Roy Keane

There has been a debate on eircomleague.net about an allegation that Roy Keane posed for a photo with some paras before the Man Utd-Liverpool game. This mightn't be a directly football issue, but I believe it's an issue to important to leave lie, when a guy is supposed to be our national captain.

Whatever the excuses and/or reasons this is a disgrace. The very least that should happen is a public statment from Keane AND Man Utd apologising to their Irish fans (such as they are), especially those in Derry.

Apart from that, a few points:
1. No Irish person, particularly in a public role, should EVER pose with British troops, particularly the paras, at least until this issue is sorted out.

2. Man Utd MUST have known about this beforehand and should have realised, considering their "devotion" to their Irish "fans".

3. As for Bloody Sunday itself: Firstly, McGuinness said no IRA shots were fired that day to the best of my memory, but thats irrelevant. The facts are those people were MURDERED by the paras and were unarmed. It was nothing short of a massacre and it was covered up and defended by the British government. Until the matter is satisfactorily (insofar as it ever can be) resolved, with victims recognised and compensated, people like Roy keane and politicians and other celebrities must be more careful.

This is nothing short of a disgrace.

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McGuinness said no IRA shots were fired that day to the best of my memory....

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Well what you think he going to say? Just like the paras will say they didn't fire first.

Politics has no place in sport. I didn't see the incident myself but from what i've heard i doubt Roy Keane was paying much attention at the time. Most footballers don't seem to have much interests outside football + Roy has lived in england so long now he isn't exposed to things like Bloody Sunday that much.

It would appear it was the clubs fault to put Roy in such a position by letting the paras on the pitch in the first place at such a sensitive time.

Have ManU apologised? What do their "irish fans" thing now?

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Originally posted by pete
Politics has no place in sport.

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no, fair enough. but i wouldn't count this as politics- it's a human rights issue.
as for what mcguinness said, i'm not saying i believe him, I just think he's more likely to be truthful than the British Army.

Aside from Roy Keane, this really was Man Utd's ****-up and they owe it to everyone to apologise.

Err... As much as I wouldn't waste my own urine to extingush a fire if a British Paratrooper was "unfortunate" enough to be alight, I have to poitn something out.

MUFC = A British club.
British Paratroopers = A British Organisation. It's not a big deal to the club, whenever their Irish fans like it or not.

Roy Keane = An Irish man who kept his mouth shut when that fat loyalist goalkeeper was signed to play for the club the other year. I don't think Keano is as bothered as we are in these things.

I wouldn't get that upset by it all....

Hats off to Roy Keane. Well done - this will help further the peace process. I know a English person who got an army scholarship to go to college: guess where he got posted when he got his college degree? Northern Ireland. He's a nice guy, and I certainly would help him if he caught on fire.

Perhaps this bold step by Roy Keane will help some of the short sighted posters above realise there is an entire world out there beyond their tit-for-tat tunnel vision mentality. It is precisely that mentality, on both sides, that has made people's lives hell in Northern Ireland.

Wake up and smell the coffee.

Brine I don't think people have personal grudges against every soldier in the british army, but the fact is- Bloody sunday was a massacre of unarmed civilians by the paratroop regiment and they have never admitted responsibility for it. The inquiry is on-going and the 30th anniversary is coming up. What keane did was grossly insensitive.

Welcome to Ireland, a nation of grudge holders.

There is certainly too much begrudgery in Ireland, but christ brine, if one of your mates\relations had been shot dead in cold blood, you might be a bit ****ed off if the fella who did it was walkin free! I'm all for getting over the past, but that can only happen when justice has been served-on all sides.

Sure, but getting mad at Roy Keane for posing with soldiers before a match in England is stretching it, to say the least.

i agree with you up to a point brine, but imagine you're a mad soccer fan from the north, and soccer is the one thing you're into where you can leave politics out of the equation and you look up to roy keane as captain of your country, and then he does this. I'd be raging!

I don't understand why anyone who claims to follow football and not politics would have "murphy out now" as a post signature on a football discussion board. You yourself might be raging - but chances are that the vast majority of football followers in the North really couldn't give a sh*t about if Roy Keane chooses to pose with the English army in a photo. The photo was probably for charity as well - all the better.

My advice is to not get caught up in such a trivial web of hate. It will get you nowhere.

I have an interest in both, and this is a situation where they are intertwined. What is this web of hate thing? Firstly the cold-blooded murder of 14 civilians is no trivial, and secondyl I never used the word hate. I don't hate british soldiers, I want justice for those of them who have committed crimes.

Let's keep it on-topic please folks.

adam

For crying out loud Keane is from Mayfield!
I presume he as armchair republican as the rest of you on the list.

Anyway, look at it this way, supposing he had said f off to the Para's.... that would have the gutter press calling him an IRA suspect which would in turn have every english neo nazi trying to burn down his house with his young family in it...

... use your brains!

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Originally posted by The Legend
I presume he as armchair republican as the rest of you on the list.

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There are a lot of armchair republicans, but there are a lot people who feel very strongly about what keane did and are more than armchair in their interest in this issue. If I had been in his position, I would rather have those attacks from the gutter press than demean myself by assocaiting with murderers.

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There are a lot of armchair republicans, but there are a lot people who feel very strongly about what keane did and are more than armchair in their interest in this issue. If I had been in his position, I would rather have those attacks from the gutter press than demean myself by assocaiting with murderers.

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That's a big brush you're tariing everyone with. Read this article, It's never that black and white.

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Irish men made up 80% of the British Paratroop Regiment at the time.

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Fair play to him.

isnt this a football forum?