LockerRoom: In the relentless churn of Irish sporting life can there be any more bizarre story than that of the figures most central to the whole Saipan debacle a few years ago? Those of you away on Mars at the time will remember the sequence of events: Roy Keane's unhappiness; Mick McCarthy's unhappiness; the mutually expressed unhappiness of Roy and Mick; Roy's departure; Mick's expressed wish that Steve Staunton, Niall Quinn and Alan Kelly come with him to an impromptu press conference to express unhappiness; Roy's expressed unhappiness at the actions not just of Mick but of Niall, Steve and Alan.

It's fair to say it was an unhappy time.

Footballers have rows day in, day out and get on with their life and play the next day. Kelly and Keane had already demonstrated that quotidian fact in Saipan with a stand-up, white hot, gasket blower of a row on the training ground.

Grown men and myself all ducked for cover as they hissed at each other like big cats. Next day they were laughing about the whole thing.

Some rows are different though. The press conference the players attended with McCarthy in a quickly converted Chinese restaurant in a corner of the Grand Hyatt lobby brought out the worst in everybody.

In retrospect, McCarthy probably wishes he hadn't turned, shell-shocked, to his senior players for some support in those lonely moments.

What Keane perceived as a major betrayal of the bond between players meant there was virtually no chance of him inserting himself back into the Irish team set-up.

Nevertheless, the senior players, most notably Quinn and Staunton, spent huge amounts of time in Izumo making long-distance phone calls exploring the position vis a vis getting Roy back on board.

And then it was over, leaving us all with a great gossip vacuum in our lives.

Saipan has never really gone away in that there is a breed of loon who links everything that happens in Irish soccer to whatever side a person is perceived to have taken on the Saipan issue. It's Civil War politics.

And things were bad. Keane and Staunton spied each other later in the summer of 2002 across a small square in a town in Portugal as they and their families looked for something to eat. Colleagues and friends for so long, they ignored the coincidence, dwelled on the grievance and ignored each other.

And that winter, Roy and Big Niall staged a wonderful show at the Stadium of Light, as Sunderland's ground is somewhat bizarrely called.

That was the day when Jason McAteer advised Roy to stick it all in his next book and Roy - half-heartedly, we felt - cuffed Jason's ear and Roy was sent off, leaving Big Niall in something of a panic because through the miraculous agency of Michael Kennedy a public handshake between Quinn and Keane had been agreed upon beforehand.

Niall gamely trotted across to attempt the handshake regardless of the unfortunate circumstances that were terminating Roy's involvement and ignoring the suggestion that he was perhaps congratulating Roy for at last raising his hand to McAteer.

The handshake was a comical tackle-from-behind sort of job, and the only true passion it inspired was that of Alex Ferguson, who reckoned his boy was being mocked.

Phew! It's tiring just thinking about it all.

But for the participants life went on and it is doubtful that of all the hundreds of thousands of words scribbled about the issue any of them even read any more than those that were ghosted in their names. Kelly and Staunton were to be found last week with their finger in the PR dike (I know, there'll be letters from PR women of a certain persuasion. Leave it be) in the wake of Irish soccer's greatest disaster since Saipan.

And some of the time was bound to have been spent making terse phone calls to Sunderland, where the manager, Roy Keane, and his chairman, Niall Quinn, were as one in keeping their players in the northeast. Then they got tonked 4-1 yesterday, meaning none of the parties involved are spending much time reflecting on how rum a situation it is they all find themselves in.

As for McCarthy, Saipan dragged him beneath the water too but even on nights over the last few years when he awoke in a cold sweat wondering if Keane wasn't downstairs in the kitchen boiling the family bunny or generally being dastardly, he can scarcely have imagined he would end up being succeeded as manager of Sunderland by Keane. Under the chairmanship of Quinn.

And now getting about his business with quiet efficiency at Wolverhampton Wanderers, Mick must be waiting for the entire Saipan thing to come and haunt him again next month when his side play Sunderland and the world tunes in to see whether himself and Roy shake hands before or after the game.

The point of their stories, if there has to be a point at all, is that nothing is forever. Most especially not in sport.

For a few days post-Cyprus it was if the world had been knocked of its own axis by a stray asteroid so great was the knock to our normal lives.

More than a week later most of the fundamental points made about that performance are still valid. The questions it raised over Staunton's capabilities and about John Delaney's judgment in appointing Staunton are still the same - the Czech Republic game and Delaney's odd media utterances all week notwithstanding.

The main players have seen it all before though. There were brazen leprechauns from the tabloids telling Keane to cheer up before he embarked on the plane to Saipan a few years ago and there were life-size muppets trailing the Irish team around Malahide last week.

It's no defence of the perpetrators to say that perhaps we all take these things more seriously than either the tabloids or the players take them.

Players live in that world, tawdry as it is and lucrative as it is. They see players stitched up all the time, players stitching each other up, managers coming and going. Go into any canteen in the English Premiership after training and you'll see nothing being devoured but the redtops.

Sport is relentless and eternal. Cyprus is already old news, and with every day that we move past that debacle its currency is diminished. The focus swings back and forth and when next Ireland gather for really serious action next spring, who knows if it will be relevant at all?

The FAI turn their minds now to selling the tickets to fill Croke Park. They and Staunton and our soccer nation need the glorious distraction of a few fine emerging players over the next few months.

We are already somewhat in thrall to Paul McShane but a decent Premiership season for Kevin Doyle ( and behind him Shane Long) would divert us splendidly too.

It's one big circus and the main trick for prolonged enjoyment at the circus is to have a poor memory. On with the year. Next distraction, please.