If Roy Keane Was A Taxi Driver

3rd Feb 2015

Roy Keane was recently subjected to the disrespectful behaviour of a langball taxi driver in Manchester. As a Leesider he’ll have high standards when it comes to cabbies so coming across a tool like the one who went screaming to the media like a little child when Roy told him a few home truths is a red rag to any Rebel.

No doubt The Boy, like most of us, has some strong opinions on taxi drivers and their behaviour so this week we’ve been imagining what Roy would be like if he decided to become one himself…

There’s no doubting Keane would run an extremely efficient service – the cab would be gleaming inside and out with just one bumper sticker that says “If you can read this then you can’t see me glaring at you in the rear view mirror”.

If you needed to be at the airport (and by that we should mention that we mean Cork Airport and not Dublin as by the time you read this the place might have been turned into a Coddle Factory by Aer Lingus and the DAA) for an early morning red-eye flight Keano would be revving his engine outside your gaf at least fifteen minutes before you’d asked him to collect you.

Usually, if a cab turns up earlier than the time you had booked it for you’re entitled not to feel guilty as you pack the last of your things, give your choppers a quick rinse and double check you’ve turned everything off. You are the customer so he can wait.

However, If you knew it was Roy anxiously tapping the steering wheel and staring directly in your bedroom window with a furrowed brow  as you draw back the curtains, there would be a certain sense of duty to leave as soon as possible – you’d want to be on time for him.

The worst thing that could possibly happen is to be a few hundred yards down the road and realise that you forgot your boarding pass. Roy would be so disappointed as he pulls a handbrake u-turn and speeds back to your gaf - shaking his head in disbelief and refusing to speak to you. It doesn’t need to be said but Roy’s famous ‘fail to prepare, prepare to fail’ mantra would be ringing loudly in both your heads.

While Roy has a deep fondness for all things Cork, he would be unlikely to follow one of the city’s oldest taxi traditions – never using indicators. Many Cork people don’t realise that this tradition began when Ford first introduced the indicator to vehicles in the 1930s. When the taxi regulator in Dublin declined a request to allow drivers to charge passengers more for operating the new indicator stalk Cork’s cabbies refused and the tradition stands to this day. At least that’s the made-up excuse we once got from a driver!

Roy would enjoy using the indictors to let everyone (including the long line of stalkers, autograph hunters and tabloid fiction writers that follow him around) know where he’s going and drivers who refuse to use theirs would get the trademarked ‘Roy Stare’ at the next set of lights which, as a taxi driver in Manchester recently found out, can be almost fatal.

Many taxi drivers, possibly for the sake of banter, will offer unlimited amounts of sympathy for even the most trivial life trouble you reveal to them. If you’re on the way to the doctors because your friends fooled you into chugging a bottle of washing up liquid in the pretence it was the latest super-cool hipster craft beer from some former soviet state then most Cork taxi drivers will tell you that “it could easily happen to the best of us”.

Roy is unlikely to be as sympathetic. So you had to come back from the States because you failed an exam? Well, why didn’t you study harder for it?! And expect him to add an additional ‘muppet charge’ to your fare. Choose your life stories carefully.

Many taxi drivers will carefully suss you out to see if your political views line up with their own extreme views using carefully worded questions. “The water charges thing is big news now isn’t it?”. That leaves wiggle room for most opinions and if their own views happen not to align with your own then you can both agree that you’re sick of the whole thing and it’s all Bertie Ahern or some other Dub’s fault anyway.

With Roy you might be asked a trick question like “City were unlucky the other night against Shams, weren’t they?” . You happily agree saying Johnny C was right to be cautious and play five across the middle and at least they got a point for the draw. Bad move – Roy will now dress you down and say that Shams were there for the taking and City should have pushed on, played two up front and that being cautious will never win you the league.  

As a driver though Roy would get you exactly where you want to go and he’ll have you there quicker than you expected. Like his talent on the pitch for making deadly accurate passes in tight spaces and controlling the tempo of a game, Roy would know exactly how to mix it behind the wheel too.

Sometimes he’ll use the main thorough-fares – sending the cab down route one – the South Link, the Straight Road, Boreenamanna and so on. Others times he’ll pull off a piece of magic and use those wise old taxi driver rat-runs like Knapp’s Square, Bowling Green Street, Cotter’s Street, Mahony’s Avenue, Quaker’s Road, York Hill (often mixed up with York Street so don’t embarrass yourself) and leave you gobsmacked as you arrive to your destination in record time.

Just make sure you don’t put him off while he’s working: have your phone on silent.