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Eric Cantona And The Avant-Garde

1 Leave a comment on verse 1 0 For a few years, at his peak, he came to represent
A cross between Jean-Paul Sartre and Bobby Charlton.
He was too clever for them all. Even the kung-fu kick
Could, in some ways, be justified, an act of sensitivity
Against an offensive racism which has to be confronted.

2 Leave a comment on verse 2 0 My friends say he was ‘a dirty s-d’
But to us who loved him, he was simply ‘God’.

Notes

I can’t remember which journalist in The Guardian first used the phrase ‘Eric Cantona is the Avant-Garde’, but it certainly stuck with me. My favourite Cantona moment, from so many, was not actually one of his goals, but the shortest of ‘dinked’ passes he played to set up Denis Irwin for a goal against Tottenham in the 1993 Championship season. I don’t think British football will ever see his like again.

Source: http://footballpoets.org/poems/eric-cantona-and-the-avant-garde/