in Philadelphia for the game against Costa Rica, a 1–1 draw. We were getting off in Newark, in New Jersey – the players and the staff. We were using two doors to get out of the carriage, but the FAI official said that we should all get off through the one door.
The door shut, and myself, Martin, Seamus, Steve Guppy, three medical staff and Aiden McGeady were stuck. The train moved off.
The lads – the players – on the platform were pissing themselves laughing.
It was like a school trip.
Panic stations – people going mad and Martin was a bit annoyed.
But I was quite calm about it. I texted one of the FAI staff –
It’s Saipan all over again
. But I was joking.
We went on to Penn Station, in Manhattan – about half an hour. We were lucky it wasn’t Boston or Chicago. And we eventually got back to Newark, and out to the team bus. The players were sitting there, dead quiet. The two people who organised the travel were pale – white.
Everyone was quiet – very tense.
Then one of the lads put on the music. They’d gone off and
bought some speakers while we were on the train. I don’t know the name of the band, but the song was ‘Runaway Train’, and they all started singing with it:
Runaway train, never going back –
Wrong way on a one-way track
–
It was brilliant.
