Eric Cantona was always more than a footballer. To his teammates, he was a blessing. To Manchester United fans, a sort of maverick messiah. To all, an enigma. But ask Cantona himself, and I’m not sure what he’d tell you. The great showman of 1990s football has always styled himself as a renaissance man: off the pitch, he’s lunged into everything from modelling, to acting, to poetry, to oil painting. When he was banned from football for kung-fu-kicking a Crystal Palace fan, he took up the trumpet, listened to jazz. Now, on a bleary Friday evening in Manchester, the cult of Cantona gathers to witness the birth of Eric the singer-songwriter.
As cultists go, the crowd at the Stoller Hall are of the tame, plain-clothed variety – more cardigans than football shirts, though there are a few of the latter around. The sleek, upmarket auditorium seems like an odd venue for what you would assume is a gimmick act. From the first ominous hums, though, it’s easy to see why Cantona picked it. The music starts without him; he walks on the balcony above the stage, emerging in a spotlight like Tom Cruise in Magnolia. It is, as the French might say, une entrée grandiose. Cantona wears a fedora and a black trench coat, along with gaudy red tracksuit bottoms. He looks preposterous.
