This Eric Cantona essay is written by Johan Larsson, Head of Content for PrimeGaming, owners of Prime Slots and Prime Scratch Cards gaming sites.
So we all settled down from the excitement over the 20th anniversary of the most famous kung fu kick in history – move aside Bruce Lee, the trophy of course goes to Eric Cantona. It was quite amazing to see the massive coverage it had generated last month, this one specific moment in one footballer’s career.
One moment in the one hundred and thirty seven years history of the greatest club in England.
But enough about that, we’re quite fed up with it. Cantona definitely had enough of it. Surely we can dig up something else about him, something other than his remarkable kicking skills, that if you think about for it for a moment, should’t have been such a grand surprise.
Well, actually the digging was already done, by no other than Roy Keane, another Man United legend who is not shy of controversies.
Keane’s second book, aptly titled The Second Half came out in October of last year and got the expected fanfare of quotes in the press, many of them laden with f***** and c***. What can we say, a star-laden book.
One episode from the book, which didn’t make the rounds, involves dressing room gambling, a jackpot of cheques, big balls and Eric Cantona.
As the story goes, at the time, each of the players would get a cheque of about £800 at the end of each season for the time they’ve put in for the in-house magazines and club videos. As Keane recalls, for footballers of United, who we can assume make decent money, £800, in his words “wasn’t going to make or break us”. So they decided to have some fun with it, to create one jackpot for one winner to take it all.
The deal went like this: all the cheques were put into a hat (apparently a real hat was used), being pulled out one by one, and the last one out, whosever name was on it got to keep the whole stack, which came to £16,000. Now that kind of money, even for a United man, is no small change.
Two of the new players opt out, Keane writes. They were making so little that eight hundred quid was too much for them to just gamble with. So cheques being pulled out one by one and guess who’s name came last – of course it was Eric Cantona. When the gods are on your side apparently they never lose sight of you. So sixteen grand went to the highest paid player of the club.
Here comes the real kicker in this tale. Cantona had the cheques cashed, and split the money between Paul Scholes and Nicky Butt, at the time new players in the team. He said they had the balls to join the jackpot even though they really couldn’t afford it.
Even Keane, not the most compliment-spewing guy in Ireland, wrote, “I just thought, what a gesture. Nobody else would have done it.” He’s absolutely right. That’s a real man’s gesture. Even if Cantona was making loads of money at the time, it doesn’t matter, for two reasons. First, most of the wealthy are terribly, let’s say ‘thrifty’ and second, it wouldn’t have a been a greater gesture if Contana was less well-off.
So there you have it, something else to cherish about one of the greatest of Man United. A hell of kicker, on the field and all around it, but also a decent truly guy.
Miss you Eric!