Expectations were high when Roy Keane took over at Town. That was until he got his hands on Marcus Evans purse strings and off-loaded Rhodes and son…
There was a great fanfare when Roy Keane took over the reins at Portman Road in 2009 and such was the interest that there was standing room only, when he took his first press conference!
His previous experience of managing a Championship club was a huge success, when he guided Sunderland all the way to the Premiership on his managerial baptism.
Expectations were high here too when he took on the job but little did we know that he could not stand the colour blue!
In his soon to be released autobiography he said that he hated blue and that all the teams he despised in the game seemed to don this colour; from Rangers in Scotland to Manchester City in England. Let’s face it blue made him blue.
Suffolk supporters are generally a patient lot. And with Roy Keane at the helm they had to be, as he spent owner Marcus Evans dosh on overrated players at inflated prices, whilst off-loading some immense talent in the process. Tamas Priskin and Lee Martin probably could not believe their luck!
Jordan Rhodes on the other hand must have been dumbfounded. He was scoring regularly in the reserves but not getting much of a sniff of first team action, only to be sold cheaply because Keane fell out with his father Andy, who just happened to be our goalkeeping coach!
If there is one thing that stands out about the Keane years at Portman Road, it is this. Rhodes has never stopped scoring since, as he had at every level before and it is still the cause of much frustration among Town supporters of all ages.
I`ll be honest; I was never much of a fan of Keane as a player and even less so as a manager and when you see how much Paul Jewell loved the club, the contrast is startling.
Yes, Jewell was an abstract failure too but he went away with his dignity intact and unlike Keane, genuinely wanted success for this club and not just for himself!
F.W.
