Product Description

A publishing phenomenon in hardback, Roy Keane's autobiography was the biggest selling sports book of the year. The book will include a new chapter covering events that followed the books publication: Keane's vindication by the FAI report; the punishment meted out by the FA and Mick McCarthy's resignation. Brilliantly reviewed, Roy Keane's riveting, brutally honest autobiography has the potential to be one of the year's biggest paperback bestsellers.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4608 in Books
• Published on: 2003-07-31
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 321 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
The most talked about, written about and argued over sports autobiography of 2002, Keane: the Autobiography does not disappoint. This story of Manchester United and Ireland captain Roy Keane's brilliant and controversial career, written in collaboration with Irish journalist and former professional footballer Eamon Dunphy, crackles with score-settling vigour.

It presents a revisionist view of a life in football that has had tabloid editors rubbing their hands with glee almost from the moment the fiery, confrontational midfielder made his British debut for Nottingham Forest under arch eccentric Brian Clough right through to his sensational bust-up with international boss Mick McCarthy and subsequent departure from the 2002 Irish World Cup squad on the eve of the finals.

Amid all the wrangling and point-scoring Dunphy and Keane have written a rags-to-riches review of Keane's journey from a poor, battling background in Cork to the £50k a week highlife at Old Trafford. It's very entertaining, although an independent biographer would doubtless have put a less heroic spin on proceedings.

The two key headline-grabbing stories--the war with McCarthy and the allegedly deliberate injuring of Alfie Haaland--read somewhat differently in the book from the way they did in the papers. Make no mistake about it, Keane is frank about his own failings, franker about the failings of others and prepared to spill the beans to some extent about being the odd-man-out in the Old Trafford glam-fest. But this is very much his side of the story. --Alex Hankin

About the Author
Roy Keane was born in Cork in 1971. He is captain of Manchester United. He wrote the book with Eamon Dunphy, bestselling author of ONLY A GAME?.

Customer Reviews

Compelling
I thought Keane was a thug and when this book first came out I was determined NOT to read it. Then finally my curiosity got the better of me. Compelling, thoughtful, articulate...a riveting good read. It doesn't have the long descriptions of individual games which can make footballers' biographies so boring. I read it in one go. I'd recommend it even if you're only a little bit interested in Keane or Man Utd, or the Eire team. I still think Keane is OTT in the way he behaves on field, but I feel like I understand him better now and he is far from one dimensional. Hats off, 10/10.

The Phantom Meanace
So it's finally here. After all the controversy, Roy's vitriolic tome has hit the shelves. Except that it isn't just Keano's vitriol we are subjected to. Eamonn Dunphy's trademark prose style, familiar to Irish readers, practically leaps off every page. The job of ghost writer must surely be to articulate the subject's thoughts in such a way so as to not notice the joins. Yet Dunphy constantly produces passages which could be mistaken for John B. Keane rather than his gladitorial compatriot. Witness Roy making no bones about his academic efforts (or lack of) at school yet being able to tell us that "What I do recall was a palpable sense of pessimism and apathy among the people Mayfield Community School purported to serve". Nice. His constant references to Mick McCarthy as "Captain Fantastic" (a sarcastic reference to the title of McCarthy's own autobiography of a decade ago) are pure Dunphy. All of this makes it impossible to believe you are getting an insight into just one mind.
All the infamous moments are here. The bust up in Saipan. The Haaland tackle. But the enigma that is Roy Keane is never satisfactorily explored. In fact, Keane seems just as baffled by it as anyone else. Other than trumpeting his unflappable desire to win at any cost he remains a frustrated, flawed genius. Despite being resigned to courting trouble every time he went out on the town in Manchester or Cork, he was always up for a session instead of being at home with his family. The guilt tortured him, yet we are never given any reason as to why he persisted.
Yet some good can come from this book. The shambles that is the FAI has finally been laid bare here for all to see. Keane and Dunphy may someday be hailed as the saviours of Irish Football. But Roy clearly has many other issues in his life to deal with. Whether the therapy of this project helps him to save what remains of his career remains to be seen.

Keane as you like !
Read it in one evening.

Frank, apparently honest, raw, disturbing, funny and informative. A complex man such as this should surely have just titled the book - volume 1.

The subtext of this book is that Keane is a very shy man living in a pressurised media bubble called Professional Football. A man of average football skill but with superlative football brain and a will to win that surpasses few other sporting greats.

Despite some of the shocking revelations and the distinct lack of remorse for some of the unsavoury acts of madness he has perpetrated - undoubtedly we will look back from many years hence and realise the greatness that he represents.

Noting Keane's recollection of events from Saipan and how McCarthy accused him of faking injury - what employee in a similar situation would not react the same way. We await the truth from McCarthy's diary - however the Saipan spat seems to have started all the recent turmoil.

The book is worth purchasing, even if just for the photographs on the cover. You can use it as a spur to your day - turn the font cover (serious pose) out for that day when you need encouragement for tough times ahead. And the back cover, turn the cheeky grin outwards on your bookshelf when you get back from that difficult day and tell yourself that the effort was worth it.