IT'S been over four years since Roy Keane and Mick McCarthy fell out in Saipan and Keane returned home to Ireland, leaving Ireland's World cup hopes in tatters. So why does it still feel like yesterday?

The 2002 World Cup debacle has left a huge dent in the Irish psyche, so much so that I, Keano, the musical comedy chronicling the event, is still packing out theatres four years later. I, Keano may have been polished up and given a few new jokes for its latest run in the Olympia, but the bulk of the play remains the same. So why is it still drawing crowds in their droves?

Michael Nugent, co-author of I, Keano, says of the original incident that inspired the play, "I always describe it as our generation's civil war. The original thing was such a melodrama that it imprinted itself on the nation's psyche."

Roy Keane has since moved on to work with Niall Quinn and, thanks to that handshake, has tentatively made up with Mick McCarthy. Yet the Irish public seems stuck in a time warp, keen to pick over the minutiae of the event again and again - and nobody seems bored yet.

The show has grossed over Euro10m and packed out the Olympia theatre, not only with male football fans but also with women and couples and groups, both young and old. So what is the enduring quality of the Saipan fiasco, the populist appeal and the secret to I, Keano's success?

Nugent says it's all tied up with the particular feelings of euphoria that Irish people experienced in the halcyon days of the 1990 World Cup. "When we started doing well the whole thing became a symbol of everyone being Irish. And it was around the time of the Celtic Tiger and the Irish football team became the equivalent of a Beatles concert in New York, where the streets were empty and there was no crime for the duration of the concert. Suddenly we were on a high over the football team.

"But then it looked like it was going away for a while, and then suddenly it came back to a position where we could relive the glory of the 'Ole!

Ole!' days and the FAI arranged for the team to go to an island with no pitches and forgot the footballs."

Another reason the play is thought to have maintained its remarkable staying power is that there was no satisfactory conclusion about who was right and who was wrong. Dessie Gallagher, who starred in Alone It Stands and plays Macartacus in I, Keano says it is a debate that will never be resolved. "Because the argument was never won, you can't answer the question of who was right and who was wrong. It will always be 50:50 for Keane and McCarthy."

Nugent agrees that this aspect lends to the play's longevity. "I think if we had won the World Cup, McCarthy would have been seen as the person who was right and if we had been knocked out early, Keane would have. But we just did okay, so none of the two could claim victory and that's part of the reason it's gone on.

"The reason it still resonates is because that World Cup was a strange one in that the big teams were knocked out early and the smaller countries might have won it so there's the big 'What If?':

what if they had managed to work together for another couple of weeks?"

Eoin McDevitt presents Off The Ball on Newstalk every weekday and says the issue still rages on among his listeners. "We must get a text every week on our show referring to Saipan or to Roy Keane as Judas. I think in a way I, Keano is a bit of a relief because we can laugh about it now - it's laughing at ourselves in a way and at how seriously we took it at the time. But still when I was at it this week, one of my friends did say, 'I'm still pissed off with what happened there, ' and it took him a while to calm down and actually enjoy the play."

As to why the play can still hold the interest of sellout Irish audiences, McDevitt believes it is because of the impact the event had at the time. "It was just such a huge event, it was an obsession.

When he [Keane] was going to leave and then when he was going to go back, there were seven to 10 days where nothing else was discussed in the newspapers and it was the only conversation you had with anyone."

Even though the play now has a new leading man in Jamie Beamish and a few new jokes and sketches (such as Macartacus saying to Quinness: 'The likelihood of you ever being in charge of Keano is as likely as me leading a pack of wolves'), the bulk of it still centres on the spat between Keane and McCarthy.

The play appeals to both soccer fanatics and non-soccer fans but the likelihood is the less you know (or care) about soccer and what happened in Saipan, the less this play will hold your attention. For non-soccer fans, the joke might start to wear a bit thin towards the end of the show, but it is still a hugely entertaining piece of theatre and judging by audience's reactions on the night I attended, there is no sign of I, Keano's success waning any time soon.