Eric Cantona and the mitigating effect of football

It’s 30 years since Eric Cantona kicked Matthew Simmons in Selhurst Park. It was arguably the most famous kick of all in English soccer and it didn’t even involve a ball.

In March, we reviewed Philippe Auclair’s book on Cantona, The Rebel Who Would Be King on the Ademola Bookmen Podcast which I co-host with my friend Al. We also reviewed another biography, In Search of Duncan Ferguson – The Life and Crimes of a Footballing Enigma by Alan Pattulo.

The two protagonists make for interesting counterpoints, as do their crimes. Cantona was banned for nine months from football for his infamous kung-fu kick. More significantly, while he was convicted of assault and sentenced to two-weeks in prison, this was reduced to 120 hours of community service on appeal.

Ferguson, on the other hand, has the regrettable distinction of being the first and only professional footballer in Britain to serve time in jail for something that happened on the field of play. The incident in question was his April 1994 headbutt on Raith Rovers player Jock McStay. He was convicted of assault later that year and spent 44 days in Glasgow’s Barlinnie Prison, Scotland’s most infamous jail.

If you compare the two incidents, there is no question that Cantona’s was worse. Indeed, its remarkable that Ferguson did time, when Cantona did not.

Not only did Cantona break the fourth wall and attack a fan rather than a fellow player, Ferguson’s headbutt was no different than the kind of act of aggression that happens in football almost every week. It was not exactly the kind of behaviour you would like to see but it was an unremarkable act of violence all the same.

One can only wonder what Ferguson thought when his one-time Everton team-mate was cast in bronze for the statue of the headbutt he was very famously on the receiving end of in the 2006 World Cup final. Not only was Zinedine Zidane not charged with any crime for this, the most famous headbutt of all, FIFA ruled that the red card he received on the field was sufficient punishment. The statue now stands outside the Pompidou Stadium in Paris; a celebration of the very kind of act of violence that landed Ferguson in jail.

But if you compare Cantona and Ferguson the individuals, perhaps you get closer to the nub of the issue.

Both men were incredibly fiery tempered. Cantona didn’t depart France so much as flee it, leaving behind a series of incidents involving attacks on teammates, referees, opponents, and yes, even fans. As a young player with Auxerre, during a game in Poland, he went fists first into the crowd after an egg had been thrown at him. The coup de grâce for his career in France came after he threw a ball at a ref and later told each of the members of the French FA disciplinary panel that adjudicated on the issue that they were idiots.

But significantly, Cantona’s violence, however ill-advised, all happened on or at least around the edges of the field of play.

This was not the case with Ferguson. His headbutt on McStay was his fourth conviction for assault. At the time it happened, he was on probation for one of these previous convictions, none of which happened anywhere near a football field.

But perhaps the major contrasting point is that Cantona was just better at football. His kick on Simmons caused a massive outcry. After it happened, it seemed certain that his time in English football was over. He was immediately banned for the rest of the season by the FA but this was challenged by an MP in court, so huge was the clamour in his defence.

Cantona had won the PFA Player of the Year the previous year and his goals had helped Leeds and then Manchester United win the league in each of his first three seasons in English football. Alex Ferguson endured the slings and arrows of tabloid outrage and stuck by his man after the kick. Cantona came back and went on to win the league two more times for United

Duncan on the other hand had signed for Rangers in 1993 for a British record transfer fee of 4 million pounds but hadn’t scored a single goal for them in the nine months before the headbutt. He had signed from Dundee United at a time when Rangers were five league trophies deep into their 9-in-a-row, but he failed to dislodge Mark Hateley from the team. By the time he was jailed, he was already out on loan to Everton.

If the claim that it was Cantona’s skills on the field that saved him from prison seems outlandish, there is one revelation in Auclair’s book that should be taken account.

Auclair says that Cantona’s former Auxerre manager, Guy Roux, prevailed upon President Francois Mitterand to intervene with the British government after Cantona’s conviction. Although the ailing President did not raise it directly with 10 Downing Street, Auclair states that a message was sent from the French President’s Office to the British Home Office about the case with a note stressing that a jail-term for Cantona could lead, rather inexplicably, to tensions between the youth of France and England.

If this is indeed true, then it’s hard to argue with the idea that it was Cantona’s football skills that saved him from two weeks in prison. Lady Justice is said to be blind but even she couldn’t resist the majesty of Eric Cantona’s football.

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