The Second Half

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Reflective and funny ... Doyle helps to capture Keane's humour and polish his jokes (the punchline is invariably an expletive). Despite the involvement of such an esteemed novelist and author of The Commitments, there is no doubt that the voice is Keane's ... an enjoyable read ... Keane is full of such sharp observations Searingly honest To do this, Doyle had to give as much as he got: “I’ve never liked the sound of my own voice, but I began to relax with that and realise that I was helping the conversation to roll. And I would ask the question and sometimes the answers would come.” Roy Keane has been critical of Sir Alex Ferguson and some of his other former colleagues at Manchester United in his book. Photograph: BPI/BPI/REX The belligerence, dry humour and short fuse still exist but it has now been accompanied by introspection, harsh self-criticism and no little humility

People miss the fact that Keane is funny. Caustic, yes, clenched, he'd admit. Angry (though no longer prone to rage, his book claims) more than most. But funny. The light touch in The Second Half is not exclusively Doyle's. Yet the heavy stuff compels ... The account of Keane's Sunderland reign is riveting. The everyday trials of a first-time manager are uncovered as in no other book ... The Second Half is brutally honest -- Jonathan Northcroft * THE SUNDAY TIMES * Engrossing... a book that is both an exercise in truth-telling and a piece of literary football writing Not sure, not sure. Football is a small world, you will cross paths with people again,” said Keane at last week’s book launch. “But to criticise people who have earned him success … would I forgive him? I don’t know. When you think what he made out of it, millions of pounds, statues. Lots of stuff I let go, but eventually you have to go, enough is enough. You have to defend yourself.”

Doyle attended University College Dublin, where he studied English and geography, and graduated with a BA in 1979. [12] He went on to complete a Higher Diploma in Education (HDipEd) in 1980. He spent several years as an English and geography teacher before becoming a full-time writer in 1993. [13] Work [ edit ] Nihill, Cian. "Over 3,000 attend flood defence plan protest at Clontarf". The Irish Times. 17 October 2011.

When Keane says anything, listening is usually the best option. He's scarily extreme, dangerously provocative, oxy-acetylene forthright ... and hugely entertaining ... Self-desctruction, self-pity, self-laceration - his latest unburdening has all this and more. His book reveals more flaws and admits to more mistakes than Sir Alex Ferguson did in his last literary effort - and Keane's is much funnier -- Aidan Smith * SCOTLAND ON SUNDAY * A man ponders the gradual erosion of his marriage. New Yorker, 5 November 2007. The Dog online text Even as a ghostwriter, the dramatising habits of fiction die hard. “There’s a little evil man in me who would want to change the results a bit – to have Millwall beat them in the cup final,” Doyle says. “But I think he’d have spotted it.” Chilton, Martin. "Roddy Doyle interview". The Daily Telegraph. 22 September 2011. The 53-year-old Dubliner, who will be the headline performer at the start of the 10-day Telegraph Bath Festival of Children's Literature, said: "I'm an atheist so I suppose that was part of the challenge of writing about a ghost. Strictly speaking, I don't believe in anything. Roddy Doyle's works, mostly set in a fictional Dublin suburb, often star quietly frustrated everymen, and it's this book's achievement to make you see its mighty subject in that lightWhen Keane says anything, listening is usually the best option. He's scarily extreme, dangerously provocative, oxy-acetylene forthright ... and hugely entertaining ... Self-desctruction, self-pity, self-laceration - his latest unburdening has all this and more. His book reveals more flaws and admits to more mistakes than Sir Alex Ferguson did in his last literary effort - and Keane's is much funnier Allen Randolph, Jody. "Roddy Doyle, August 2009." Close to the Next Moment: Interviews from a Changing Ireland. Manchester: Carcanet, 2010.

It is the dearth of integrity that makes Pietersen such a peevish, trifling character, and the surfeit that makes Keane so entrancingly epic ... the personification of honest to a fault ... he is as close as sport can offer to an Old Testament prophet. Heroically unconcerned with being loved, almost insanely devoted to telling what he regards as the plain truth, he may not always be engaging. But ... he stands out as utterly and irreducibly true to himself -- Matthew Norman * THE INDEPENDENT *

The former Manchester United and Ireland hard man comes across as funny, scathing, regretful and, as with so many forcefully clear-minded people, touchingly contradictory -- Giles Smith * THE TIMES * After reading a few autobiographies of players and staff associated with Manchester United, certainly the biggest premiership club in past two decades, now in turmoil, Roy Keane's The Second Half is one of the most honest and straightforward memoir I have ever read. Irish? English? “Eh, yes,” he says, with his bold-child grin. “Both.” He relents enough to explain that it’s an English production company but that the series is set in Dublin. And that really is our lot.