According to the Daily Mail, the prawn sandwich was invented by Marks and Spencer in 1981. But to all the world they were invented on November 11, 2000, when a furious Roy Keane went to town on Man United's corporate fans, their halftime eating habits, and their indifferent reactions to hard fought 1-0 wins in the Champions League against Dynamo Kiev.
Little is remembered of that 1-0 win in the winter of 2000. Teddy Shearingham scored United's sole goal in the 18th minute. Kiev should have had a late equaliser.
One soundbite is remembered from that night but in truth, Keane went all-in on Manchester United supporters.
Keane famously addressed the comments he made about his prawn sandwiches rant in his controversial first autobiography 'Keane', where he detailed his ups and downs playing for Manchester United and Ireland.
(link to controversial first Roy Keane autobiography)
Roy Keane's prawn sandwich rant, 23 years on
You can read the entire rant below:
Sometimes you are going to have games like this but you just have to battle and that's what we did. At times the quality wasn't there, but hopefully that will come later on in the competition.
We did feel in control of the match. Fair enough, we didn't create that many chances but they didn't either until the last minute of the match.
Our fans away from home are as good as any, but some of them come here and you have to wonder do they understand the game of football?
We're 1-0 up, then there are one or two stray passes and they're getting on players' backs. It's just not on.
At the end of the day they need to get behind the team. Away from home our fans are fantastic, I'd call them the hardcore fans.
But at home they have a few drinks and probably the prawn sandwiches, and they don't realise what's going on out on the pitch.
I don't think some of the people who come to Old Trafford can spell football, never mind understand it
To win games by three and four every time - these people need fantasy football. They need to get in the real world
We need to improve because it is definitely going to get harder. It's up to the players to pull their fingers out, especially away from home.
I don't think we've reached anything like our peak yet and hopefully this first group phase will be a little bit of a kick up the backside for us.
We've got to go on from here and produce better performances.
We assume prawn sandwiches were not popular around Mayfield in the early-1980s, but Keane was surely wrong to single out this specific sandwich. Foie gras brigade would be been more apt, though it does not roll of the tongue in the same way.
23 years later, the prawn sandwich - however ordinary and tasteless and drowned in mayo - endures as a status symbol at corporate sporting events across these islands - and it is also one of Britain's most popular sandwiches.
Meanwhile, in the afterglow of a late and gritty 1-0 win for Manchester United in their latest home Champions League game against Copenhagen, the opposition boss has taken the Old Trafford crowd to task for the lack of atmosphere generated in the ground.
Maybe Keano was right all along.
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