When Eric Cantona rewarded Paul Scholes and Nicky Butt with 16,000 pounds

Roy Keane has rememberd the day captain Eric Cantona handed over £16,000 to Paul Scholes and Nicky Butt for showing bravery in a dressing room game.

Cantona announced his retirement at the end of the 1996-97 season giving Roy keane the arm-band.

In his new autobiography, The Second Half, Keane writes about an incident when Cantona’s leadership style came through brightly after the former Leeds United forward gave away his earnings in a dressing room end-of-season lucky draw.

“In my early years at United, there was a players’ pool and each of us would get about £800 out of it at the end of the season for the work we’d done for the in-house magazines, the club videos,” Keane said.
“We were all on decent money and eight hundred quid wasn’t going to make or break us, so one time, we decided to put all the cheques into a hat and the last cheque out, whoever’s name was on it, got to keep all of the cheques.
“We all put our cheques in except a couple of the younger players – I think it was Becks and Gary and Phil (Neville).
“They opted out. They were new on the scene and didn’t have the money to spare, but Scholesy and Nicky Butt put their cheques in.

Keane reveals that The Class of 92 were divided in their opinion of the contest. While Beckham and the Neville brothers backed out, Scholes and Butt decided to go all in.

“I think I was the third last name out, so I got a run for my money, but the last cheque out – Eric Cantona. He’d won about sixteen grand.
“He came in the next day, there was plenty of banter – ‘Eric, you lucky b------!’ F------ money to money.’
“But he had got somebody to cash the cheques, he’d split the money in two and he gave it to Paul Scholes and Nicky Butt because, he said, the two of them had the balls to go into it when they couldn’t really afford it.
“The two lads took home about eight grand each.
“I just thought, ‘what a gesture.’ Nobody else would have done it.”

Keane writes that Cantona’s approached made him see that a successful captain need not be vocal and angry. Cantona won the elague with United in 4 out of the 5 years he stayed with the club the only exception being 1994–95 season which he had missed a large part of due to suspension.

He was made permenent captain in 1996-97 at the end of which he retired.

“Cantona led by his presence more than anything else – his charisma,” Keane said. “A captain doesn’t have to be loud; Eric rarely said a word.”