ROY Keane has revealed via Instagram that he has become a grandad at the youthful age of just 49.
The retired former Ireland captain gave his one million followers a glimpse of his gentler side, posting a picture of him posing with his new grandson, humourously captioned, "Just like his grandad, always smiling!".
Both grandson and grandfather can be seen posing with deadpan expressions in the photo.
Comments and likes flooded in as fans showed their support for the Manchester United legend.
The post, which appears to be the first picture of Keane with his grandson, got nearly 400,000 likes within three hours of being published.
Keane’s arrival to Instagram has caused some commotion among fans who were surprised that the former Man United captain had created an account.
A week ago, he uploaded his debut post: a picture of him posing with his dog, captioned, “A man’s best friend”.
In the past, Keane has criticised the pageantry that social media has brought to the sport and has let rip at Arsenal players for being more concerned “about how their hair looked” than winning a game.
He seems keen to have some fun while on the platform, though, and treated his followers to a little valentines day banter last weekend as he posted an photo of him being choked by a West Ham player while playing for Nottingham Forest in the 1990s – with the sardonic caption: “Don’t forget to show some love today”.
Among the respondents to Keane’s cute snap with his baby grandson was Manchester United’s official Instagram account, which, expressing a widely felt sentiment, simply wrote: “This is going to be good”.
Some fans have questioned if the account is actually Roy Keane, but fellow Sky Sports pundit Micah Richards has ruled out the possibility of a doppelgänger, saying:
“He was told nobody will agree to make our road trip series unless he’s on Instagram so here he is!!!
“You can also expect behind the scenes footage of my kitman duties when he gets a job again,” Micah said.
