RONAN MURRAY WAS at home watching Sky Sports News on a Thursday afternoon in April 2009, when the yellow ‘Breaking News’ tab informed him that the club he was playing for had just named his boyhood hero as their new first-team manager.
“It was a bit surreal,” he explains. “You don’t really find out who your next manager is until everybody else does. I was looking at the banner at the bottom of the screen and it said ‘Roy Keane has been appointed manager of Ipswich Town’.
“I was sitting there, thinking ‘Jesus, that’s us!’ All of a sudden you realise that when you go into training the next day Roy Keane is going to be there. I looked up to him a lot when I was growing up, and then he was my boss and I was going to be listening to him every day.”
Nine years since he joined Ipswich as a 16-year-old, Murray opted to return to Ireland in December by committing to Galway United for the 2017 season. His time at Ipswich came to an end in 2013, at which point he began a three-year spell at Notts County.
The Mayo native doesn’t lack positive memories to reflect on from his career in England. As a striker, he scored goals while making over 100 appearances for Ipswich, Notts County and during loan spells at Torquay United, Swindon Town and Plymouth Argyle.
Murray scored on his Ipswich debut at the age of 18. He played against Chelsea in the FA Cup at Stamford Bridge and in a 1-0 first-leg win against Arsenal in a League Cup semi-final. With Swindon he won a League Two medal and played in a Football League Trophy final at Wembley.
They were the good times. For Murray, however, things didn’t always run so smoothly. His time at Notts County was beset by injury problems, with a fractured pubic bone proving particularly problematic. As a result, he wasn’t inundated with attractive offers when his contract at Meadow Lane expired last summer.
“Those things you mentioned, they were all only little flashpoints in a long nine-year period. They’re all the good things, but there are a lot of lows and only a few highs. I look back on those experiences with fond memories, but the low points stick out because there were more of them,” says Murray.
“The main thing now is that I’m playing football. A lot of players in England are happy to fade into the background as long as they’re picking up a wage. But I’m at a stage where what makes me happy is playing every week. That’s what I’m getting at Galway United so I’m very happy.
“In the last couple of years in England I didn’t play much football through injury, not being selected, changes of managers and whatever else. It would have been a case of dropping down out of League One and League Two.
“That wasn’t really an option for me. I didn’t see the point in playing in the lower leagues in England when I could come and play at home and be closer to my friends and family.”
Murray admits that things could have turned out very differently for him — and not in a good way — if Roy Keane hadn’t arrived at Portman Road just before the end of the 2008-09 season. At 17, Murray was still in Ipswich’s academy but he was unsure about his future at the club when Keane was appointed following the sacking of Jim Magilton.
A year later, Murray was handed his first professional contract and came off the bench to score in a 3-2 win against Exeter City in the Carling Cup. Afterwards, he received the Roy Keane seal of approval: “Of all the strikers at our club, he is probably the most natural goalscorer we’ve got. It wasn’t even a chance and that’s what good strikers do.”
Murray says: “I’ll forever be thankful to Roy for giving me my opportunity because if it had been another manager I wouldn’t have been given my chance after coming through the academy. It was at a time when players were either being let go or not given a chance at all.
“You probably need a bit of luck at that age to get that experience of training with the first team or even being on the bench. Roy gave me those chances, which other lads didn’t get. That came at a vital time in my career when I was trying to get to that next stage. The opportunities he gave me allowed me to do that.”
Nevertheless, Keane was also known during his time as Ipswich manager for cracking the whip a little more forcibly when dealing with the club’s considerable Irish contingent. That suited Murray fine. It didn’t work for every player, but he knew that the day Keane stopped pushing him to the limit was when he’d need to start worrying.
“He was a bit harder on the Irish lads because the Irish mentality is more about tough love. I suppose he went a bit easier on the English lads or some of the foreign lads. There were lads from Spain and Argentina there and for them it was probably better to put an arm around the shoulder,” Murray says.
“I think the most difficult thing about being a football manager is probably managing people. From a fella born on the west coast of Ireland to a fella born in South America, everyone is brought up differently.
“The Irish have a different mentality and he was trying to tap into that and instil his own mentality into us. I’d have no complaints with the way he treated me personally but obviously I can’t speak for anyone else. But if you weren’t getting his attention, good or bad, then you’d be concerned.”
Murray felt his career was on the right track during Keane’s tenure at Ipswich. When Paul Jewell succeeded the former Manchester United midfielder in January 2011, the landscape was significantly altered.
Jewell put his trust in the club’s more experienced players, while young lads — including Murray — were sent out on loan. One of those loan spells was spent at Swindon Town, where he encountered another big character pulling the strings.
“We have been missing a player like him,” said Swindon manager Paolo Di Canio after signing Murray in November 2011. “He is not very tall but he offers us something different. He is quick, nasty in that he is a competitor, and he is an Ireland U21 international.”
Murray, who played 27 times as Swindon were crowned League Two champions, says: “He [Di Canio] was a tough man who had a tough upbringing. I read his book so I could see why he was the way he was. He was a lot more hands-on than Roy. It was a very intense seven months but enjoyable, and successful as well.”
Murray has yet to taste a league victory with Galway United. As the only Premier Division team yet to win a game this season, Shane Keegan’s side are currently languishing at the foot of the table. Tomorrow night’s derby at home to Sligo Rovers offers them an opportunity to overtake their Connacht rivals and get their campaign up and running.
Murray has scored in their last two league games — against Shamrock Rovers and Bohemians — with his goal at Dalymount Park securing a valuable away point. In spite of their inauspicious start, he believes this Galway side is capable of having a successful season.
“The Sligo game is very important for us — and for them,” Murray says. “They haven’t had the best of starts either so it’s a massive derby. We need three points and Friday night is a great opportunity for us to kickstart our season.
“The results haven’t been what we wanted so far. We’ve put in the performances but haven’t got the results. Overall I’m enjoying being home and playing with a really good group of lads. We’re not pushing the panic button but we do need to get three points on the board and start climbing the table before teams start getting away from us.”
Murray’s immediate aim is to make a difference with his new club. Now 25, he’s encouraged by what the League of Ireland has done for the careers of other players in the past. Ultimately, the former Republic of Ireland U21 striker still has ambitions of playing at the highest level, for both club and country.
That could bring him back into Roy Keane’s line of vision. Having already played for the Ireland assistant manager, Murray knows that allowing his standards to drop won’t be tolerated if he ever finds himself under the Corkman’s stewardship again.
“I remember I was going well enough with Ipswich when I was 18 or 19,” Murray recalls. “I was getting in the first-team squad fairly regularly and getting a few games, but coming up to Christmas I was off the pace a bit and letting it slip. I was playing in a reserve game, I missed a penalty and we lost the game.
“Roy pulled me into his office afterwards and he was fairly straight in what he thought. He said he could tell from my body language that I was going to miss the peno. He told me he was leaving me out of the squad for three weeks. I was feeling sorry for myself at first and I was sent home with my arse well reddened.
“But it was a massive kick up the arse, which I needed. He knew that too. I trained like a trojan for three weeks solid, I knew I had to be on it every day, and at the end of the third week he put me back into the squad. That experience really toughened me up mentally. He knew I was after putting the work in and he stuck to his word, in fairness to him.”
After surviving a bollocking in Roy Keane’s office, keeping Galway United in the Premier Division must seem like a doddle.
