“People don’t understand Roy Keane, he’s not an ogre!” Ian Wright describes how his unlikely friendship with the former Manchester United captain grew
As players, Ian Wright and Roy Keane spent much of their careers on opposite sides of one of English football’s fiercest rivalries.
The Arsenal great and former Manchester United captain both possessed the competitive spirit that meant exchanging pleasantries and forging friendships was never high on their to-do list when league titles were on the line.
Football, though, has that habit of bringing together different characters and the pair have now developed a genuine bond away from the pitch. This is clear to anyone who watches The Overlap, where the two rivals have had a chance to show off a different side to their personalities.
Wright on his friendship with Keane
““I remember when Gary first got in touch and said who he was going to get involved,” Wright tells FourFourTwo when asked about how his link-up with Gary Neville on The Overlap came about.
“I said ‘If you could get that crew together, that’d be brilliant’. We met up, and when we spoke, it just felt natural. The way we speak on camera is the way we are with each other off camera, too.
“I’m with people I genuinely like, and we’ve got a friendship and a bond now that is real. Nobody is afraid to pull anyone else up if they get something wrong or say something we don’t agree with, but it’s everyone’s love for the game that really comes across.”
During Wright and Keane’s pomp in the 1990s, Arsenal and Manchester United’s title battles set up a number of era-defining bitter Premier League clashes, making it hard for anyone to believe that two of the main protagonists would end up as such good friends.
“Mine and Roy’s relationship on the pitch was fractious,” Wright admits. “If I came in his vicinity, it was never going to be nice.
“But that was because of the teams we were playing for and what was expected of us, especially trying to deal with that Man United side. It was so dominant and so great.
“If you’d said to me back then that we would be friends now, would I have believed it? No, never. I never would have thought we’d be this close.”
However, as the duo embarked on successful media careers, they soon found that they were kindred spirits.
“But it started when we were both doing punditry,” former England man Wright adds. “We met up a few times and it was just fine, because people don’t understand Roy, he’s not an ogre! He’s not some guy that’s just in your face.
“He’ll respect you if you’re respectful, you’d never go into a studio with Roy and find he’d be rude or disrespectful. I love the fact you never know what he might say.”
