Cantona: The Rebel Who Would Be King

by Philippe Auclair

  Strangely, what should have been a stern examination of Éric’s temperament turned out to be a tepid affair, as if all the players – except Cantona himself – had really soaked up the hype to such an extent that they believed this game was about one man only. Even Neil Ruddock kept his own counsel – no collar jokes this time and, as David Lacey rightly pointed out, hardly any tackles either. Alone among the twenty-two players, only Cantona seemed to want more. With the score at 2–2, he could be heard shouting at the bench, ‘How long? How long?’

  Éric’s hunger was in evidence again two days later, when United travelled to York’s Bootham Crescent ground, forty coachloads of fans in tow, to try and make up for the 3–0 defeat they had conceded in Manchester in late September. They failed – just, Paul Scholes scoring a brace in a 3–1 win. The result was a setback, but was balanced by the fact that Cantona had played the full ninety minutes, and wanted more. So, on 7 October, 21,502 spectators turned up to watch their god in action against Leeds United – in a reserve game that attracted a bigger crowd than any other match played that Saturday in England. Éric unfortunately had to limp off the pitch after eighteen minutes, having hurt his right knee in a collision with Jason Blunt. The injury appeared to be slight at first, but caution had to be exercised in view of the forthcoming Manchester derby, an occasion which Cantona had always relished in the past. Mindful of the disappointment felt by the spectators, Éric had a message of apology read out on the ground’s PA by physio Robert Swaires, a gesture that was much appreciated. He also pulled out of a friendly played in Swansea in honour and for the benefit of former Bury manager Bobby Smith, against a Welsh XI that featured Ryan Giggs. This rest was to no avail: the knock he had suffered was more serious than thought – a medial ligament strain – and he could play no part in United’s 1–0 victory over City in the 123rd Mancunian derby. Frustratingly, he would have to wait until 21 October to play again. The Liverpool game had been a quasi-religious celebration of his relationship with the faithful; what awaited him at Stamford Bridge promised to be an ordeal instead of a grand-messe.

  Éric hadn’t been back to London since the Crystal Palace fracas. One of the Premiership’s most hostile crowds was waiting for him. What’s more, the referee of that game was none other than Alan Wilkie – the man who had dismissed him at Selhurst Park nine months earlier. Chelsea did all they could, and probably more than they should, to protect him. Every time he emerged on the field or left it, he was accompanied by a guard of eight stewards clad in DayGlo overalls – plus an impressively built security guard for good measure. The press were denied access to him. In fact, it was as if a magnetic field had been created around the player, which extended on to the pitch where the Blues gave such a feeble account of themselves that, ten minutes after the game had started, their supporters had changed the target of their jeers from Cantona to their own players. Éric couldn’t have hoped for a more comfortable afternoon, and contributed to three of his side’s four goals without really doing much more than walking the ball down the left wing. United, 4–1 winners, now stood second in the table, four points behind Newcastle.

  The next match (a visit by Middlesbrough), a homecoming of sorts for Bryan Robson, now Boro’s manager, was littered with ugly fouls and bookings, plus a sending-off, when Roy Keane reminded Jan-Aage Fjortoft of his days sparring in Cork’s boxing clubs by sending him to the ground with a powerful right hook. Three minutes before the final whistle, Éric cushioned the ball beautifully, turned it between Boro’s two central defenders, and served it up to Andy Cole on a silver platter. United won 2–0. The goals were not flowing as freely as before his ban (only one in four games since his return, and that from a penalty), but this was partly due to a slightly more withdrawn position on the pitch, behind Cole and the twenty-year-old Paul Scholes. But, slowly, Éric was finding his feet – and showing he could keep the lid on his temper. He still looked tentative at times, unsure of his rhythm, struggling to link up with Cole as he had done so naturally with Mark Hughes. He was also suffering from the uncertainty that could be detected in United’s play as a whole.

  In early November, Alex Ferguson’s work in progress was checked at Arsenal (0–1), as Newcastle dug deep to overcome Liverpool 2–1 at St James’ Park to establish a six-point cushion at the top of the league. United’s engine briefly clicked into gear after this reverse, admittedly helped by the mediocrity of the opposition. First Southampton, then Coventry assented to the former champions’ supremacy, shipping four goals each, Éric content with adding two assists to his account along the way. Then Nottingham Forest (who Cantona had described as ‘the most defensive side in the league’, somewhat harshly) produced a magnificent performance to earn a 1–1 draw on 27 November. Éric was back at his best, conjuring a penalty in the final third of the game when Chettle fouled him in the box. He converted it himself. Less than a week later, it was the Frenchman again who inspired a workmanlike Manchester United to another 1–1 draw, against Chelsea, teasing the Blues’ six-man midfield with his subtle runs and unerring vision: only Andy Cole’s profligacy cost Éric’s side two points, not for the last time that season.

  His team was undoubtedly struggling: Sheffield Wednesday left Old Trafford with a 2–2 draw, Liverpool prevailed 2–0 at Anfield, and United had now collected only 4 out of 12 possible points. In both games, however, Cantona had been the catalyst of almost all of United’s more dangerous moves: two goals (the second a beautiful volley which brought the scores level five minutes from time) rewarded him in the first game, while he showed admirable restraint in front of constant crowd abuse in Liverpool. But that wasn’t quite enough. By the time Leeds beat them 3–1 on Christmas Eve, United trailed Newcastle by 10 points, a gap that hardly a soul believed could be bridged. Keegan’s ‘Cavaliers’ cut quite a dash, while the tireless but awkward Andy Cole – a former Magpie himself – had become an infuriating symbol of and a scapegoat for all that was wrong with United, which was rather a lot. Nearly two months had passed since their last victory. Had it not been for Cantona’s superb form, their position would’ve been even more desperate, but they were given a chance to regain some pride and a modicum of hope when the leaders travelled to Manchester on 27 December. They seized it. Goals by Cole (at long last) and Roy Keane decided the game, Cantona winning hands down his duel with David Ginola, whom Dennis Irwin snuffed out of the proceedings.

  It had been a convincing victory, inasmuch as it confirmed that United could hold their own against any opposition on their day. But a single result couldn’t decide the outcome of the race for the championship. United could stir themselves out of a slump, but still lacked the substance to use an outstanding success as a foundation for consistency. Every team must learn how to hang on when its turn inevitably comes to cope with injuries, but Alex Ferguson’s assortment of youths and older hands had yet to coalesce into a real unit. With Steve Bruce, David May and Gary Pallister sidelined with a variety of complaints (Dennis Irwin and Peter Schmeichel would soon join them on the sick list), the manager turned to one of Éric’s former Auxerre teammates, William Prunier, to shore up his defence. Signed on Cantona’s recommendation, Prunier became a cult hero when he set up the first goal in United’s 2–1 grim win over QPR on 30 December, smacking the bar later in the game for good measure. But this would be the shortest-lived cult in the history of Manchester United. On New Year’s Day, Spurs beat them 4–1 at White Hart Lane, their biggest defeat in three years, for which the disconsolate ‘other Frenchman’, at fault on two of the goals, would pay dearly. Alex Ferguson would never select him again. The manager’s only consolation was that Andy Cole had scored his fourth goal in four matches.

  His friend’s humiliation may still have affected Éric when Sunderland came close to ending his club’s progress in the FA Cup third round later in the week. ‘When [Cantona] is subdued, United are only half the team,’ as a journalist wrote in his account of the 2–2 draw. Subdued or not, he still rescued his team with a header from a Lee Sharpe
free kick shortly before the final whistle. He had also looked within himself, and decided to demonstrate his attachment to United’s cause with a very public gesture: he shaved his head.

  He had done so once already when at Auxerre. But this had been the prank of a twenty-year-old who wanted to needle his then manager, Guy Roux. It was now a means of identification with the youth of his adoptive city, and a statement of intent as well: this was the look that many of the foremost musicians on the ‘Madchester’ scene had adopted, Shaun Ryder of The Happy Mondays and Black Grape, for example, and which had been copied by many of the young working-class fans who moved between the Hacienda nightclub and Old Trafford in their spare time. It also evoked pictures of commandos readying themselves for action on the front line – hard, uncompromising, fearless. At the end of the first match he played in this new guise – a goalless draw against Aston Villa, on 13 January – he walked off the pitch without shaking a single hand. This remoteness was understood at the time as an expression of his frustration with Andy Cole, which he had made obvious by huffs and puffs throughout the match. Nothing seemed to work any more. Even the two telepathists, Giggs and Cantona, played as if they were reading an absent friend’s mind. But I would argue that Éric was also building up his reserves of anger, coiling a spring that only he knew existed. Only he – and Alex Ferguson, who still believed, or claimed to believe in his side’s chances of regaining the title. ‘The Premiership is like the Grand National,’ he said. ‘People are falling at hurdles every week and Newcastle are going to come up against a testing time. Of that I am certain.’ So was Éric. But Éric had his own hurdle to jump over: what he intended to do for Manchester United, could he do for France as well?

  Éric Cantona was never afraid to contradict himself. ‘I talk a lot of bullshit,’ he once reminded a journalist. But it is one thing to change one’s mind, and quite another to hold two mutually exclusive opinions simultaneously, which is precisely what Cantona appeared to do when it came to money. The man who ‘wanted to be poor’ in 1987 was also by 1995 one of the best-paid non-American sportsmen on the planet. Éric the King was also the king of endorsements,50 Nike’s number-one weapon in their war against other sportswear corporations in Europe. He could hardly be blamed for making the most of his commercial opportunities, especially when they were exploited with some style and inventiveness. But Cantona’s relationship with the American manufacturer (which, revealingly, his retirement from football hardly affected) went far beyond what George Best did for a sausage-maker or David Ginola for a popular brand of shampoo. In truth, it belongs to another dimension altogether; and, for a long time, I struggled to make sense of it – until I shared a plate of pasta in the North London footballers’ belt with Alex Fynn, a man who played a key role in the establishment of the Premier League but has always remained ‘an outsider looking in’, as he puts it himself, when it comes to football. It was Alex who stood up in the middle of a recent Arsenal AGM to remind the club’s board they had made no mention of their recently departed vice-chairman David Dein in their annual report – the equivalent of the best man mentioning the groom’s ex-girlfiend in his wedding speech. Alex, to quote another fiend, has cojones.

  So, when I mentioned to him that I was writing this book and he told me that he had a couple of things that could be of value to me, I was naturally interested – very interested. I knew Alex had helped put together a largely pictorial account of Éric’s career. The book itself–Cantona on Cantona – nice enough to leaf through, was a money-spinning exercise about which Alex had no illusions. He had been brought in at the eleventh hour by the company that dealt with United’s commercial interests, as they despaired of ever convincing Éric to sit down and honour some of his contractual obligations – such as contributing to books and videos about himself, which could be sold to United fans for Christmas. Cantona showed very little inclination to talk to anyone at the time; he was in the middle of the ban inflicted on him after the Crystal Palace fracas. Alex – who spoke and could write decent French, and was not intimidated by his subject’s reputation – accepted the assignment, all the more eagerly since he had formed his own ideas about how best to exploit the Cantona ‘brand’, to the player’s as well as to the club’s advantage. His ambitions were not purely mercenary. He had been struck by the effectiveness of the Nike anti-racism campaign mentioned earlier in this chapter. Its success showed how the intelligent use of sporting ‘icons’ could have a far greater impact on public opinion than far costlier official ‘initiatives’. With this in mind, Alex believed that it was possible for the French football star to create a trust or foundation that would control and exploit his image rights for the benefit of many – without prejudice to his own earnings. Such a set-up had met with remarkable success for the Brazilian Formula 1 world champion Ayrton Senna, for example.

  Over the course of the two days Alex spent in a hotel with Cantona to ‘write’ the book (two days!), he mentioned his plans more than once, but always drew the same response from the player: Éric was not remotely interested. Such talk bored him. The interviews bored him too. Alex – who had been a top executive at Saatchi & Saatchi for a very long time – could not comprehend such apathy. What he was proposing – with the assent of the club and of the company representing the club’s interests in marketing and merchandising – could add a great deal of value to the Cantona brand, fill everyone’s pockets, and achieve a great deal of good for causes close to the player’s heart, should there be any, of course (something Alex had no means to ascertain). Only when photographs of Éric in action were laid out on the table did the player show any animation, indeed excitement. As long it was about him and him only, Cantona was no shrinking violet. He was happy to go along with what Nike and others offered him. Some of it was funny, some pompous, some distasteful, such as the use of the shaven-headed Cantona’s resemblance to Benito Mussolini to recycle fascist imagery and design in a later advertisement for La République du Football, a Nike-sponsored ‘football village’ set in the outskirts of Paris.

  Some of the comments Cantona made to justify his willingness to go along with almost anything strike me as utter – well, utter bullshit, to be frank. I have tried to find words more suited to the gravitas of a biographer, but failed. Here’s one of those comments. ‘Yeah, I acted that moment [at Crystal Palace],’ he said (the bullshit detector is already quavering). ‘It was a drama and I was an actor. I do things seriously, without taking myself seriously’ (it’s now vibrating dangerously). ‘I think Nike found that side of my character and used it very well. Even when I kicked the fan it is because I don’t take myself seriously’ (evacuation orders are issued). ‘I didn’t think because of who I was I had a responsibility not to do it. No, I was just a footballer and a man. I don’t care about being some sort of superior person. I just wanted to do whatever I wanted to do. If I want to kick a fan, I do it’ (the place is now empty). ‘I am not a role model. I am not a superior teacher telling you how to behave. I think the more you see, the more life is a circus.’ Who is the clown?

  He also hammed it up as a ringmaster in a Terry Gilliam superproduction that featured jailed’ footballers aboard a prison ship, and not without showing a certain talent for comedy. But he wasn’t merely playing a game. Three years ago, a charity game was organized with the help of Guy Roux between French and German sides, for which Éric was drafted at the last minute. He kindly consented to play, and all went well until he realized he had been given boots from the ‘wrong’ manufacturer – at which point he panicked. Rebellion has its limits.

  Nike’s exploitation of Éric’s status as an institutional rebel flattered his ego, fed his perception of himself as a messenger (I daren’t say an angel) of freedom. The ‘message’ might have been a universal one (joga bonito, play the beautiful game as it should be played, if one forgets about the sickly sentimentalization of Brazilian football that underpins the marketing exercise), but there was no doubt as to who would deliver it: Éric Cantona. When, in 1996,
a celebrated ‘Nike stars v The Devil’ ‘super-ad’ was shot at the Coliseum in Rome, it was Éric who dispatched the demon goalkeeper with a perfectly timed ‘Au revoir’. To me, if there is a shadow hanging over Éric’s personality, which must lead to uneasy questions about the sincerity of his sincerity, it has to be his self-serving compliance with the agenda set for him by his commercial partners, and his reactions when he felt his interests were threatened by outsiders in this regard, as the independent publisher Ringpull Press found to its cost in 1995.