Although football has cleaned up its act on the pitch, there was a time when players looked as though they could quite easily earn a living playing by the Queensbury rules rather than Football Association.
Players such as Chelsea’s ‘Chopper’ Harris, Leeds United’s Norman ‘bites yer legs’ Hunter and others were infamous in the 1970s and 80s for the combative way in which they played the beautiful game.
Fast forward a decade or two, and there were a handful of others that were cut from similar stock.
Patrick Vieira and Roy Keane spring to mind, and it’s the former Man United captain that Anthony Joshua thinks could’ve made it in the ring rather than on the pitch.
“If I was to pick a footballer who could make a great boxer… Roy Keane,” he said during a video for DAZN, cited by the Daily Star.
“Manchester United need someone like him, to get in there and say it how it is, doesn’t take any nonsense.
“In boxing, that’s the type of person you need to have.”
There will undoubtedly be a number of Keane’s opponents that will attest to the fact that he was as good with his fists as with his feet.