The year was 2000, and I was 15 years old. I was watching a football match. Some random team against Manchester United. Roy Keane, Man United captain, decided to flip out for no reason, as usual, and get in the referee’s face. Aggressive and with split flying everywhere, screaming at the arbitrator, shoving him, and forehead marching the ref backwards. If he’d done that in the street, he would’ve been knocked on his arse. But this was football, and therefore par for the course.

Witnessing this, something broke inside me. I just couldn’t bear to watch these overgrown children, these arrogant spoilt petulant idiots getting in the face of refs and being twattish anymore.

That was the moment I fell out of love with football. Indeed, it turned me off all sport. It was only in 2006 that I started to get back into sport.

This turning away from sport had rather unfortunate timing, though.

I did not watch the 2003 Rugby World Cup. The only World Cup I have missed since watching my first one, South Africa 1995. The only World Cup England have won.

I did not watch the 2003-04 football season. The one where Arsenal broke history by going through a whole season unbeaten: the so-called “invincibles”, the peak moment in Arsenal FC’s history.

Yes, Roy Keane prompted my sporting crisis and made me miss the greatest moments for my club and country that will ever happen. I can never get those moments back.

And that is why I hate Roy Keane. That is why Roy Keane is more evil than Hitler.

© 2015 Bryan A. J. Parry

featured image from http://www.themag.co.uk/assets/2012/06/roykeane1.jpg
Roy Keane confronting referee image from http://news.bbc.co.uk/media/images/37996000/jpg/_37996255_keano150.jpg
Ryan Giggs quote image from http://www.azquotes.com/picture-quotes/quote-roy-keane-is-damien-the-devil-incarnate-off-the-film-the-omen-he-s-evil-even-in-training-ryan-giggs-105-2-0239.jpg