Following on from last Sunday's TunnelGate/MilkGate/WaterGate in the Old Trafford tunnel after the Manchester Derby, the mind naturally wanders to similar behind-the-scenes scraps at football matches.
The man whose domain the Old Trafford tunnel once was, Roy Keane, is actually most closely related to the Tunnel Scrap That Didn't Happen: the set-to with Patrick Viera in the Highbury tunnel. As David Preece reveals in his Sunderland Echo column today, however, Keane has been involved in a clash that wasn't prematurely averted by Graham Poll.
The scene is Oakwell, the home of Barnsley. Preece was playing his football here when Keane's Ipswich came to play, and after the game, Keane lingered by the home dressing room to have a word with one of the Barnsley players, whom he accused of diving and some over-zealous acting.
Let's allow Preece take it from here:
The last time was probably at Oakwell when Roy Keane was manager of Ipswich Town. Keane, standing in the doorway of the doorway of his sides dressing room waited for our centre half, Darren Moore, to pass before shouting “You do a lot of crying and whinging for a big man, don’t you?”. Not the most incendiary of remarks but enough for Mooro to turn round and ask him to repeat what he’d said. “You heard me.” said Keane. That’s when Mooro gave him “The Brow”.
“The Brow” isn’t a head butt as you might think, he wasn’t quite close enough for that. It was when Mooro was angry and he’d furrow his brow and stare you down. It was usually enough to warn off anyone daft enough to make the big man lose his temper. Which, if anyone knows him, takes a lot.
But this is football and as Mooro lurched in to grab Keane by the throat all hell broke loose. Well, “football bubble” hell where everyone gets involved but no-one actually gets hurt. More reminiscent of a school fight, with a few stragglers to the scene holding the coats at the back and shouting “Go on Mooro, kill him.”. Of course nobody gets killed and hurt and everyone gets back in the dressing room to tease Darren Moore about Roy Keane being smaller than him and tell him to stop bullying people.
Darren 'Mooro' Moore straddling the line between bravery and stupidity there.
Preece's full column is worth a whirl, here.
