Читать книгу 250 Days. Cantona’s Kung Fu and the Making of Man U онлайн

35 страница из 38

It was Ferguson’s special treatment of Cantona that made him so angry about the Frenchman’s actions at Selhurst Park. Having done so much to accommodate him, Ferguson expected to at least be met halfway. Cantona had made his manager look foolish, and Ferguson certainly knew that this was not an incident that could simply be brushed away through clever manipulation of the media.

Ferguson’s initial reaction was that Manchester United should sack Cantona. He describes the atmosphere around the club’s bigwigs as ‘filled with an overriding sense of doom’, but also meeting Sir Roland Smith and Maurice Watkins in the Edge hotel in Alderley Edge, Cheshire, the evening after the night before. Smith and Watkins were the chairmen of the club and plc. United’s share price had dropped by over 3 per cent in 24 hours.

Smith agreed with Ferguson that Cantona should be dismissed immediately, not least because neither could envisage a situation in which it was palatable for the Frenchman to play for the club again. In A Year in the Life, Ferguson’s diary of that season, the manager detailed his frustration at Cantona’s conduct: