Stuart Pearce never heard of Roy Keane even after his Nottingham Forest debut

Stuart Pearce has admitted that he never heard of Roy Keane even after his debut for Nottingham Forest.

Pearce was the captain of Forest when Keane signed for the club from Cobh Ramblers in 1990.

The former England international was injured when Keane made his debut for Forest in a 2-0 defeat to Liverpool at Anfield.

READ MORE: Rare interview gives glimpse of what Roy Keane was really like in training

And Pearce has admitted that he didn't even know Forest had signed the Corkman at the time.

He told Talksport: “I was injured at the time,” said the former full-back. “I didn’t go to the game. I was with the physio in the morning, the team were off that day and I was asking the physio a few questions about team line-up and whatever.

“I was talking about the Liverpool side and I said ‘who played right-wing?,’ expecting he was going to say Ray Houghton, and he said ‘Roy Keane’.

“I said ‘who’s Roy Keane?’ and he said ‘we signed him a couple of days ago from a League of Ireland team’. I’d never heard of him, I was the club captain and never heard of Roy Keane.”

Roy Keane playing for Nottingham Forest (Getty Images)

Pearce said Keane's involvement as a teenager was testament to Brian Clough's shrewd judgment.

“That was Cloughie,” said Pearce. “He’d put you straight in, he’d see something in you. If you can head the ball and you can play, little things like that.

“Roy was only a young kid at the time and I was 27 or 28 but he had something about him and for the couple of years that he was at Forest, he was magnificent.

“You could play him in any position, he was one of those. Play centre-half, play midfield, play the right side of midfield.”

After a couple of stellar seasons for Forest, Keane was soon attracting interest from the league's biggest clubs.

And it was Manchester United who signed him in 1993 for a British transfer record of £3.75 million.

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