Roy Keane Reveals Drunken Peter Schmeichel Headbutt in New Autobiography

Roy Keane has revealed the fine details of a bust-up between him and former Manchester United team-mate Peter Schmeichel in the latest extracts from his second autobiography, The Second Half.   

The Mirror provides insight into what caused the fray between the two Old Trafford legends, which occurred on their 1998-99 pre-season tour, the same campaign in which they would go on to win the illustrious Treble:

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I had a bust-up with Peter when we were on a pre-season tour of Asia, in 1998, just after I came back from my cruciate injury. I think we were in Hong Kong. There was drink involved. There'd been a little bit of tension between us over the years, for football reasons. Peter would come out shouting at players, and I felt sometimes he was playing up to the crowd: 'Look at me!'

He said 'I've had enough of you, It's time we sorted this out.' So I said 'Okay' and we had a fight. It felt like 10 minutes. There was a lot of noise - Peter's a big lad. 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.

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Keane has always been regarded as one of the fierier tempers to have walked Old Trafford's hallways, but never before has something as far as a sanctioned scrap been recounted by the ex-Republic of Ireland international.

He goes on to state, however, that there were other squad figures involved in the fight, which Sir Bobby Charlton is alleged to have been witness to:

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In the meantime, Nicky Butt had been filling me in on what had happened the night before. Butty had refereed the fight. Anyway, Peter had grabbed me, I'd head-butted him - we'd been fighting for ages. At the press conference, Peter took his sunglasses off. He had a black eye. The questions came at him 'Peter, what happened to your eye?' [Schmeichel] said 'I just got an elbow last night, in training'. And that was the end of it. The first day back at the training ground, the manager pulled myself and Peter into his office.

He knew exactly where we'd fought - I think he mentioned the 27th floor. He told us that we were a disgrace to the club, and that we'd woken Bobby Charlton up, that Bobby had come out of his room and seen us. Peter took responsibility for the fight, which was good. I admired him for it. But Sir Bobby could have tried to break it up.

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Charlton was a younger figure at the time, but even at age 60 (in 1998), the club icon perhaps shouldn't have been expected to intercept matters quite as rare as this.

Full Time Devils would agree, noting that a Keane versus Schmeichel matchup is among the last head-to-heads one would wish to be found in the middle of:

Keane's words do, however, further uncover an aggressive aspect of this United side which, while not something every manager would hope to contend with, gave them an identity.

And it certainly didn't appear to affect results on the pitch, either, as some of the biggest characters of that side went on to make history that season, winning the Champions League, Premier League and FA Cup.

Clive Brunskill/Getty Images

Louis van Gaal certainly wouldn't wish to see any similar divides erupt within his camp just when Manchester United are beginning to show some sense of cohesiveness at present.

However, it could also be called fair to say the club are in need of that very brand of fire, The Telegraph's Jim White arguing that another Keane is precisely what their line-up most desires:

As the Mirror notes in its report, Sir Alex Ferguson criticised Keane upon releasing his own autobiography last year, some of which related to the announcement of private matters perhaps best left in the dark.

But then Keane has never been the kind to let a sleeping giant lie, and this next piece of authorship promises to ruffle yet more feathers.