The Owls give a chance to a polite young Frenchman

In January 1992, Trevor Francis’ Sheffield Wednesday attempted to fuel the trend of importing foreign talent by giving a trial to a promising Frenchman named Eric Cantona.

Despite not speaking a word of English, they found him to be very polite, and were quite satisfied that his bad tempered days were behind him. When he impolitely joined rivals Leeds instead and proceeded to spit and kick his way through the rest of his career, they probably decided their initial assessment was a little off the mark.

As Off The Post point out, we love the fact that Wednesday appear to be training in a school sports hall - how humble those pre-Premier League days were…

[The Guardian via Off The Post]

Footballer refuses to end holiday and aid criminal proceedings

Portsmouth defender Sylvain Distin will be hauled before a judge for contempt of court as he refused to give evidence in Joey Barton’s recent trial. The stand against the court order didn’t represent a show of solidarity for his former team mate or a moral objection to the British judicial system - the Frenchman had much more pressing matters to attend to:

“You can lock me up for ten years, I’m not coming back off my holiday.”

[The Sun]