Oh-ho, have we a treat for you.
A Saipan story!
Mick McCarthy has sat down for a lengthy interview with Ian Ladyman of the Daily Mail, which we recommend you read in full.
Included in the piece is a nugget from his first reunion with Roy Keane post-Saipan, when both were managers in the Championship. Keane was at Sunderland, while McCarthy was in charge of Wolves.
With intense media scrutiny guaranteed, McCarthy decided to furtively phone Keane to get the handshake and greeting out of the way away from the lure of the cameras as a way of, in Mickspeak, "pissing on everyone's chips".
Here's how he relays the tale to the Mail.
I thought it was gonna be a circus. So I decided to blow everybody out of the water. I rang him up and said, "Listen, we can either be part of the circus or we can get together and have a chat and shake hands privately. We will piss on everybody's chips". So I drove to meet him in Cheshire and I'm glad I did. Half an hour and a cup of tea. We had a chat and it was done.
Despite what people may think about me, I am a mediator. I like to make things right. I don't want anger and grudges and bitterness. On the pitch I will scrap to get what I want for me and my team. But in life I want to be right with people and I want people to be right with me.
Oh to have been a fly on that wall....
