On the odd occasion, a fixture in the football calendar has a narrative that has zero impact on the pitch – and this game was one of the biggest examples.
This is especially true when the media is driving
a relationship between two personalities, and when Sunderland travelled to the West Midlands to take on Wolverhampton Wanderers on this day in 2006, the media was in its element.
It had been over four years since Saipan – and if you’re not aware of the events during the 2002 World Cup relating to the Republic of Ireland squad, either read more or wait for the movie to be released in January – and the two men at the heart of it all had moved on, even if most other people hadn’t.
In those four years, Sunderland had played a big part in what came next for both Mick McCarthy and Roy Keane.
After McCarthy had been relieved of his duties by the FAI and after taking a brief break out of the game, the former Millwall and Celtic defender would return to the game with the easy task of taking over at the Stadium of Light after Howard Wilkinson. The task at hand was such a tough gig that the fact he lost his first eleven league games in charge – spanning two separate seasons in two different leagues – didn’t seem all that weird.
Barnsley-born McCarthy managed to turn it around, however, and stopped the slide to the extent where it only took two years to get Sunderland back into the Premier League on a shoestring budget. He would eventually lose his job when the purse strings remained tight in the top flight and we ended up in the same place as we did when he first took the job. He would receive the chop at Sunderland in early-2006 and it wasn’t surprising that in the summer of the same year, he would return to the game as manager of Wolverhampton Wanderers.
Roy Keane continued to be the force that drove Sir Alex Ferguson’s Manchester United on the pitch and added another Premier League title to his name – his seventh and final league title – as well as adding a fourth FA Cup win to his list of accolades. After his time at United came to a controversial end and a spell at Celtic was hampered by injury, Keane hung up his boots and pondered what was next.
Meanwhile, another character from Saipan, Niall Quinn, had taken over as chairman of Sunderland and despite being on the wrong end of some specifically directed words from the Cork-born Keane, knew he was the best man to lead his Sunderland side. After initially turning down the offer, Keane accepted the call and took his place in the dugout for the first time at Sunderland, where he replaced McCarthy on the 9th of September 2006.
Just over two months later, having taken Sunderland off the bottom of the Coca-Cola Championship and up to 16th in the table, Keane’s Sunderland were to travel to Molineux to take on McCarthy’s Wolves, who had hopes of being promoted to the Premier League.
The Evening Herald and the Irish Independent gave it a full week of build-up, with headlines such as “Keane versus McCarthy”, “It’s Time For The Rematch” and “Fireworks To Follow After Make-Up Handshake”; it was clear we were in full media circus territory.
But as Keane described in his book, The Second Half, meeting McCarthy ahead of kick-off wouldn’t be a big deal after they had previously talked initially about the loan signing of Neill Collins:
I think it was Mick who suggested that we meet up for a chat; we both thought it was a good idea. We met at the Four Seasons Hotel, near Manchester Airport, and it was a bit like the meeting with Niall, a nice anticlimax. I said I was sorry about what happened in Saipan. I’m not sure I had anything to apologise for. But you try and move on. But you try and move on.
But the fixture was moved to a Friday evening in front of the Sky cameras, and the question in the week leading up to the game was whether or not the two would shake hands ahead of kick-off – as they had kept it to themselves that they’d already done so.
So, surrounded by cameras and blinded by the constant flashing lights, they shook hands, and seemingly to the media’s annoyance, there were no fireworks, and the football could begin.
To Keane’s frustration, the first half was all Wolves, and Darren Ward was keeping his side in the game, especially pulling off saves from former Sunderland defender Jody Craddock. It was a minor miracle that it took the home side until a couple of minutes before the break to take the lead, and when it came, it required a 25-yard screamer from Jemal Johnson to beat Ward.
Keane had words at half-time, which potentially included kicking the tactics board, and his side picked up in the second half. But it wasn’t until the introduction of Graham Kavanagh that the away side stepped up and with ten minutes left on the clock, Stephen Elliott – a player McCarthy signed for Sunderland – equalised with the help of a deflection to put another point on the board to keep Keane’s revival on track.
Championship
Molineux
Wolves 1-1 Sunderland
[Johnson 43’ – Elliott 80’]
Sunderland: Ward, Whitehead, Collins, Varga, Nyatanga, Miller (Kavanagh), Leadbitter, Yorke (Hysen), Wallace (Nosworthy), Stephen Elliott, Connolly Subs Not Used: Carson, Caldwell
Wolverhampton Wanderers: Murray, Little, Breen, Craddock, Clapham, Gobern, Olofinjana, Henry, Jones, Bothroyd (Clarke), Johnson (Davies) Subs Not Used: Ikeme, Collins, Potter.
Attendance: 27,203
