Soccer Interview with Andy GrayMary Hannigan finds the Sky Sports football pundit as animated in real life as he expounds on job, playing career, hating managers and loving Roy Keane

You'd have imagined that when he talks about football for a living, commentating on 100 games a year for Sky Sports, that Andy Gray would tire of the subject at some stage. True, he's in Dublin to promote his autobiography, but time's up, he needs to be on his way for a radio interview. The man who needs to get him there is nervously looking at his watch, but Gray's still talking football. And there's just no stopping him.

"Coming now," he says, before continuing to describe the nature of some of the "fan" mail he gets at Sky. "One fella wrote to me religiously for about three years, every month. Terrible language. He could barely spell 'and', so I ignored them.

"Venomous. Just hated me in general, ranting and raving. If somebody sends me a letter like that, 'you beeping beeping beep', I just rip it up. But that's the way it is, I'm working in a game that's passionate," he says. With passion.

"A fan in a football shirt," was how he described himself when he played the game; now, he's a fan in the commentary box. But not of any particular club, he'll tell anyone who'll listen. "People always level that criticism at me," he sighs, "telling me I don't like their team. I'm not a supporter of anyone, but I'm a massive fan of teams like Manchester United and Arsenal because of the way they play the game."

But he still finds it hard to convince some supporters he doesn't hate their clubs. "I went to the Worthington Cup final last year with some pals. Manchester United v Liverpool. We were sat in the hotel, having a glass of wine. Up pops a United fan. 'I just want to ask you why you hate United?' I said: 'I don't hate United'. He said: 'you do - and you love Liverpool'. I said: 'I don't'. He said: 'you do - and I just wanted to tell you that'.

Within five minutes up comes the Liverpool fan. 'Why do you hate Liverpool?' 'I don't hate Liverpool'. 'Yes you do, and you're always slagging us off. And you love United, you're a big United fan'.

"My mates are sitting there laughing. What can you do?" he says, throwing his arms in the air.

He's no less animated talking about Ireland and the return to international football of you-know-who. "I think they're progressing great," he says. "I wasn't quite sure when Brian (Kerr) took over how they were going to cope because it looked, in the last few games under Mick (McCarthy) that they'd let things slip. I wondered if they had enough coming through, if they had enough talent, but I think Brian has done really well.

"When you look at the side you had against the Faroes, when you look at the goalkeeper, the back four, well, you'd be happy with that anywhere. You've got Damien (Duff) and, of course, you've got Roy in midfield. Back in the fold."

He grins a grin that says: "I know, I know, I shouldn't mention the war". It seems, he's as energised now about the Keane/McCarthy saga as most Irish football supporters were in the summer of 2002. A read of his * book explains why: Gray's relationship with his Aston Villa manager Ron Saunders, uncannily mirrored the relationship between Keane and McCarthy.

He loathed Saunders. There were many reasons for the antipathy, one was Saunders publicly accusing him of cheating the club and the supporters by not playing in the second leg of the UEFA Cup quarter-finals away to Barcelona. Gray was injured, but Saunders implied he could have played if his heart was really in it. Gray was incensed.

"I don't know a player worth his salt who hasn't fallen out with his manager," he says. "I fell out with most of mine, but it never stopped me playing for them, it never stopped me giving my best. I fell out with Howard Kendall at Everton, Ron Saunders at Aston Villa, Jim McLean at Dundee United, all of them, called them all sorts. But you can't be friends with everyone. In a 22-man squad everyone doesn't like each other and everyone doesn't need to. I know Mick had a lot of backers at the time, but I was very much on Roy's side, I have to be honest.

"If you're a manager you have to keep your good players there. I just think Mick could have handled it better, but he's argued with me before on this point. Mick could have said: 'look, I don't like you, you don't like me, that's fine, but let's sort this out after the tournament. I need you here, you're our best player, you're our figurehead, I know you're not happy, but let's put it to bed for the next month, after that we can deal with it. Let's get on with doing the best for our country'.

"That might have defused it. But Mick didn't do that. I think he made up his mind that Roy was going and he was never going to be shifted from that. I think if he wanted Roy to stay he could have made it happen. But Mick's stubborn. And Roy's stubborn. They both probably have regrets. Or maybe they don't," he laughs.

Is he surprised Keane is back playing for Ireland? "No because he always said if the manager was different he would consider his position. The only thing that surprised me, knowing the demands on him at United, was that he didn't do what many players in their 30s have done: decided that they can't combine the two.

"Look at Gary Speed, retiring from playing for Wales this week, much the same age. Alan Shearer for England, Gary McAllister for Scotland before that, decided to save himself, so it just shows how strongly Roy feels about playing for his country, even at the age he's at.

"I'm just a massive admirer of Roy. Massive. In the years of the Premiership Roy is, without doubt, in the top three players who've graced it. Only Shearer, in my book, would beat him, but that's because I was a forward," he laughs.

"I just love Roy. Maybe it's a celtic thing, I don't know. We're the same in that respect: you wear your heart on the sleeve. I like people like that. I would hate our game to turn in to a game played by robots who didn't really care, no passion. That would be sad because football's about passion, it's about your emotions."

He's no more enamoured by managers who produce teams with no flair. For this offence he points the finger at Gerard Houllier and Jose Mourinho. And Damien Duff, he fears, could suffer under Mourinho's Chelsea regime.

"You look at their teams and they're almost mechanical at times. Where's the flair? Where's the flamboyance? Where's the ambition? You see it in United, you see it in Arsenal, their managers have an eye for the 'unnatural', whereas Mourinho is just rigid. Houllier was the same.

"That's why I worry about Damien. Is Mourinho going to allow this guy with flair come and play for his team on a regular basis? That's what's going to be fascinating with Chelsea this year, with Damien playing so well again for Ireland. You think how the hell can he not get picked for Chelsea? I would play him every time.

"If he gets the chance Duff has got to prove to Mourinho he's what he needs, because Chelsea do need the X-factor, they're predictable in everything they do.

"But people do go overboard with Damien. He had a great World Cup and everyone said he was world class - he wasn't world class. What he needed after that was consistency and he didn't have it. He lost a little bit. Now, hopefully, he'll get the opportunity to have a great season, then another, then another, then we can call him world class. 'World class' only comes with longevity. People like Keane and Patrick Vieira can be called world class because they do it week in, week out, everywhere, at every level. But Damien, definitely, has the ability to reach that level."

After a 17-year playing career, the highlight of which was his time at Everton when the club won the League, FA Cup and European Cup Winners' Cup, Gray joined Sky Sports, in 1991, on its launch. His brother Duncan also works for the channel, providing the statistics that appear on-screen during games.

What of the criticism oftenlevelled at Sky, particularly in the early days . . . it's Leicester v Bradford, for example, on a wet and windy Tuesday night. It finishes 0-0, not a shot on target, barely two passes strung together. Is it not true Sky would have it we'd just watched a game on a par with Brazil in 1970? "No, don't agree," he says, emphatically. "I've had this out many times before. I don't agree because I did those games. I have a huge respect for the football fan so I would never insult one. I've done many a game over the last 10 years that have bored the pants off me, and I've always said so."

But Richard Keys (Sky Sports' football presenter)? "Well, yeah, I understand that criticism, but in Richard's defence, he has to build the game up for an hour. His business is to 'up' people, get them to look forward to the game. But if we get a duff one and he says 'wasn't that wonderful', I'll say: 'Keysie, do us a favour mate'.

"But I like to accentuate the positive. Any goal scored can be prevented if you take it to the nth degree, but sometimes you just have to say, 'that was fantastic', regardless of a small error here or there in defence. Why not concentrate on the really good things in a game? If I'm charged with that I would plead guilty." Speaking of Alan Hansen . . .

"Well, Alan will always think first as a defender, he'll say the defending was rubbish, it should have been better, but sometimes you've just got to say: 'what a goal'. Watch and enjoy."

He loves his job, he says, butadmits it pales next to the joy of actually playing. "Nothing can give you that thrill and certainly nothing compares with the thrill of scoring a goal - at the risk of upsetting my children, that's the greatest feeling in the world," he says.

"There's never going to be anything I do for the rest of my life that will compare with the feeling of seeing the ball hitting the back of the net, particularly in games that really mattered. Live television is good and it does get the adrenalin going but, na, it's still way down second best."

* Gray Matters, The Autobiography (MacMillan, €24.50).

"One Christmas, Mum gave the four of us a Subbuteo set ... but whenever I conceded a goal I'd be so angry I'd grab all the players and start packing them away in the box. Most matches seemed to end with Mum bundling me off to bed in tears."

- On the earliest example of his loathing of losing.

"I'd grown up in a house in Glasgow where nobody would eat the Penguin biscuit in the green wrapper. In other words, we were Rangers through and through."

- On his family's footballing affiliations.

"Chasing his over-hit passes at United reduced my playing career by at least 18 months."

- On playing with Walter Smith, the future Rangers and Everton manager, at Dundee United.

"I hopped in the taxi to Glasgow Airport with just one thought in my mind - where on earth was Aston Villa?"

- On leaving Dundee United for ... for ... he wasn't quite sure where.

"'You're much taller than I thought,' he remarked."

- Aston Villa chief scout Neville Briggs when Gray arrived at the club in 1975. Gray was wearing platform shoes.

"'You're from Drumchapel in Glasgow, laddie. What do you know about prawn cocktails? You'll have the soup like the rest of us'."

- Scottish manager Jock Stein after Gray chose a "posh" starter from the menu at the team hotel.

"Ron Saunders was petrified of flying . . . when we were coming in to land Budge sneaked up behind him, blew up a sick bag and then, just as the landing gear came down, burst it. When he heard the bang Saunders jumped so high he almost sacked his head off the luggage rack."

- Explaining why goalkeeper John Burridge didn't last long at Villa.

"Totally incredible. In my view it could have been governed by only one thing - money. And in many ways that tells you everything you need to know about Ron Saunders."

- On manager Saunders' decision to leave Aston Villa for their bitterest rivals, Birmingham City.

"There's no way I'd compare myself to Eric Cantona in terms of ability, but I think just as Old Trafford was made for Eric, so Goodison was made for me."

- On the happiest spell of his career, at Everton.

"My second spell at Aston Villa ended in the summer of 1987 with the arrival of Graham Taylor. You could say it resulted from a clash of personalities - I had one and he didn't."

- Ouch.

"Having grown up in Glasgow as a rabid Rangers fan I'd have to be totally and utterly honest and say that if I hadn't lived in England for most of my adult life I might have been one of those Gers supporters who set fire to their season tickets and burned their scarves in protest at the signing of Mo Johnston."

- On Graeme Souness's decision to sign a Catholic player for Rangers.

Name: Andrew Mullen Gray. Born: Glasgow, November 30, 1955. Clubs: Clydebank Strollers (1970-1973), Dundee United (1973-1975), Aston Villa (1975-1979), Wolves (1979-1983), Everton (1983-1985), Aston Villa (1985-1987), Notts County (on loan, 1987), West Bromwich Albion (1987-1988), Glasgow Rangers (1988 -1989), Cheltenham Town (1989).

International career: Scotland (1975-1985, 20 caps, seven goals).

Honours: League Cup (1980, Wolves), FA Cup (1984, Everton), League Championship (1984/'85, Everton), European Cup Winners' Cup (1985, Everton), Scottish Premier League (1989, Rangers).

In 1977 Gray won both the Players' Player of the Year and Young Player of the Year awards (left) - the only player to have done so.

In 1979 he became the most expensive player in Britain when he moved from Aston Villa to Wolves for £1,469,000.

Joined Sky Sports in 1991 and became Ron Atkinson's assistant at Aston Villa. Left Villa after one season to work full-time with Sky.