Red Mist: Roy Keane and the Irish World Cup Blues - a Fan's Story

by Conor O ' Callaghan (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  2005

  $3.25

  2002 was the year of Roy Keane, if not exactly Roy Keane's year. Banished from Ireland's World Cup squad and then suspended by the English FA after comments in his best-selling autobiography, the Manchester United and Ireland captain was seldom out of the news. Red Mist is Conor O'Callaghan's memoir of the year when an Irish hero was arraigned in the court of public opinion: argued about in bars and across shop counters, debated by the media and surrounded by a torrent of rumours. From the drawings of O'Callaghan's football-mad seven-year-old son and the mysterious disappearance of his rag doll Mr Roy Keane that summer to eavesdropped conversations and tirades on websites, this is a passionate exploration of celebrity, temperament, one-all victories, Saipan, the World Cup, and national aspiration.

• Used

  Hardcover
  2004

  $3.25

  2002 was the year of Roy Keane, if not exactly Roy Keane's year. Banished from Ireland's World Cup squad and then suspended by the English FA after comments in his best-selling autobiography, the Manchester United and Ireland captain was seldom out of the news. Red Mist - a passionate exploration of celebrity, temperament, one-all victories, Saipan, the World Cup and national aspiration - is Conor O'Callaghan's personal memoir of an Irish hero arraigned in the court of public opinion. It records the arguments In bars and across shop counters, the media debates, and the torrent of rumours that swirled around Mick McCarthy's team. It also sees the story from quirky angles: the drawings of the writer's football-mad seven-year-old son and the mysterious disappearance of his rag doll, Mr Roy Keane, during the weeks following his banishment from Saipan, plus letters in newspapers, eavesdropped conversations, tirades on website comment pages and even the washing powder commercials featuring Mrs Niall Quinn. Funny, polemical and unexpectedly moving, Red Mist is a portrait of a nation divided, and the summer when football and the love of football made players of us all.