The Second Half

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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 light -- Anthony Cummins * DAILY TELEGRAPH * ma era davvero come dice il presidente a Brian Clough nel film Il maledetto United: Il presidente è il capo, poi ci sono i consiglieri, poi il segretario, poi i tifosi, poi i giocatori e poi alla fine di tutto, in fondo al mucchio, l’ultimo degli ultimi, la persona di cui alla fine possiamo tutti fare a meno, il fottuto allenatore! 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

What does Roy Keane and Stephen Hogan bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you had only read the book? Roddy Doyle: Keane was fantastic to work with right down to the proof-reading". The Score ( TheJournal.ie). 16 September 2014. Archived from the original on 4 October 2014 . Retrieved 9 October 2014.Booker Prize-winner Roddy Doyle nails Keane's attitude and cadences... Compelling, eye-opening, and - whisper it - great fun -- Ben East * METRO * 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.” 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 light Roy Keane's book is a masterpiece . . . It may well be the finest, most incisive deconstruction of football management that the game has ever produced' Mail on Sunday

Engrossing... a book that is both an exercise in truth-telling and a piece of literary football writing -- Leo Robson * NEW STATESMAN * 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. Well,” Doyle says affably, “even people we know intimately all our lives, do we ever really know them? I don’t think so. The only person who knows Roy is Roy.”Keane's wry wit enjoys the turbo-boost of Doyle's comic timing, absurd observations and his mastery of the dark arts of expletives Doyle has written many short stories, several of which have been published in The New Yorker; they have also been compiled in two collections. The Deportees and Other Stories was published in 2007, while the collection Bullfighting was published in 2011. Doyle's story "New Boy" was adapted into a 2008 Academy Award-nominated short film directed by Steph Green. [20] The thing I love about this man is there is nothing he writes down that he would not say to someone's face In 2018 the Gate Theatre commissioned Doyle to write a stage adaptation of The Snapper. The show was directed by Róisín McBrinn and was revived in 2019. [23] Awards and honours [ edit ]

Maybe ‘self-destruct’ is too strong a phrase. Maybe I play games with myself. I have great stability in my life. But then, that worries me. I like home comforts, but then I want to be this hell-raiser – but I want my porridge in the morning. I want my wife and kids around me. I’ve dipped into this madness, and I don’t like it that much. Maybe I’m like every man on the planet – I don’t know; I want a bit more than what’s on offer. 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

Summary

Other children's books include Wilderness (2007), Her Mother's Face (2008), and A Greyhound of a Girl (2011). The owner [Ellis Short] rang me. He said: ‘I hear you’re coming in only one day a week.’ I went: ‘It’s nonsense. He said he was disappointed with the Bolton result. His tone wasn’t good. ‘Your location – where you live. You need to move up with your family. I was in the third year of a three-year contract. The arrangement – the flat in Durham, family in Manchester – has suited everybody, until now. I’m not sure if I said something like: ‘Why don’t you move up?’ He lived in London. But I did say: ‘I’m not moving, I’m in the last six or seven months of my contract anyway.’ The conversation didn’t end well. It was a case of ‘no one should tell me where to live’ and the accusation that I was coming in only one day a week hung there. I thought he was talking to me; he spoke to me like I was something on the bottom of his shoe. And before I knew it was – it was over. It still saddens me. I still think I should be the manager of Sunderland. I really liked the club, and I liked the people. But Ellis Short was new – and I wasn’t his manager. It’s probably true that the relationship was never going to work, and not because he was some big, bad Texan and I was some grumpy Northsider from Cork. I don’t like being spoken down to.” 7 Hard on the Corkmen To use a sporting cliché, this blisteringly honest book - written in collaboration with Roddy Doyle - is a tale of two halves. An account of the driven Premier League star's career, then an insight into life as a manager. Roy Keane's self-deprecating wit, combined with a take-no-prisoners approach, make for an entertaining read

Given that Doyle finds children’s books a challenge, why, at the age of 56, does he keep writing them? That’s what he asks himself, every time. “It’s never a question when I’m writing for adults. If somebody said, ‘Will you be writing another book?’ it’s like asking me, ‘Will you be inhaling in the next second or so?’ It’s not a question that needs an answer.”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 Keane appreciated it, up to a point. “I probably didn’t want to go into it too much,” he tells the assembled reporters, but he found himself drawn out. Doyle, he says, “is obviously very clever, and that’s why I wanted to work with him, because I didn’t want to down the standard sportswriter route.”