‘I was a PL ref and sent off Roy Keane – Man Utd ace wasn’t what people thought’ | Football | Sport

Roy Keane may be renowned for his short fuse and fiery temper, but according to a former Premier League referee, the Manchester United hero was actually one of the most consummate professionals to grace the pitch.

Keane did more than enough to earn his ‘bad boy’ reputation in English football. He was sent off 13 times in his football career, a joint-record that still stands to this day.

His horrific high lunge on ex-Manchester City man Alf-Inge Haaland remains one of football’s most infamous incidents and the imposing defensive midfielder often threw himself into 50-50 challenges coming out the better.

Former top-fight official Jeff Winter even had the displeasure of handing a shaggy-haired Keane an early bath against Southampton, a game that the Red Devils went on to lose 6-2 at The Dell after his two bookable offences inside 20 minutes.

But while he may have fallen foul of the laws of the game on many occasions, Winter insisted that the Irishman never disrespected him and instead pointed to the worst offenders at the time.

“Roy Keane was the ultimate professional, he didn’t have any dialogue with referees other than the odd moan here or there,” Winter said, on behalf of FreeBets.com.

“It’s normal in life that you get along with some people and not others. Some of the guys that I didn’t get along with were Danny Mills, Tomas Repka and Steve Staunton.

“And then you’d see the other side of it. Craig Bellamy and Ian Wright were great characters off the pitch, but when they crossed over the white line, they weren’t very nice.

“Apart from the odd occasion, there appeared to be a lot more mutual respect then [between referees and players] than there is now.”

With 185 matches to his name and 11 years of Premier League experience, Winter – now 69 – dealt with all types of characters, and it wasn’t just players that stuck in his mind.

Managers often like to get involved in controversial decisions and two of the most overbearing characters on the sidelines were Manchester United managerial great Sir Alex Ferguson and Chelsea boss Jose Mourinho.

Winter didn’t get the chance to referee against Mourinho’s team in England as he retired in 2004 after officiating the FA Cup final between United and Millwall, some months before the Portuguese was hired by the Blues.

But he did experience the different sides of Ferguson in football: “Sir Alex was a manager only interested in winning at all costs for his team and you respected him as such,” he added.

“If they won, he was happy shaking his hand. If they lost, it was someone else’s fault. It was sometimes the lesser-named managers that he just didn’t get on with.”

Despite the constant back and forth between managers and officials in the modern game, Winter reflects on his positive relationship he had with two certain bosses and believes there is more respect than disdain in the current game.

“On a positive side, I look back in my time at Joe Royle, Sir Bobby Robson, who were absolutely lovely gentlemen and would shake your hand win, lose or draw,” he said. “I know newspapers sell on headlines and bad stories, but there’s more good people in the game than bad.”