Remember When (2008): Sunderland boss Roy Keane pulls the plug on Laois footballers training trip

*This article was originally published in the Leinster Express on April 9, 2008

Throughout the course of his colourful career Roy Keane has managed to rub people up the wrong way and last week the Sunderland manager added the Laois senior football panel to his list of victims.

Liam Kearns' panel were to travel to Sunderland for a weekend training trip at the end of this month to use the club's facilities over a three-day period, and although all the preliminary work had been done behind the scenes through local contacts with the Premiership club, Keane decided that the presence of the Laois senior footballers at their training ground would be too much of a distraction at what is a crucial time of their season.

Laois had plans to travel over on Thursday, April 24 (2008) and to undertake a number of intensive training sessions on the Thursday, Friday and Saturday before attending the Sunderland/Middlesbrough Premiership game in the Stadium of Light on the Saturday. They would then have had some free time before travelling home on the Sunday.

The players were to be informed last week of the details of the training weekend so as they could organise time off work but word came through that Keane had decided against allowing Laois use their facilities and the plan had to be scrapped.

It is the second blow that Liam Kearns has been dealt in relation to a training camp as the county board have already turned down a request for a week-long trip to La Manga in Spain, a venue that has become very popular with Gaelic football and hurling teams in recent years. But the prohibitive cost of the trip (believed to be in the region of €40,000) was the reason it was turned down, leaving Kearns having to look closer to home for such a trip.

Last year the panel went to Breaffy House Hotel in Mayo but are keen to try something different this time around in the bid to do a lot of hard work ahead of the opening round of the Leinster championship, against Wicklow or Kildare, on June 1.