Then, last week, with the fifth anniversary of Saipan fast approaching, Keane shipped up in Dublin to do some charity work and showed himself to be an even bigger pup than some of the guide dogs he was photographed with.

Keane's attack on the Irish manager, Stephen Staunton, and on several named Irish players at a press conference on Wednesday was objectionable on many levels.

On Friday morning, on Newstalk's breakfast programme, John Giles dismissed Keane's comments on the basis that they didn't make much sense in footballing terms.

Giles knows as much about football as anybody, and what he said seemed sound to me.

But it wasn't in footballing terms that Keane's comments were so illuminating. It was in what they said about him as a human being, about his willingness to kick somebody when they're down (which, of course, we'd seen many times before on the pitch), to lead a baying mob and to play to the gallery at the expense of somebody who is under the most enormous pressure.

Even people who have no interest in football will be aware that Staunton is in a bit of difficulty in his job. You can't get away from that knowledge, even if you wanted to. Two recent results . . . a narrow win over San Marino, a hefty defeat against Cyprus (neither country regarded as one of the great footballing nations) . . .

received press coverage that treated both (particularly the San Marino victory) as evidence of impending apocalypse. (This is being written before yesterday's match against Wales; whether Ireland won, lost or drew, the hostility to Staunton seems set to continue. ) In an interview printed last week, though conducted more than a month ago, Staunton likened the newspaper coverage following the San Marino game to the reporting of a murder case. He was right. For three or four days, Staunton was treated as Public Enemy Number One and with the same level of contempt and hatred as is often meted out to gangland criminals. Staunton was Villain Of The Week and was treated with a shocking lack of perspective or humanity.

Sacreligious though it may be to say so, football is only a game, and unless we are very sad people indeed, it does not affect our well being. (Not in the long term, anyway). So while disappointment at sporting failure is inevitable and understandable, its regular transmutation into hysteria and overreaction is much less so.

What Staunton (and, to a lesser extent, Brian Kerr before him) is suffering from is the recent elevation of the mob to the role of key decision maker in Irish life. The mob, with its ravenous demand for instant gratification, its insatiable appetite for somebody, anybody, to blame when things go wrong, is fuelling the hysteria and ensuring that no matter of national controversy or dispute can be progressed in a level-headed fashion.

Staunton, who doesn't have the easy personality or charisma to be able to charm the mob, is suffering particularly badly at the moment. So too is his assistant, Bobby Robson, one of life's gentlemen, who was subjected to a barrage of ignorant criticism from a mob of ignoramuses on a radio show in the wake of the San Marino game.

Last week, Roy Keane came to town and was promoted to the role of mob boss, the leader of the baying pack. Although he was in Ireland as part of his work with Irish Guide Dogs For The Blind, I know nothing about that organisation that I didn't already know before his visit (other than the fact that their very cute animals, judging by their enthusiastic licking of Keane's face, care nothing about what happened in Saipan). We did learn, however, that the Keane who let his team-mates down so badly in Japan five years ago is still very much the boorish public figure he was then.

To an extent, Keane is still fighting the battle of Saipan, where Staunton was one of the first players to support the decision to send Keane home after his verbal assault on Mick McCarthy.

(Staunton described the outburst as having "crossed the line". ) Even allowing for the presence of a fiveyear-old grudge, however, Keane's performance at Wednesday's press conference was shocking.

None of this is to suggest that Staunton is not deserving of criticism. That would be an untenable position. In the Irish Times on Friday, Brian Kerr, made several intelligent and informed criticisms of the job that Staunton has done thus far . . . although he didn't seem to take too much pleasure in it.

Keane, by contrast, used the press conference to conduct a smirking and vicious attack on Staunton, which played directly to the prejudices of the mob. It's not enough for him to say that he was asked questions to which he felt obliged to give answers. Keane knows well the situation in Irish football at the moment and understands the pressure that Steve Staunton is under.

He nonetheless decided to add to the manager's pressure three days before a big match, not to mention making gratuitous attacks on a number of our best players.

Instead of responding to those questions with diplomacy and a human desire not to worsen the sad lot of a fellow manager, Keane couldn't resist the temptation to put the boot in.

The mob loved it, of course.

They've found a new leader.

He'll make a perfect Ireland manager some day.