Tottenham Hotspur icon Robbie Keane recalls reason behind the iconic cartwheel celebration
Robbie Keane played for many clubs during his playing days, including the likes of Liverpool, Tottenham Hotspur, Inter Milan and Leeds United.
But it was at Spurs where he made himself a household name. He scored 122 goals and provided 32 assists in 306 games across competitions for the club in his two spells at N17.
The 42-year-old retired from football in 2018. Among other things, he is currently Betway’s ambassador. The Republic of Ireland legend recently sat down with football betting site Betway and conducted a fun interview where he was asked to caption a series of photos from his playing days.
One of the first images showed him doing a cartwheel sporting a No. 22 Tottenham Hotspur jersey. It was his trademark celebration throughout his career and after nearly 25 years since being promoted to Wolves’ senior squad in 1997, he has given the reason why he used to do it so often.
He captioned the photo:
“The cartwheel. Well, I used to do it, I was quite flexible as a kid. I’m used to just always messing around in the streets. I scored a goal and, we used to play with the jumpers down and I scored a goal, I was just messing and I did a cartwheel and one of my friends John said to me ‘if you ever make it as a football player, that should be your celebration’.”
It has become one of the most iconic celebrations of our time and one that is largely unique to Robbie Keane. He was in the Tottenham Hotspur squad that won the 2008 EFL Cup – the last trophy we have won as of now.
He was then shown an image of himself celebrating the win some 14 and a half years ago with his teammates. Keane captioned it:
“Carling Cup, for Tottenham. You play football to win, so we celebrated for about three days after. We went back to the Grove Hotel, all the families, and we had a party there. I remember I had a dance-off with Ramos, the manager’s son, which I won, just to let you know.”
It went on to be Keane’s first and last trophy in English football. He did win the MLS Cup thrice with LA Galaxy, however, later in his career.
