Fifty-eight years before Roy Keane called Mick McCarthy a ‘c***,’ and a ‘w***er,’ the Battle of Saipan claimed the lives of 50,000 soldiers and civilians, including thousands of mass suicides sparked by Japanese misinformation about the barbarity of the invading Americans.
Or so we’ve been told by the victors, who tend to write history.
This is an oral account of a phoney war, where nobody died and everybody lost, with the factual record diverging over the past two decades depending on each person’s perspective.
"We had a lovely day yesterday, we went up to Suicide Cliff and learned the history," Roy Keane told The Irish Times on May 23rd, 2002. "I enjoyed that, that's the nice side of it, but I keep saying to everybody we're here to prepare for the World Cup.
“I was going to go back up there today to that cliff!” Keane laughed. “Add an Irishman to the list.”
Saipan – the actors
Mick McCarthy – Republic of Ireland manager Roy Keane – Republic of Ireland captain Malachy Logan – Irish Times sports editor Paul Howard – Author of 'The Gaffers' and 'Triggs' Bertie Ahern – An Taoiseach Johnny Fallon – Republic of Ireland kitman Tommie Gorman – RTÉ news and current affairs Liam Gaskin – McCarthy's agent and friend Jason McAteer – Right midfield (interview via LV Bet) Kevin Kilbane – Left midfield Chiedozie Ogbene – Age 5
Roy Keane: "Cowards."
At 7.30pm that same evening, McCarthy, FAI president Milo Corcoran and Brendan McKenna held a press conference in the Chinese restaurant off the Hyatt hotel lobby, which was also attended by new Ireland captain Steve Staunton, Niall Quinn and Alan Kelly.
Liam Gaskin: I would have let the whole thing settle down and I would have dissected it with Mick in absolute detail. Scrutinise every element of it so we knew what we were going to say and why we were going to say it. The FAI fucked it up completely.
Bertie Ahern: There's always harsh words. I have been in rooms where people have said the most terrible things to each other and then the following morning we have to sit down and continue the discussion. In the heat of an argument people forget what the purpose is. I did [trade] union discussions for years, political discussions, Northern Ireland peace talks. When people forget what the argument is, it gets personal and animosity builds up. Unfortunately, I never got to mediate and neither did anyone else, which is the sad thing about it all.
Paul Howard: It really was one of those times where Ireland lost the run of itself. We thought we were going out there to write about football, and there we were ringing our contacts in Fianna Fáil back home to see if Bertie was getting involved to get Roy back to Japan.
Bertie Ahern: There was a period of about 48 hours where it seemed it might have been possible to try and arbitrate something and calm it down. We were trying to get an arrangement where I would talk to both Mick and Roy, as a soccer supporter, not as Taoiseach, to see if we could mediate. I said I would, if Roy agreed, but by the time the plan was cooked up the second confrontation happened and Roy was in the airport. I remember talking to [FAI chief executive] Brendan Menton and others at the time and there was this basic misunderstanding.
Paul Howard: Brendan Menton was struck dumb by the whole thing. When he got out there he was on the wrong side of the world to deal with it because Roy was back in Manchester.
Liam Gaskin: I asked Mick, 'If he comes back, will you have him?' and what he actually said was 'As long as he apologies to the players, the staff and me, of course we'd have him back.' And he asked me what I think and I said, 'There is no fucking chance he is coming back.' I was watching people trying to make contact with him, talk to him, talk around him.
Paul Howard: What completely undermined Mick was what was happening in the background to get Roy Keane back. If there was a question about Keane and McCarthy and who actually got Ireland to the World Cup, McCarthy was getting his answer from the FAI.
Liam Gaskin: I'll tell you this, and this is an absolute fact, on the flight out to Tokyo I met [a player's mother] on the plane. I knew her from before, and I asked her what she thought of all the shemozzle and she said, 'Oh I am delighted.' I looked at her and said, 'Why do you say that?' She said, 'All the young players are afraid of him.'
Tommie Gorman: If only Des Casey had had a role for the FAI. His work as the Rights Commissioner would have made him very useful but manning the fort back in Dublin was a young man named John Delaney.
Paul Howard: This created John Delaney. He was so young and he went on Prime Time with Dunphy and handled it really well.
Prime Time – Thursday, May 23rd, 2002
Eamon Dunphy: Freddie Ljungberg today lunged at and punched another Swede on the training ground. No one is going to send Freddie Ljungberg home. Raúl, the great Spanish centre forward, is fighting with the Spanish manager, no one is going to send Raúl home. It is only the Irish who will send the greatest player, probably in the world at this time, home and cheat the fans and cheat the nation of the opportunity of enjoying something we have worked hard for, for four years. Now, I know you are a good guy John, you are one of the reformers in Merrion Square, but who is running Irish soccer, the FAI or Mick McCarthy?
John Delaney: Eamon, you know as well as I do, I am treasurer of the association, I am responsible for the financial part of the association. Mick McCarthy is our team manager. I will never cross the line in terms of picking a team. I think Alan Kelly made a very salient point today: 'What's the difference between one player going home and 22 players going home?' There is a problem with team morale out there.
Mark Little: Is there no chance that Roy Keane will go with the team to Japan?
John Delaney: I can't see any way. If you could wave a magic wand we'd all be delighted to do so, but I think it has just gone a bridge too far.
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Liam Gaskin: I always thought John Delaney was a decent enough skin because he was very good to Mick, he kind of understood the manager was the manager, 'whatever resources we can give we will give him and hopefully he will do the best job for us'. And Mick had a decent relationship with him. Some of us who did business with the FAI may have had a sense what was going on but Mick was gobsmacked when he heard. He literally couldn't believe it.
Tommie and Roy interview – May 27th, 2002
Tommie Gorman: I went over to Manchester with a cameraman called Conor O'Brien from Belfast, and tried to make contact with people. I discovered pretty quickly that Michael Kennedy was Roy's agent. This began a lifelong friendship. He was a sweetheart of a human being. Gorgeous man from the Cork-Kerry border or Kerry-Cork, depending on where one's loyalties lie. He was just pure silk.
Michael Kennedy, who passed away in 2020 age 76, was a London-born solicitor, with parents from the Dingle peninsula, who acted as an agent for several Irish footballers, including Keane and Quinn. Roy Keane once said he would trust Kennedy “with his life”.
Tommie Gorman: We got to Keane's house in Hale, a fancy area outside Manchester, like Dalkey. He arrived anyway, the excitement was like the arrival of the high king, and you could see the kids in the upstairs window waiting for Daddy to come home. A while later Keane marches out with Triggs. It was like the rumble in the jungle. Muhammad Ali stepping into the ring. Jaysus, fellas running after him and a girl throwing questions.
‘Any regrets Roy?’
‘Are you happy to be home?’
‘Do you have a message for Mick and the lads?’
‘What’s the dog called, Roy?’
Tommie Gorman: Keane had the baseball hat and Triggs beside him, it was such a defiant statement. Off they went into the woods.
Triggs: "Down Bankhall Lane we strode, until we reached our little stile. Roy went over it, I went under it and, for reasons I can't explain, the crowd chose not to follow us down the narrow, muddy path that led to the Bollin.
“I tried to keep the conversation light. ‘Stick your World Cup up your bollocks?’”
Imaginary Roy: I meant to say, 'Stick your World Cup up your arse, you bollicks' but, well, I was on a bit of a roll!
Triggs: "It seemed to me that his anger with Mick had dissipated . . . and seemed to be directed at Niall Quinn and Steve Staunton, who'd sat alongside Mick at his press conference looking obligingly traumatisied."
Imaginary Roy: Sitting there like two innocent children – 'never hear the likes of it.' Open your ears next time you're taking a fucking corner kick.
Paul Howard: I remember watching those walks on Sky News from my laptop in Japan. I just thought it was so bizarre – Ireland's greatest footballer walking down the road with a dog as the press pack shouts 'what's his name, Roy?' I just started to imagine conversations between Roy and the dog and thought she would understand the whole nature of hierarchy.
Tommie Gorman: I heard Roy was doing a piece for the Mail on Sunday, giving his side of the story. Often these things would be paid, so I made the case to Kennedy that The Mail won't reach an Irish audience. We are fair dealers. Martin Bashir had also been on. The deal was it would go out as recorded.
“If I felt for one second, for one second, I was a little bit out of order I would apologise and go back. I’d love to play in the World Cup. Not one person backed me up, not one.”
“What happened to me last week will live with me for a long time but I tell my kids what is right and what is wrong and what happened to me is wrong so the ball is in other people’s court.”
Tommie Gorman: I thought he had done enough to leave the door open. I think he thought that too. I know Keane stayed up to see what the reaction was like.
Liam Gaskin: I waited to fly out to watch the programme with Tommie Gorman. After, I rang Mick, it was about 6am down there, and I said, 'Yer man is a fucking lunatic. Well, that's my impression.' Tommie asked him, everybody has asked him, he is not going to go back. Mick said, 'Do you really think so?' and I said, 'I am telling you, he ain't going back.' He just said, 'Aw fair enough.' I was being flippant when I said he was a lunatic but I was watching this programme thinking the whole world wants you to do something and you are saying no, no, no . . . He was saying no to everybody.
Paul Howard: I didn't buy Niall Quinn's account. Nor did I buy that he was the man that was going to solve this. His classic thing to say is, 'If I could have turned back the clock I should have done this, I could have done that.' Niall Quinn shouting 'stop!' in the room would not have stopped Mick and Roy moving into the closing scene of the movie. They were heading towards the plot resolve and nothing, absolutely nothing, was going to change that.
Liam Gaskin: By the time I arrived in Tokyo, Roy Keane had issued a statement saying he wasn't going back.
Paul Howard: A lot of managers would have walked. Mick's innate decency and professionalism is what kept him there because he was really badly undermined. The ham-fisted way that the statement was handled as well.
Emmet Malone: That was the incredible day of the Brendan McKenna press conference [10am], the player statement [10.30am], the Niall Quinn explanation of the player statement [5pm], the Mick McCarthy and Brendan Menton press conference [8pm]. Doors were being closed, it seemed, then reopened and we made what sense of it we could after getting back to the hotel that evening and happily heading to bed in the early hours.
Paul Howard: A complete and utter shambles.
Emmet Malone: Not too long after, the phone rang in my room. It was Declan Murray back in the office.
“Sorry, Emmet, but there’s been a development. Roy has issued a statement. He’s not coming back.”
“What time is it?” I asked, completely disoriented.
“Four o’clock.”
“Morning or afternoon?”
“Morning.”
“Here or there?”
“There.”
“Fuck . . . okay.”
[ This is a six-part series. Read parts I and II hereOpens in new window ]
