Caught On Film – That McCarthy-Keane Furore

Not many mass-market football films have hit the target but is the career of Mick McCarthy about to play its part in a box-office winner?

Production is under-way for an extended screen version next year of the spectacular 2002 World Cup fall-out between the long-time Wolves and Republic of Ireland manager and his nemesis, Roy Keane.

Steve Coogan, no less, is due to star as McCarthy, who has since been at the centre of a did-he-or-didn’t-he riddle over whether he actually sent the player home.

Some have stated that Keane simply walked out of the squad on the eve of the tournament in Japan and South Korea following his infamous rant about working conditions.

The Manchester United hard-man used a newspaper interview at the time to berate the training arrangements, strategy, travel planning, diet and even McCarthy’s competence. No wonder Mick was livid!

“On the surface, the feud was all about standards but, deep down, it was a hugely emotive story of two men whose rivalry and contempt came to surpass the sport they loved,” says the synopsis for the film Saipan. “This is the definitive account of one of the most fractious falling-outs in the history of sport.”

Whether McCarthy booked an early flight home from the island of Saipan for his firebrand captain or Keane opted independently for an early return to Manchester is the subject of some debate. But the fall-out was huge.

“It gripped an entire nation,” the synopsis continued, footage of Keane walking his dog back home subsequently being shown on our national news here.

What will be most fascinating is how the producers of Saipan portray the scene in which the player reportedly slated his manager at length in front of the rest of the squad – a tirade in which the insult ‘You can stick your World Cup up your a***’ was apparently one of the more repeatable lines.

While Alan Partridge star Coogan is charged with taking off McCarthy, Keane’s part is being played by Eanna Hardwick, the Irish actor who appeared in Lakelands and The Sixth Commandment.

So will this film succeed like Damned United, Bend It Like Beckham and Escape To Victory, or will it bomb?

And what will Mick make of it? He figured in one of the most famous handshakes in Molineux history when Keane was the visiting manager for a Wolves v Sunderland game in November, 2006 and a hundred cameras were pointed at them pre-match.

But the photographers and TV producers weren’t quite getting the huge ice-breaker they thought they were. McCarthy had wisely gone to the trouble of contacting his arch-critic beforehand, thus taking some of the fire and potential jeopardy out of the moment. 

The 1-1 Friday-night draw in the second tier came four and a half years after Keane stormed off in a huff and out of a squad who did well in his absence in the Far East.

With Robbie Keane scoring three times and again in a shoot-out, McCarthy’s men made it out of their World Cup group behind Germany and then lost on penalties to Spain in the first of the knock-out rounds.