this is on tonight at 10.30
Fourteen years after leaving Manchester United, one of the club’s most revered players, Eric Cantona returns to Manchester to look at the city’s passion for football and the rivalry between its two clubs. Filmed in the build up to the crucial Manchester derby at the end of the 2010 season, at a time when City’s injection of cash from their new billionaire owner is threatening to swing the balance of power between the rival clubs in their favour, this new documentary features interviews with Sir Alex Ferguson, Ryan Giggs, Sir Bobby Charlton, former Manchester City players Mike Summerbee and Andy Hinchcliffe and luminaries of the Manchester music scene including Peter Hook of New Order and Mani of the Stone Roses as well Eric’s encounters with devoted fans of both clubs.
Manchester United fans call him King Eric. In the five years he played for them United won domestic football’s biggest prize four times and became arguably the biggest club in the world. Eric says: “In Manchester people’s love for football runs like blood through their veins. To understand this city, you have to understand the strength of the fans’ passion for their club. I want to understand where the simple and beautiful love for football comes from.”
“I received so much from the fans, like nowhere else and I want to give them some love back.”
For many Manchester United fans, the team of the 1950s under Sir Matt Busby were the greatest ever and Eric meets Jim and Norman, two fans who have the unique privilege of being the only supporters allowed to watch the team train, as they have done since the days of the Busby babes.
Sir Alex Ferguson says: “I think the day Matt Busby walked through the doors here at Old Trafford Manchester United developed into a world brand, simply because of his vision of playing football.”
Following the Munich air disaster in 1958, in which eight United players lost their lives, a new great team, and a great team spirit was created. Matt Busby’s team of the 1960s made it back to the top just ten years after Munich. They won the European cup a week after Manchester City won their last league title.
In 1974 Dennis Law swapped sides to play for City and, in a match still etched on the minds of many of Manchester’s inhabitants, he scored the winning goal in a game against his old side on the day United were relegated. City went on to win the league cup two years later but have failed to lift any silverware since.
But this year Manchester City are a resurgent force and the local rivalry has intensified. Sir Alex Ferguson says: “All of a sudden this Middle East sheikh has bought the club and there’s an enormous amount of money. He’s thrown a lot of money immediately on his team to get above United…It’s put Man City on the front page where we were.”
With the derby game getting closer, the rivalry in the city intensifies. Eric explains: “I played in many derbies and it’s like no other match. You are playing for the pride of your team and the pride of your city. And on the pitch, you have to win.”
Eric surprises Manchester United fan Sean and his son at their house in the build up to the match. An amazed Sean says: “I’m just completely and utterly gobsmacked,. I can’t believe Eric Cantona was in my front room. I would have hoovered if I’d known he was coming.”
Eric joined Manchester United in 1992 and David Meek from Manchester Evening News remembers: “He had an imperial look about him with his collar turned up and that rather arrogant look about him.”
He soon made an impact on the team and Ryan Giggs comments: “You knew with Eric in the team that if he got the chance he’d put it away or if he got the chance to make the goal, he would. And it was the tight games which make the difference, which makes him a big player.”
In the derby game before Eric’s arrival at Old Trafford, the Reds suffered a 5-1 defeat at the hands of their rivals. The player who scored the winning goal, Andy Hinchcliffe, remembers: “When you’re 4-1 up against United, for a left back to score a goal like that and celebrate in the way that I did that’s maybe why it’s been remembered so dearly. The euphoria going around the stadium at the time carried you along.”
By the time of Eric’s first derby match expectation was high. Ryan Giggs says: “I think we’d just been knocked out of the Champions League by Galatasaray in the week so there was a lot of pressure. When United lose a game there’s a lot of pressure and if we’d lost that game the wolves would have been out.”
Things didn’t go according to plan straight away, but Eric made an impact as Sir Alex Ferguson explains: “We’re 2-0 down at half time in the derby. But you know what happens in football, a goal changes a game. Their left back had a bad header back towards his goal, and Eric came onto it and scored and the game absolutely changed. Eric started orchestrating everything…He got the second goal from a Ryan Giggs cross and they crumbled.”
At the time that Eric was establishing himself on the Old Trafford pitch, Manchester itself had become a mecca for music and nightlife. Owner of the legendary Hacienda night club Peter Hook of the band New Order remembers: “All the footballers went to the Hacienda. You got used to having all the footballers there because it was the centre of Manchester nightlife.”
Ryan Giggs says: “Me and my mates would go to the Hacienda and we were fully aware of what Manchester was like at that time with the Stone Roses, Happy Mondays, Inspiral Carpets and all that scene. It was a great place to live; it was a great place to go out.”
Mani, bassist of Manchester band the Stone Roses agrees that the city’s twin passions are football and music. He says: “Manchester United come out to ‘This is the One’ by the Stone Roses every week and I’m so proud of that. I could die tomorrow and I’d die a happy man. My team come out to my tune.”
As the day of the derby match arrives, Eric says: “A derby day in Manchester is a particular day; the city is cut in two. The blues and the reds invade the street. And if your club wins, then the city belongs to you. In factories, offices and homes the result of the derby takes on a special meaning.”
Ryan Giggs says that the pressure is no less intense for the players. He says: “You try and block it out of your mind but you can’t. You see it on the news, see it in the papers. Everywhere you go people you’ve never met before [say], ‘Make sure you win Saturday.’”
Sir Alex Ferguson agrees that Manchester derby games are different to any other. He says: “Those fans go into work on a Monday morning to face each other. The bragging rights they can get if their team wins that Saturday, it can probably last for months. When we come off that coach you can hear them: “Fergie, beat this mob,” as though you’re playing against some evil intruder into the world.”
Manchester United are fighting for top place in the Premier League, while Manchester City are aiming to finish in the top four to enable them to play Champions League football next season. After 90 minutes, it’s still nil – nil but in the final minute of added time Paul Scholes scores to give the red half of Manchester the win and the bragging rights until the next derby.
Following the match Eric visits staunch Manchester City supporter Joy and her daughter Laura, who’s married to a United supporter. Laura welcomes him in saying: “Even though you played for United, you’re welcome in my house!”
After talking about the match and the winning goal, Eric jokes: “I think you should play against United, a game of 85 minutes.”
After returning to the city that he made such an impact on nearly twenty years ago Eric says: “The most important thing I have seen in Manchester is it doesn’t matter who you support. People here love football, not to escape from reality but to live in another dimension for 90 minutes. And a derby is always a special day in this town.”
