The coach thought nothing of it until minutes later, when he spotted that Keane's plate had been wiped clean a little too fast.

After the squad had left the dining room, the coach went to investigate further. He discovered the 18-year-old had discreetly scraped the contents of his plate under the table when nobody was looking. Keane didn't fancy the food much, but he certainly wasn't going to draw undue attention to himself on his first away trip with a new club just weeks into his professional career. Sixteen summers later, it's possible to revisit that yarn and see the Keane legend already in embryo. On foreign soil, facing an unfamiliar foe, he refused to be embarrassed.

Upon returning to England, the same coach informed Forest manager Brian Clough that the Cork teenager had been the club's player of the tournament against Barcelona, Sporting Lisbon, PSV Eindhoven and Haarlem, and on 28 August, 1990, the old rogue famously gave him his debut against Liverpool at Anfield. Keane and another youngster named Phil Starbuck had been brought along to the game at the 11th hour and then thrown into the starting line-up.

A career journeyman, Starbuck would later establish a born-again organisation called 'Christians in Sport'. Keane would move on to Manchester United where his teammates christened him 'Damien' after the antichrist character from the movie The Omen.

If his first start for Forest merited just a footnote in the Irish media, his retirement yielded a statement from the Taoiseach that was longer than his comment on the death of Charlie Haughey. In between those two landmark events, Keane became the first superstar of Ireland's tabloid age, his manifold transgressions off the field (most involved drink and some ended in police stations) were as magnified as his wondrous achievements on it.

His boyhood training never included any courses about how to negotiate the perils of fame and as far back as 1996, Keane had paparazzi stalking his trail, taking intrusive photographs of himself and his kids outside his parents' house in Mayfield. This was a time before David Beckham had even been introduced to Posh Spice.

Perhaps nothing summed up the culture of exaggeration around Keane better than the national over-reaction to Saipan. For his fans, it was the ultimate expression of his professionalism and obsessive nature. For his detractors, it was just another episode in which an admittedly frightening nasty streak prevailed over all other considerations.

Whatever the merits of each argument, it proved that coexisting with contemporaries unable to reach the same heights on the field . . . and some of whom appeared to care less off it . . . was impossible for him to stomach. It cost him a World Cup appearance and eventually that same tendency forced Ferguson to wield the axe last autumn.

At the time of the Saipan debacle, there were attempts by some to cast Keane's anger at the unprofessionalism of the training camp as some sort of Celtic Tiger rebuttal of the lacklustre attitudes of old Ireland. Truth is, Keane has only ever been a tourist in Celtic Tiger Ireland.

His biography has far more in common with those emigrants who went to England as labourers in the 1960s and, with a lot of hard work and a little cunning, became multi-millionaires in the construction industry. It was the same template that brought Keane greatness in football and, significantly for a kid reared in depressed 1980s Cork, millions in the bank.

While others with more natural talent fell by the wayside, he became the preeminent midfield player of his generation and amassed seven Premiership titles, four FA Cups and one Champions League. Along the way, he outlasted and outshone all of his peers at United and with Ireland. For somebody with such a combative style of play to prevail so long at the top was a tribute to his Pauline conversion to a more sensible lifestyle, and to regular attempts at confronting the personal demons which so often besmirched his early successes.

Having regularly railed against players hanging on after their sell-by date, his own departure was a little sad. There was an ignominious exit from Old Trafford . . .

hardly redeemed by the ersatz emotion of a subsequent testimonial . . . and then the faintly embarrassing postscript at Parkhead. In a green or red jersey, the true measure of his greatness had been the way he left his prints all over every significant victory. The best big-game player his club or his country has ever had, the simple fact the Scottish title would have been won without any of his input sums up the futility of that exercise.

Playing an extra in a Glaswegian romp was a long way from single-handedly dragging United to a Champions League final or leading Ireland to a World Cup (no player has ever contributed so much to one qualifying campaign as Keane in 2002). At this remove, the ill-fated Celtic sojourn looks like a case of a man desperately trying to postpone the inevitable. For all the usual footballer platitudes about wanting to spend time with his wife Theresa, their five children and and his beloved dog, the most difficult battle for Keane may yet lie ahead.

The lack of a routine, the want of an outlet for his competitive desires, and the availability of so much free time is a lethal combination, providing optimum conditions for any foibles to come bubbling back to the surface. Without a training ground to be at or a game to prepare for, he will, like thousands of other superannuated footballers before him, need to fill that void in his life fast. Or there could be trouble.

Those elements of the media who have rushed to intellectualise Keane in recent years will speculate that stimulating hobbies will be easily found. A fondness for Bob Dylan and for reading sports biographies on airplanes was enough to change the prevailing view of him from the unhinged childhood boxer of initial stereotype to the cerebral, hot-yoga enthusiast of more recent vintage.

Of course, his own teammates speculated the reading was a device to avoid making conversation with them, and many used to bet on how soon after disembarking the flight the riveting tome would be slipped into the nearest terminal bin.

Professional envy or the truth behind the facade? As so often during his 16 years in the spotlight, with Keane, it's almost impossible to know.

C.V. pation: Retired professional footballer
Age: 34
Married: to Theresa, five children
In the news: This week, he announced his retirement after 16 years of first-team football due to a chronic hip injury