Two days after Paolo Di Canio signed for West Ham, I was sat in John Fantham’s barbers’ shop getting my increasingly disappointing hairline trimmed by John, the United one (as opposed to Steve the Wednesday one or Graham, the one with the boat).
As barbers do, despite watching football on the porkier side of town got straight to the worst thing about the shameful departure of the Mutton Chopped Marauder. This of course is not the fact of our losing two and a half million quid. Not the fact that we’ve been made to look a laughing stock. Not even the fact that half the footballing world has that smug “told you so” look on.
No, John simply said “What are you going to write about now he’s gone?”
Glance through the last six issues of Monster Trucks and you’ll see he’s been our mainstay. Look through Spitting Feathers for the same period and it’s the same there. But you’ll notice that this love for him wasn’t because of his impudent, jaw dropping skill; no it was the rest of it. Paolo Di Canio was a gift from the gods – not just a nutter, but our nutter.
We adored him on the kop and like a proverbial pig where you can use every part except his squeal; we made fanzine fortunes from his sidies, his shorts, his tats, his tantrums and that whole off-kilter cool that ran through everything he did.
I was up in Scotland on holiday when the news broke of his signing from Celtic in August 1997. The papers up there had a field day. How mad were we? Did we know what we were getting? How long before his first sulky fit led to a stand-off? Me I didn’t care. We had a proper big-time, full on, flip off dangerous, out of control star. Over the last 30 years only perhaps Terry Curran came close. And even then his barminess was more comic book than text book.
That Wednesday were suddenly clutching onto a whole new slippery type of fish came through straight away, as one of the apprentices was duly dispatched to Netto’s to buy a frozen pizza for Paolo’s press conference. The new signing obligingly stuck out his little pink tongue at the cold dough, and the more cynical of us wince uneasily. Would say Man U or Arsenal or Chelsea have made him do that? Not a god start.
But to start with it all went off pretty well. Stepping into a Pleaty team struggling along with the likes of Pembridge, Whittingham, Collins and Magilton holding down regular places and with current hero David Hirst already packing his bags, it was as easy as pie for a pulsating Paolo to stick out a mile as a real talent.
We gasped at his dribbling skills, thrilled at his early strikes and rubbed our hands as he linked up with the previously over-worked and under-supported Carbone (both on the pitch and breakfast dinner and tea in the same restaurant on Eccleshall Road).
Out went Pleat (with Paolo leaning obligingly out of the window of his shiny blue Porsche and respectfully saying what a shame it was) and in came Ron. Too much glee surely – a champagne Charlie manager, a barmier than Besty striker and guaranteed coverage from a media more used to treating Wednesday as pigeon fanciers inadvertently invited to a fashion show.
Disciplinarily, he didn’t disappoint. Bookings and suspensions piled up, and at one point Paolo and Beni seemed destined never to play on the same pitch again as each took turns to be banned, handing over the baton of suspension as they passed.
The most memorable tantrum in that first season was of course Watford in the Cup, where our boy famously hit the ball into touch off his tightly clad buttock, claimed the throw, went spare at the linesman (yellow card) an then at the ref (red card) before storming hysterically from the action.
But standing back from it all in the summer it seemed we were coping with him okay. Ron jingled out and Danny jetted in and we watched and wondered as the new season got underway. Whilst Dan quickly showed himself as a top people manager, warning lights started going off all over the place with ‘the wayward Italian’. He told the world and his dog he thought Wednesday would struggle his season. When we won 3-0 at Spurs he told the waiting media something along the lines of “They must be really rubbish for Wednesday to beat them”.
They probably don’t teach the word mardy in English language classes, but if Di Canio didn’t know the word, then he knew the actions. He began to get more selfish on the pitch, less effective with the ball. Driven to the limit by Paolo’s antics on and off the pitch Dan had a bit of a go. Paolo pouted, the agent joined in. Talks cleared the air. We sighed with relief. And then Wednesday played Arsenal...
It’s a sign of how much we loved him that whilst most people smiled philosophically and shook their heads as he decked the melodramatic Mr Alcock (and got just about the right punishment), very few condemned him outright. The talk was all of when Paolo was coming back rather than what an idiot he’d been.
And .........well you know the rest. We all struggled to believe the stress thing, we got sick and tired of the stupid games and we smarted red raw at the cash we lost on his going. But all of that was always a possibility and in a sense it came with the territory. But what really hurts is that he’s gone and said that at Wednesday we didn’t love him enough.
Now we all know that these are not the days of the Mel Starlands and David Hirsts, where local lads bond like glue with the fans, and yes these are the days of big bucks international footballers moving mercenary style between whoever happens to pay them enough that week. But everyone I know expected Paolo Di Canio to separate Wednesday the PLC from Wednesday the fans, and at least acknowledge the adulation and unquestioning backing we gave him while he was here. To say we didn’t love him enough is an insult of the first order.
And that’s why now he’s headed off to the bright lights (and my guess is no great success) no matter how much great copy he gave us and no matter how much faster he made our hearts beat, we will ultimately remember Paolo Di Canio with anger, bitterness and resentment. And that’s a sad ending.