04-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Daily Mirror
Ex-Man Utd star recalls time Roy Keane 'spat out his tea' after £12,000 gaffe
Lee Sharpe has recalled how Roy Keane once spat out his tea in surprise after mistakenly paying 10 times more for a watch than he intended.
Having only recently joined Manchester United, Keane was convinced by Sharpe to spend some of his newfound earnings on a fancy piece of jewellery.
Never one to flaunt the cash too much, Keane did his best David Beckham impersonation by spending £12,000 on a Rolex that he mistakenly thought cost only £1,200.
Keane has told the story a number of times in the past, often blaming Sharpe for stitching him up, but Sharpe has now had his say on the hilarious incident.
"Roy got a bit confused about the prices and the numbers. So I took him to my mates' jewellers, and he wanted a Rolex watch. So my mate put 10 Rolex's out, Roy looked at them all, and then he decides he's going to pick this gold Dayton, so Roy says, 'yeah, I'll have that so here's my credit card'," Sharpe told
"My mate goes 'okay, I'll go clean it up and box it up for you' and we were having a cup of tea downstairs in this little private VIP room and Roy said, 'oh, your mate's a top man. It's business and he's trying to make a living and trying to make as much money as he can, and he put 10 watches out there and told me to have the cheapest one. He's one unbelievable bloke'
"I said, 'you're taking the p*** aren't you?' Roy thought it was £1200, and I had to tell him it was £12,000. His face just went scarlet, he spit his tea out and said please don't tell the lads, it's too expensive I can't believe I paid that for a watch. So, then he's like, don' tell the lads, because I've only just got the club, they're going to think I'm really flash. I'm not that kind of guy.
"So, of course, next day, Roy walked into training and there's pictures of watches and clocks and everyone's asking him the time. He never lived in down for paying £12k for a watch."
Sharpe's telling of the tale lines up well with Keane's own memory of the incident, which he divulged in a chat with Gary Neville on Neville's The Overlap YouTube platform a number of years ago.
When I first came to United, I had been at Forrest, I thought, 'yeah, a nice watch'," Keane said. "I was in town with [Lee Sharpe], great guy, and we saw this Rolex.
"I didn't have a clue, a Rolex watch, God knows. The guy was trying to sell me this watch and I was looking at it and it was £1,100.
"But there was another watch for £2,000 but the guy was saying to me, 'I would recommend the the one for £1,100.' I was thinking he was a good guy, because I thought he wasn't trying to sell me the more expensive one.
"He took the watch, I said to Sharpie he seems like a good guy, he's not trying to sell me the more expensive one, and he went, 'what do you mean?'
"I said he has given me that one, I've given him my credit card for £1,150'. And Sharpe went 'no, no, that was £11,500!' I said, 'are you f****ing serious?'"
Never one to admit defeat, Keane held onto the watch for all these years and according to the man himself it has actually gone up in value.
"I still have the watch," Keane said. "It has gone up in value, so I think I was thinking long term. So who is laughing now?"
