There are just those moments where it feels like someone has poured cold water down your spine - Stephen Ward can surely sympathise.
In the dying days of Martin O'Neill's Ireland regime, word got out about a conflagration between Roy Keane and both Harry Arter and Jonathan Walters.
As it turned out, the information had come directly from the camp in the form of a leaked WhatsApp voice message from Stephen Ward, and Stephen joined Off The Ball this evening to run us through what happened.
"To be honest, I couldn't even remember it. It was six or seven weeks before [it was leaked]," said Ward to OTB.
"It wasn't even a story then. It was one of those things where it was a bit of naivety from me.
"It's a group I have with my close school friends and I was actually telling them that it was less than what had happened. It was just one of those things - once the Harry Arter thing came out, it appeared."
"It wasn't great, but I am old enough to learn from mistakes and face up to things when they happen. Whatever happened, I tried to calm it down as much as possible [...] you just move on. There's a lot worse things happening."
Ward joked about Roy Keane's reaction to the debacle, and elaborated on what it meant for their working relationship.
"He was delighted! That was probably the most disappointing thing because I had such a good relationship with Roy, I got on great with him and really enjoyed working with him.
"It was a mistake, but life goes on."
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