From an article in Observer Sport Monthly
Asked about the karate kick: 'There was a barrier between us so I had to jump over it, that's all, otherwise I might have just steamed in with my fists. You know, you meet thousands of people like him [Simmons]. And how things turn out can hinge on the precise moment you run into them. If I'd met that guy on another day, things may have happened very differently even if he had said exactly the same things. Life is weird like that. You're on a tightrope every day.
'The most important thing for me is that I was who I was. I was myself! I don't think you can plan on when you're going to lose it, or anything like that. What matters when you do lose it, for a good or bad reason, is to try to understand why you do things. But life can be so complicated. Even if you understood why you did something, it doesn't mean you won't go and do the same thing again tomorrow. The best thing you can do is to take a step back and laugh at yourself. A bit of self-derision.'
Cantona was intent on 'being myself, who I was' at the court case that followed the kick, on 23 March, too. Cantona and Paul Ince, the United captain at Selhurst Park that night who had been involved in a melee with supporters in the seconds following Cantona's kick, were both charged with assault.
'We stayed at the Croydon Park hotel,' Ince remembers. 'So we got up in the morning and I've got me suit on - the nuts, know what I mean? I knock on Eric's door and he's standing in jacket, white shirt, long collars like that [he gestures to describe long, pointed collars], unbuttoned so you can see his chest. "Eric, you can't go to court like that", I told him and he says, "I am Cantona, I can go as I want". So he got in the dock and he got 14 days in prison. I thought, "Oh my god, it must be that shirt. It has to be the shirt, Eric." '
'There was always going to be massive [media] coverage because it was Eric Cantona,' Ince continues. 'I mean, you've seen things - clips in Brazil and Argentina when players have got sticks and they're whacking people, bang! But people don't know them so it doesn't go worldwide. But because it was Eric Cantona it was the biggest thing ever. It's a shame because people forget what a great player he was and what a great ambassador he was.'
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