I was there the night in 1995 that Eric Cantona leapt into a football crowd Kung Fu style, fed up at having been sent off. It was hilarious and I’ve never been able to take the poor diddums seriously since.


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Not so film director Ken Loach, who buys into Cantona’s cliched man-of-mystery image for his latest film, Looking for Eric, in which the ex-Manchester United star appears as a sort-of guardian angel, on earth to save a postman down on his luck.

The film has its moments, but it can’t help drift into the lame territory of daft whimsy. Yeuch.

Loach is known as a realist, so it’s safe to assume his original plan was to have Cantona wallop characters at random throughout the film, Cantona’s modus operandi mirroring the way life hits you from all angles when you’re down.

Sadly, Cantona must have booted this scenario into touch. Loach should have sent him packing along with the whimsy and told him his fighting talents were better suited to Red Cliff, also out this week, a movie about a Manchester United fan called Cliff, whose lonely life is given meaning by martial arts in Commuinst China.