• Sacked player tells the Guardian he was provoked by fan
• It happened 19 years after Cantona incident at Crystal Palace
Karl Colley, the non-league footballer who attracted worldwide headlines after going into the stands to confront a fan Eric Cantona-style, has broken his silence to tell the Guardian he feels “embarrassed” by his actions but was also subjected to intense provocation.
Colley was sacked by Goole Town after the incident in Saturday’s Evo-Stik South match at home to Coalville Town and expects a long ban from the Football Association for “seeing red”, exactly 19 years to the day since Cantona’s kung fu attack on a Crystal Palace supporter at Selhurst Park.
Video footage of the 6ft 5in centre-half going into the stand after being sent off, then swinging a punch at a Coalville fan, has gone around the world, but the 30-year-old contacted this newspaper because he feels only half the story has been told.
“Someone filmed it on a phone but they starting filming it only halfway through and it makes it look that I’m some loony bin who got sent off, lost my head, gone into the stands and attacked a random fan.
“What actually happened is that when I was walking off about 20 to 30 Coalville fans in the terraces started walking towards the dugouts, aggressively, shouting ‘You fat bastard,’ and everything under the sun. I’ve gone to the bottom of the stand and said: ‘Has anybody got anything to say now?’ I didn’t go there aggressively but they’ve all come forward and then I saw red.
“The one man I took a swing for was the person who was giving me the most stick but he was shouting ‘In the car park, you and me, one on one’. If I was on £100,000 a week, you’d take it. I’ve been a professional footballer and when you’re playing in front of big crowds it’s just a noise but it’s different when there’s only 90-odd supporters. In a crowd that size, you hear everything, clear as day.
“I just don’t think it’s right, in non-league, that people will throw that abuse at you. We’re just normal people, I don’t have a lavish lifestyle, I don’t drive a Bentley or have a £3m house. I’m a dad, a normal bloke, who has to pay bills and has the stresses of everyday life. At the end of the day you don’t expect to see that much abuse. I’ve been told they [some of the Coalville fans] were drunk, and that they follow them everywhere and have caused trouble in other places.”
Colley does admit that he has a reputation in non-league football for an aggressive playing style but points out that until the weekend he had not been booked this season. Belper Town once sacked him after he had struck a team-mate in training but he believes it is “unfair” this has been used against him. “It’s the sort of thing that happens every day in football, at the top level and the bottom level.”
Colley, whose career has included spells at both Sheffield clubs and several other non-league teams, is confident there will be clubs who want to take him on, but says he needs to give serious consideration to whether he returns to the sport.
“After all the media attention this has created, for £100 a week do I want to put myself in a position where I come back to non-league and get abuse off people? The fact is now that people are going to goad me even more. It’s unbelievable that it was the anniversary of what Cantona did. But after that did happen, every football fan in the country was waiting to have a go at Cantona, trying to get a bite. If I was on £100,000 a week I would just get on with it. But it’s non-league, with 90-odd supporters. The people who know me will tell I’m not the sort of person who takes crap. I stick up for myself and I’m a proud person. I’ll have to think about what to do but I don’t know what the FA will do first.”
Goole have described the incident as “disgusting and embarrassing” and Colley, a Sheffield United fan, says he understands the decision to sack him. “David Holdsworth [the manager] came into the dressing room after the match. Everything he said was very polite because we’re friends but he said: ‘Karl, you’re big enough, old enough and experienced enough to know that is not acceptable. I love you as a person but I’ve got to be seen to be doing and I can’t take that.’” Holdsworth has since resigned for unrelated reasons.
Daniel Taylor
theguardian.com