Legendary Manchester United captain Roy Keane defied medical instructions and tried running around after Alfie Inge Haaland’s gruesome challenge on him.
It was that infamous Haaland challenge that provided the motivation for Keane’s revenge on the Manchester City player four years later when the two sides met at Old Trafford.
Dave Fevre, who was a senior physio at United between 1994 and 1999, revealed how Roy Keane tried to play with a ruptured cruciate knee ligament against medical advice.
Fevre told FourFourTwo, “His mind wasn’t on the injury. I assessed his knee and thought: cruciate. When we went to the hospital, we sat there, watching Blankety Blank on TV. He turned it off and said: So, Dave, what the f**k’s going on?”
“I told him that I thought he’d done his cruciate, but we were waiting for a specialist. ‘So let’s get the f**k on with it!’ he said. You don’t operate in the first week, because you need to get the swelling down.”
“A week on, the swelling had settled and Roy was determined he could play on. I told him, ‘Roy, I’m not being funny, but…’ He said, ‘No, no, I’ll be able to play – I want to go and try it’. We went to play basketball, but his knee just buckled.”
During his intensive rehabilitation, Keane was extremely focused on getting back to the pitch and helping his teammates.
Fevre recalls that once they did a pool session where they were joined by Uwe Rosler and Alan Kernaghan from Manchester City.
The City duo were just sitting in the jacuzzi doing nothing – something Keane took an issue with.
The Irishman looked at the City pair and asked them what they were doing.
Keane and Fevre discussed it among themselves and concluded that it was a difference in mentality and that was why Rosler and Kernaghan were playing for City while Keane was the United captain.
Keane did not feature for the rest of the 1997/98 season. He however returned like a man possessed and made his contribution the next year as United went on ahead to win the treble.
