SIMMONS SPEAKS

Matthew Simmons in The Observer Sport Monthly

'I was in the wrong place at the wrong time,' he says now, then draws a diagram in my notepad to show where he was sitting that night and exactly what happened after Cantona was sent off. 'This is the main stand at Selhurst Park. It's easier to go down the aisles and along the gangways to get to where you want to go. I was on my way to the toilet when I saw him approaching. Not much of an excuse, I know, but sometimes the truth is the simplest of things. Being where I was, probably wasn't the wisest thing. But it is not a criminal offence and certainly does not mean I should be hung, drawn and quartered.'

Having been charged with assault, Cantona told Croydon crown court that, as he walked along the touchline, he had heard Simmons insulting his mother in the crudest way. Simmons is adamant that Cantona lied. 'For God's sake you can't say a worse thing about anyone [than what he alleges I said], can you? What he did in saying that was totally unjustified. The man is filth. How can he accuse me of saying such a thing? Where has this allegation against me come from? From him. It ruined my life. And that is why it is inexcusable.'

Cathy Churchman, who was next to Simmons that night, concedes she never heard what Simmons said. 'There were all these people who said, "Oh we could hear what he shouted out". That's absolute and utter crap because I never heard anybody shout. Everybody was booing because he [Cantona] was sent off. So those who were sitting 11 rows behind us and who claim they could hear what was being said are talking rubbish.'

So what, then, did Simmons actually say? 'Well, unbelievably, not much at all,' he tells me. 'It was so trivial I can't even remember. It was nothing offensive or rude that's for sure. And nothing to justify anything that's happened to me since.'

So what, then, did Simmons actually say? 'Well, unbelievably, not much at all,' he tells me. 'It was so trivial I can't even remember. It was nothing offensive or rude that's for sure. And nothing to justify anything that's happened to me since.'

It has been a delicate process persuading the 30-year-old to meet me. I wrote to him on several occasions and visited the house in Thornton Heath, south London - a few minutes' walk from Selhurst Park - where he has lived all his life with his mother, Jackie. One evening I met Jackie and, standing at the doorway of her house, we discussed her son's visits to Selhurst Park as a youngster, how he had been a ball boy and had helped his mother serve drinks in the club bar. Simmons's father had left home when Matthew was a young child - but that, he says now, was all right 'because I thought at the time, "That gets him out of the way".'

In 1995, Eric Cantona was perhaps the greatest draw in British sport. With his hauteur and chequered disciplinary record, as well as his sublime talent, he dominated the emerging celebrity culture of English football. Simmons, by contrast, had a dark and troubled past, which the tabloids wasted little time in revealing.

They discovered, for instance, that he had attended British National Party and National Front rallies and that, in 1992, he was convicted of attempted violent robbery when he attacked an attendant in a Croydon petrol station. He assaulted Sri Lankan-born Lewis Rajanayagam with a three-foot spanner, striking him in the shoulder rather than the head only because the sales assistant took evasive action. 'I was absolutely terrified,' Rajanayagam said. 'I thought he was going to kill me. Simmons went for my head. If it had hit me there, I would probably have had a broken skull.'

'I am so ashamed of myself,' Simmons says now of the attack. 'People must have raised an eyebrow. Fair enough. But, that did not make me guilty of any wrongdoing in this [the Cantona] incident.'

Simmons was 17 when he attacked Rajanayagam. He was 20 when what he repeatedly calls 'the incident' occurred. At his subsequent trial for threatening language and behaviour, he attacked the prosecution counsel after being found guilty, leaping over a bench and executing a flying kick of his own. He was sentenced to seven days in jail, but only served 24 hours.

He sold his story to the Sun. 'That was a big mistake,' he says. 'What was happening was trial by media, so I thought I needed to have my say. But they [the Sun] asked a question and I would give an honest answer, but it did not turn out like that.'

How much was he paid for the interview? 'It wasn't much.' Tens of thousands? 'No, a few thousand upfront and then the rest was supposed to be paid as a balance. But they never paid. They never do.'