It’s even more amazing when you consider that Keane didn’t even know the All-Ireland winner.
Gaelic football legend Jim McGuinness, who won an All-Ireland with his native Donegal in 1992 as a teenager and now manages the county, tells a heartwarming story of how Roy Keane came to his aid when he suffered a career ending injury in 2005.
Writing in his 2015 autobiography Until Victory Always, McGuinness described how he came on as a substitute for his club Naomh Conaill in a clash with Killybegs a decade before.
Within minutes of stepping onto the pitch, McGuinness was on the receiving end of a heavy tackle from Donegal teammate John Ban Gallagher.
The tackle occurred right as he had kicked the ball into the back of the Killybeg net and, as a result, his right leg was holding all of his weight.
The rough challenge resulted in a snap on both of McGuinness’ cruciates, and shattered the 33-year-old’s lateral collateral ligament.
Reflecting on the trauma of that injury and its aftermath in his book, McGuinness said: “The following months were just a miserable joke.
“I had an MRI scan and the notes got lost and I had to have it done again. I was told to run on it after seven weeks, which was the result of a misdiagnosis. I ended up having to have a second operation in Manchester and I paid for it myself,” he added.
“It came about through happenstance: Roy Keane was at a function in Mayo and someone there told him what had happened to me. He gave this guy the number of the Manchester United surgeon and told him to have me call him. That message was passed on to me.
“It was so classy of Keane to try to help out someone he didn’t even know.”
He continued: “So I rang the surgeon, not sure if anything would come of it. I phoned on a Friday evening and was in the operating theatre the following Wednesday for a scope and then booked in for an operation a week later.
“The surgeon was wonderful. He explained everything.
He ended up using one of my hamstrings and the middle third band of my patellar tendon to replace what I had severed,” he added. “There are two pins in my leg to this day.
“It felt great, even if it cost me £13,000 – a lot of money and even more when you are a student.”
Perhaps the most commendable thing about the gesture was the fact that Keane didn’t even know McGuinness personally, and just wanted to help a fellow Irishman in trouble.
Had McGuinness not told that story in his autobiography, we might never have heard this incredible instance of the Corkman’s kindness.
