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Keane admits to Schmeichel brawl in new book

Getty

Getty

Former Manchester United captain Roy Keane has revealed he once left teammate Peter Schmeichel with a black eye following a pre-season brawl, in extracts from his autobiography.

In the book, The Second Half, which was co-written by acclaimed Irish author Roddy Doyle and published on Thursday, the former Ireland midfielder also lifts the lid on his acrimonious departure from United in 2005.

Keane reveals that the alcohol-fuelled fight with former Denmark international Schmeichel, one of United’s greatest ever goalkeepers, occurred during a pre-season trip to Hong Kong in 1998.

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“There’d been a little bit of tension between us over the years, for football reasons,” wrote Keane, in an excerpt from the book published on the website of British newspaper the Daily Mirror on Monday.

“He said, ‘I’ve had enough of you. It’s time we sorted this out.’ So I said, ‘OK,’ and we had a fight.”

Keane added: “I woke up the next morning. I kind of vaguely remembered the fight. My hand was really sore and one of my fingers was bent backwards.”

According to Keane, Schmeichel explained away his black eye at a subsequent press conference by claiming that one of his team-mates had accidentally elbowed him in training.

Keane left United in November 2005 after launching a withering attack on some of his teammates during an interview with United’s in-house television channel, MUTV, that was never broadcast.

In his book, he says that he learnt of United’s desire for him to leave during a subsequent meeting with then manager Alex Ferguson.

“I said to Ferguson, ‘Can I play for somebody else?'” writes Keane, who is now working as an assistant coach for Aston Villa and the Irish national team.

“And he said, ‘Yeah you can, because we’re tearing up your contract’.”

On the eight-month suspension that Rio Ferdinand received in 2004 for missing a drugs test, Keane writes: “He suffered for it and so did the team.

“If it had been me, and the doctor had said I had to do a drugs test, I’d have gone and done it. It wasn’t something I’d have forgotten.”

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