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Roy Keane leads Man United legends in Liam Miller tribute match

  /  autty

Roy Keane led a host of former Manchester United, Celtic and Republic of Ireland stars as they turned out on Tuesday afternoon to play a game in tribute to Liam Miller.

Over 45,000 turned up to pay tribute to the former Republic of Ireland international, who played for United and Celtic during his club career, passed away earlier this year after a long battle with cancer at the age of just 36.

And a selection of his former team-mates played in a game between a United select side and a Celtic and Republic of Ireland combined team on Tuesday afternoon.

United player-manager Roy Keane called on Gary Neville, Wes Brown, John O'Shea and Mikael Silvestre in defence.

He also turned to former team-mates Nicky Butt, Paul Scholes and Ryan Giggs in midfield, while handing a place alongside them, in Keane's usual role, to Alan Smith.

Louis Saha started up front alone for United.

The Republic of Ireland and Celtic combined XI included the likes of Robbie Keane, Ian Harte, Damien Duff and Kevin Kilbane.

Ex-midfielder Keane seemed to be in good spirits as he greeted people in the tunnel at Cork GAA's ground Pairc Ui Chaoimh ahead of the match.

He wore the current United team's training gear, including a pair of shorts, as he prepared to play a role himself in the match on Tuesday.

The opening goal of the game came from an unlikely source as Denis Irwin fired in a penalty in the first 20 minutes of the match.

Louis Saha then dashed the entire length of the opposition half with the ball before tucking it past David Forde in the net to double United's lead.

But they were eventually pegged back by Robbie Keane, who cut inside on his right foot from the left wing and fired into the back of Kevin Pilkington's net.

Miller, who earned 21 Republic of Ireland caps during his playing career, also played for Sunderland.

He represented Cork club Eire Og as a youngster while playing Gaelic football and hurling before starting his football career.

Tuesday's match was created to raise money for Miller's family and for charities.