Roy Keane can be mischievous and his capacity for earnestly preposterous argument — he intended merely to “hurt” players, presumably including Alf-Inge Haaland, but not “injure” them — strayed into last night’s ITV4 duet with Patrick Vieira, The Best Of Enemies.
But what enjoyable television it made. And what a service Keane provides in exempting himself from the national tendency to swallow Sir Alex Ferguson whole.
Because the former Manchester United captain was criticised in Ferguson’s most recent autobiography, he cast a discerning eye over the notion that the Scot was not only a great manager — it would take quite a fool to deny that — but the greatest ever. According to Keane, the best he served under was Brian Clough and no one who remembers Clough’s heyday (with Peter Taylor) would find that a strange opinion.
Clough at Derby County, and even more so in his first spell with Nottingham Forest, was a genius pure and simple. Ferguson was a genius by the definition ascribed to the Scottish writer Thomas Carlyle: “an infinite capacity for taking pains” enabled him to build a more durably successful career.
Their impacts in England show the difference. It took Ferguson six-and-a-half years and £20million to move United from fourth place, where they had finished in Ron Atkinson’s last full season, to first. In 18 months less, Clough had transformed Derby from Second Division mediocrity to League champions at a fraction of the cost.
His work at Forest was even more dramatic. In less than three-and-a- half years, he took them from mid-table in the second tier to the peak of the first. Only then did he spend big and, with Trevor Francis in the side, progressed to the European title, which they retained. That added up to arguably the greatest feat of management and Keane, who was at school when it happened, gets full marks for history.
