Roy Keane: The Alternative Story

It was my birthday a couple of weeks ago. All the family were over for the weekend. The night before, there’s a problem. Auntie Betty's postal order hasn't turned up. One of the paper hats is torn. We have to drink our Asti Spumanti out of plastic cups.

I go and see Auntie Betty, quietly, in the kitchen. She says that Uncle Mal was supposed to pop it in the postbox on his way to the shops last Tuesday. I say, "do you think Jimmy-Floyd Hasselbaink's waiting on a f****** postal order the night before his f****** birthday?" She tries to fob me off with a game of pass the parcel.

The game starts. The music keeps stopping and starting, Uneven, disorganised, just like musical chairs four years ago. I just laugh. But then I think, "where's the f****** kids?" Theresa goes: "They're in bed Roy, it's nearly midnight. They're tired".

"We're all f****** tired. It's the day before my birthday. Could they f****** not have played pass the parcel?" I ask her.

I try to get something to eat. Uncle Ken's had all the mini Kievs. So I have to prepare for the biggest day of the year with just a packet of mini Cheddars and a sausage roll. Theresa had the power to put it right, she knows how to use the microwave, but she just stands there. I phone the gaffer on his mobile, and he agrees it's ridiculous.

Next morning, the postman finally arrives. Of course, the postal order isn't there. He apologies. Keep calm, Roy, I tell myself. Don't play into his hands. Right in front of the whole family, he says to check if it's not slipped under the mat.

"I'm very sorry, Mr Keane, I really am, but I still haven't got your postal order," he says. Goading. Humiliating me in front of everyone. I'm calm, but I'm starting to feel it. He mentions the time that I lost that postcard behind the fridge that cousin Sue sent from Malta. There's no way: anybody who knows me knows that I would never drop something down the back of the Zanussi.

He's dangled the carrot, and I've had a big wet bite.

I say to him: "Well, f*** you then. You're a f****** crap postman, you were a f****** crap painter and decorator before that and you're a f****** crap person. You can stick your postal order up your ******. I have no respect for you at all."

I go and sit in the garden for a bit, then I go and see Nan and tell her that's it. I'm spending my birthday in the shed. He set me up, saying that it might be under the doormat, and I went for it. They've wanted me in the shed for years.

Of course, they're saying to me "Roy, this is your birthday. The biggest day of the year", but there's just no way I'm having anything to do with a postal service like this.

Nan tries to get me to stay, but my mind is made up. And I don't think you need to guess who it was that apologised to the postman: so-called nice guy Great Uncle Derek. Maybe I'll come out of the shed for my next birthday. But not if Uncle Mal's going to the postbox.


Author's Note: This is made-up. There is artistic licence. I should take the rap.

I got this one the other day, I think it's much better. It took about a paragraph-and-a-half to sink in...

[ Gav's a member. ]

Quote:

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-----Original Message-----
From: lkotd-admin@lists.beecher.net On Behalf Of Gavin *****
Sent: 21 August 2002 12:05
To: lkotd@lists.beecher.net
Subject: [LKOTD] Brilliant.


[Leather Kingdom of the Dwarves]
Subs: http://lists.beecher.net/mailman/listinfo/lkotd
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Dinny Cronin's story: in his own words

WE ARRIVE in Thurles. The hotel is a kip, I have to share a room with a
family of Romanian asylum seekers. Sunday is a rest day. In the evening
Timmy McCarthy calls a meeting. There's been a problem. The ham sandwiches
haven't arrived. We also have no training gear, no footballs. No holy water
in a plastic bottle or other medical equipment. The 2 litre bottles of
Nash's fizzy orange we need to take to help us acclimatize are missing as
well. The committee reckon the asylum seekers robbed them but it would be
politically incorrect to accuse them of it. Nobody knows what time we're
going to train on Monday.
McCarthy says we'll just do some running up a hill with two men on our
backs. Because the gear hasn't arrived we'll have to use the Guiney's
tracksuits we wear around the hotel. They're heavy, impossible to pick
our lads out from the tracksuits that all the asylum seekers are wearing. I
went to see McCarthy that night. What's the story, Timmy? They've let me
down, he says. Who are they, I'm thinking (the committee?). I said that the
gear should have been here a last night. We're at all Ireland junior club
football finals. The following morning we're hanging around the hotel
waiting to find out what's happening. Eventually we get on the 1982 'Declan
O'Brien' coach to go to the training ground. Timmy got stuck on me cos I had
them all at the back of the bus singing 'oh there all a shower of ******s up
to the front'.

The training pitch is like concrete, pot-holed with loads of loose stones
and trolleys lying around. Turns out it was a deserted halting site with a
big hill up the side. With my injury problems the ground is dangerous.
Afterwards I went to the county board liaison officer, a local guy. I told
him there were no ham sandwiches or Nash's fizzy orange here either. He
said he was sorry but nobody told him we'd be training on the halting site
today. We could have got Bridie to go to Tesco's if anyone had told us you
were coming down. I say, you must have known the BallyMacflurry team was
going to train today. No, he replied, nobody told us. The gear arrived on
Monday night and it wasn't washed but sure it doesn't matter anyway,
O'Neill's GAA jersey's have the smell of B.O. built into them so they smell
whether they're dirty or clean.

Next morning we arrived at the halting site. There was a truck there with a
water hose apparently the travellers had some scrap cars and they were
hosing the oil off the surface. About 20 yards of the site was flooded, the
rest was full of used washing machines and shopping trolleys. It looked
dangerous. I laughed. We ended training with a game of backs and forwards.
There were no goals, only a couple shovels handles. So we had goals but no
umpires. When running up the hill with two men on your back you don't need
umpires but when playing backs and forwards you do. So I ask about the
'umpires. O'Driscoll tells me they're tired. But I said we need 'umpires to
have a proper game. We're at the all Ireland junior club football finals!
"They're tired," o'Driscoll insists, the county board threw on a tab in bar
last night for the selectors, mentors and officials.
"We're all f***ing tired," I replied. The game went on with no umpires.
After training I went over to Donie, the 'holy water bottle' man. "Could the
umpires not have turned up?" I ask.
"They drank pretty hard this last night," he answered.
"I bet they'll be all right for the pitch & putt in the morning," I said.
Then Tony Murray, one of the umpires chipped in: "What have you got a
problem with, Dinny?" "I've got a problem with you," I said, "Could you not
f***ing get in goal for the game?"
"We've drank hard this morning," he says.
"Do you want a f***ing medal for that? You've come to the all Ireland Junior
club football finals, you expect to drink hard. You've only drank for an
hour."
McCarthy and the 'holy water bottle' man watched all this. Never said a
word. I got back on the coach. I was angry. I'd put up with our under 14
b's approach to the game throughout my club career. We all had. Driscoll
and McCarthy were both shop stewards in the local co-op. Now with the power
to put it right they were presiding over the same old joke. By the time I
got back to the hotel I'd had enough. This wasn't for me. This is not what
I trained my balls off for all season.

Back at the hotel I had a dump to calm me down. Leaving the room I met
McCarthy in the corridor. "Can I have a word with you, Timmy."
"Yeah, yeah. What's that smell, seems to be coming from your room?"
"Err... I had a bad battered burger last night, listen, I've had enough. I
want to go home."
"What do you mean?"
"I'm going home."
"Oh yeah. Are you sure you know what you're doing' cos the last bus to Cork
went an hour ago?"
"Yeah, I'll thumb it, and don't try to persuade me, just let me go."
"What is it? . . . Is it me? . . . The ham sandwiches? Is the fizzy orange
not fizzy enough? . . . The halting site?"
Of course I should have said yes, it is you, the training, the halting
site. This whole thing is a disgrace. I didn't.
"No, it's just me, I've had enough."
"All right, all right," he said. "What will I tell the committee?" "Tell
them there an awful shower of ******s!!!."
With that I left, they lost and I can't get served in my local anymore.

* Dinny Cronin 2002

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