Bryan Robson recalls ‘Welcome to Hell’ game at Galatasaray in 1993

The match itself was a largely forgettable affair. Safe in the knowledge that deadlock would see them through, Galatasaray ensured a stop-start game with play regularly broken up. Both sides had the ball in the net, only for the offside flag to intervene, while Peter Schmeichel saved superbly from Hakan Sukur and Ryan Giggs should have made more from a fine pass by Robson.

Incomprehensibly, very little injury time was played despite all the stoppages, which led to Cantona blowing his top when Swiss referee Kurt Rothlisberger signalled the end of proceedings. A red card was shown to the fiery Frenchman and, fittingly, all hell broke loose.

“Once the final whistle had gone, the first thing I noticed was Eric, because he was more or less the player on the ball when the whistle went,” recalled Robson. “Eric got the ball and booted it away because he was in a temper. I could see it in his eyes: Eric was going to do something daft. That’s why I ran to him. But before I actually got to Eric, this policeman or army guy got hold of Eric’s arm – not aggressively, just walking with him. I thought I’d get on the other side of Eric and we went across [towards the tunnel].

“I knew the other lads would be calm enough to get back to the dressing room but, as soon as we got to the top of the steps, this supposed police or army guy punches Eric on the back of the head. The police come in and hit us with shields to push us down the steps. By that time, the rest of the boys had got to the top of the steps.