“If it was anybody else, it would have been fine.”
Roy Keane returned to the Manchester United dressing room, almost 19 years after he finished up with the club, and recalled an infamous post-match moment from the Alex Ferguson era.
Back in 2003, fresh off a 2-0 defeat to Arsenal in the FA Cup, Alex Ferguson let rip at his United stars in the Old Trafford dressing room. On the recently released Netflix documentary, Beckham, further incident was provided by the former United and England midfielder.
“We walked in the changing room and the boss is fuming,” David Beckham recalled. “I can see it by his face. And when you see the boss’s face like this, you don’t want to be anywhere near him. It is a face that no one can do, trust me.
“[He was f’ing and blinding] and I went back at the boss and said ‘no’ and then I swore. I said the f-word. And then I saw him change, and I was like, ‘S**t, I really shouldn’t have said that’. I think I said the f-word too many times.”
Ferguson was said to have kicked a pile of discarded football boots, with one of them flying at Beckham and leaving him with a gash on his eyebrow. Beckham was pictured with some paper stitches on the injury, which did not impress the Scot. He remarked, “I think that was stage-managed. It wasn’t even worth a stitch.”
Keane was in the dressing room for that infamous moment and told Sky Sports his memories. Pointing to a corner of the dressing room, the former United captain commented:
“I think Becks was over there somewhere – somewhere near the mirror! The manger had a go at him for not tracking back, and Becks said something back.
“Listen, it was an accident. Ferguson struck [the boot] well, but it was so unfortunate. If it was anybody else, it would have been fine. Because it was Becks, at the time when he was so profile, that created one or two issues. But that all happens in football. Happens all the time, and I’m fine with that.”
Roy Keane enjoys Jamie Redknapp joke
Neat the start of the dressing room clip, on Sky, Keane ribbed Jamie Redknapp, formerly of Liverpool and Tottenham.
“You’d have loved to have been in this dressing room, when you were a player?” Keane asked.
Redknapp admitted that he would have loved to play in midfield alongside the Cork native, putting the two of them on friendly terms for the entire segment.
In the closing moments, not long after Keane called the former England international ‘a good-looking guy’, host Dave Jones reminded viewers of Redknapp’s footballing talents. He then asked if he had a good record at Old Trafford. With Keane listening intently, Redknapp joked:
“Oh yeah, great record here. I won here in Soccer Aid, and I beat Micah Richards in a penalty shoot-out!
“Listen, it was hard to come here. You used to play against that midfield, with Beckham on the right, Roy in the middle with someone like Paul Scholes, and Ryan Giggs on the left. You’d think, ‘We’ve got to hold on today’. Fabulous players that used to mind the dressing room for Sir Alex.”
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