'Shy' Keane drank pints before Forest debut vs Liverpool and told Barnes to 'f*** off'

He may have become a grizzled and gruff grump, both on and off the pitch, but once he was a young rookie in English football. Not that it seemed like it.

Keane joined the Tricky Trees from Cobh Ramblers in the summer of 1990, aged 19, and while some youngsters can take their time to settle in, Keane's impact was almost instantaneous.

The Irishman didn't feature in Forest's opening league game against Queens Park Rangers and so was handed a substitute appearance for the reserves.

As was the done thing back in the day for footballers - and 19-year-olds - pints were swiftly consumed.

"I got on for the last ten minutes [of the reserves match] and the first team were playing Liverpool on the Tuesday night," said Keane on Monday Night Football.

"Went out that night with the players, as you do after a reserve match, I didn't drink too much - maybe six, seven pints after the game. Came in on the Tuesday and was told 'get dressed up'."

Keane added: "What Brian Clough did a lot of the time, for the younger players, bring you with the first-team just as an experience. Carry the skips, help the kitman, so I went up [and] met some of the players in the hotel.

"[I] was putting the gear out with the kitman and Brian Clough says 'what are you doing' and I said I was putting the gear out - he says 'no no, put that top on'."

These days we all know the no-nonsense hard-as-nails Keane but, back then, the sight of a young Keane, freshly signed with the No.7 shirt after several pints the night before, provoked an astonishing reaction.

His teammates took the p***.

"The gaffer would regularly get one of the young lads to put a tracksuit on and come on the team bus with us. It was a way to give them a taste of things," Forest's right-back Brian Laws told The Athletic.

"Nobody knew who he was. I had never spoken to Roy. He had not even trained with the first-team. He was very shy, very quiet.

"But he pushed the skips [of kit and other gear] into Anfield, he helped to lay the shirts out and I remember being in the dressing room. It was maybe 80 minutes before kick-off and the gaffer says, 'Roy, put that No.7 shirt on. I want to see what it looks like on you'.

"The rest of us are all laughing, thinking that the gaffer is just pulling his leg. Roy puts it on and Clough says to him, 'You look a million dollars. In fact, do you know what? You look so good, you are playing'.

"We are laughing even more. But Clough isn't. He's deadly serious. You could see the colour drain out of Roy's cheeks.

"'You will be playing right wing', says Clough, before looking over to me and adding, 'You, look after him'. I'm thinking, 'Look after who? F*** me, I am up against John Barnes and I have to look after this young kid as well? My god…'.

Barnes had just won the Football Writers' Association Footballer of the Year award having scored 22 goals in Liverpool's title win.

Laws was understandably nervous about the prospect of having Keane ahead of him but it turns out, he didn't need to be.

He added: "Within five minutes of the game, Roy had trampled on Barnes; he had stood on him. He booted him and then simply told him, 'F*** off' when he tried to complain.

"I had no reason to worry, he was fantastic. He wasn't a winger, you could see that, but he had so much energy and was completely fearless. He would throw himself into tackles and he did not give a s*** who the opposition were.

"I did not have to look after him. He looked after me.

"All the Liverpool players were looking at him as if to say, 'Who the hell do you think you are?'. He would just snarl."

It was classic Keane. Even at 19 years old he held no fear and despite a 2-0 defeat - Barnes only managed an assist - his presence was felt and the first chapter of an astonishing career in English football had been started.

After three years, Keane was on to bigger things and despite interest from Liverpool, Real Madrid, and Blackburn Rovers he joined Manchester United in 1993.

He played a pivotal role in the club's golden era during the late 1990s, and helped them win a historic treble in 1999.

In total, Keane helped Man United to seven Premier League titles, four FA Cups, and one Champions League, although he missed the final after a gargantuan act of self-sacrifice against Juventus in the second leg of their semi-final tie.

But at the start of it all, on a Tuesday night at Anfield, as a fresh-faced teen for Forest, Roy Keane did not give a f*** - and he never will.

You can listen to live talkSPORT commentary of Nottingham Forest vs Liverpool on Sunday, March 20 at 6pm