ROY KEANE reportedly ‘didn’t like’ Teddy Sheringham during their time together at Manchester United – and got the chance to take out his anger in the boxing ring.
The pair shared a dressing room for four years between 1997 and 2001.
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And while they had to work in harmony on the pitch under the beady eye of the legendary Sir Alex Ferguson, there didn’t need to be any love lost off it.
Former United coach Mick Clegg has revealed the secrets behind United’s success in his new book The Power and the Glory – as well as how the players got on with each other.
And Clegg talks about the moment he brought boxing into the training sessions to channel some of the players’ aggression.
Keane, who had a few amateur bouts before focussing on football, unsurprisingly took to the new methods.
As reported by MailOnline, Clegg reveals: “Roy loves boxing. He did a bit as a kid, so it made sense to introduce it into his training.
“But pretty soon, most of the other players wanted to have a go as well.
“With Roy Keane I would usually say something nice about Teddy Sheringham. Roy didn’t seem to like Teddy, so it got under his skin.”
Clegg goes on to reveal that he had one keen student of the noble art – the gaffer himself.
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He continues: “It got very competitive – as you’d expect from a team that was packed full of winners. And after I’d given Sir Alex a bit of stick about his own fitness, he asked me if we could do some sessions.
‘I usually had to go banging on his office door to get him into the gym. Not because he didn’t want to do the work-out, but because he was so bloody busy.
“With Fergie, I used to say ‘you’ll never be as good as Roy Keane. You can’t punch as hard as he can’ – and it always did the trick.”
Keane famously had a tunnel bust-up with Sheringham in 1998 after he had first stepped in to stop Andrew Cole fighting with his fellow striker.
After being calmed down by Keane, Cole, in his autobiography, reveals what happened next.
He explains: “I’m not hearing him, but I calm down, and suddenly Roy is going for Teddy, ripping into him, and it’s our turn to try to pull them apart.
“’What’s all that about, Skip?’ I ask a clearly incensed Keane. ‘You wanting to fight him reminded me of what a he was to me at Nottingham Forest!'”.
Keane and Sheringham were team-mates at Forest under Brian Clough in the early 1990s.
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