Cantona was the solitary foreigner in this bona fide Battle of Britain

ERIC CANTON A always did stand apart. Twenty- five years ago tomorrow, the enigmatic Frenchman was the only overseas combatant in a battle that was otherwise as British as bank holiday drizzle.

Cantona scored. But not until the 86th minute. By then, the great footballing philosopher was likely questioning the justice of Andy Goram’s existence. Every attack from Leeds United that pierced the Rangers defence was repelled by the keeper. At least until it was too late to matter.

By the time Cantona angled a low shot i nto the corner of the net, Walter Smith’s side were luxuriating in a 4-2 aggregate advantage. Two goals on enemy soil at Elland Road, each sublime in its own way, had all but ensured Scotland’s champions would sweep aside their English counterparts. Goram’s defiance removed any lingering shred of doubt.

‘If I had been an England Test selector, I would have picked Andy for the cricket team on the performance,’ lamented Howard Wilkinson, Leeds manager at the time, as he recalled the evening to Sportsmail. ‘He got his hands to everything.

‘When you have sat through the number of games I had by then, you get a feeling about things. I got a feeling about Andy Goram that night.’

Leeds had exited the first leg at Ibrox a fortnight earlier nursing a 2-1 deficit. Gary McAllister’s first-minute volley was cancelled out in rather bizarre fashion when John Lukic punched a corner kick into his own net. Ally McCoist duly provided Rangers with a slender advantage. But f ew beyond Scotland thought it sufficient.

South of the border, Leeds were forecast to prevail. And to do so convincingly. The Ibrox squad soaked up all these predictions like a motivational sponge.

As i t was, an Englishman confounded the expectations of his compatriots inside three minutes at Elland Road. Wheeling on to a bouncing ball just beyond a corner of the penalty area, Mark Hateley crashed a sensational left-foot strike beyond Lukic.

‘A goal of the like Mark Hateley had probably never scored before and probably never did again,’ said Wilkinson, grimacing at the memory. ‘Under the radar and straight into our hearts.

‘The silence hit you. With no away fans, it caused the same reaction as Gary McAllister’s goal at Ibrox. The utter silence. I remember that vividly. The contrast between the noise at the start of the game was incredible.

‘ Unfortunately f or us, t he atmosphere i n Glasgow was reignited. Even so, I still thought we had the players to turn it around. It wasn’t to be.’

McCoist’ s diving header concluded a fine, flowing move just before the hour mark in Yorkshire to create ample breathing space. The Rangers players — allowed an evening of celebration in Manchester to toast their UK supremacy — would go on to remain unbeaten in that season’s Champions League, narrowly missing out on a place in the final.

‘Listen, there were two very good teams out there,’ said Wilkinson. ‘Walter’s team was as good as you will see anywhere. It was no surprise to me that they did so well in the competition.

‘I still see Walter occasionally. We had breakfast together after a charity dinner back i n the summer, along with our wives.

‘Walter might be older but he hasn’t changed. He’s still very modest, polite and has that nice sense of humour that people maybe don’t always recognise.’

Other aspects of football have been transformed over the past quarter- century. Not least the make-up of Britain’s leading teams in European competition.

In 1992, UEFA’s ‘three-foreigner rule’ was still in force. Rangers started with nine Scots at Elland Road, alongside Hateley and ex-Norwich winger Dale Gordon, only using up their quota when Alexei Mikhailichenko came off the bench for the final 18 minutes.

Wilkinson actually picked four non-Englishmen, although the l ate Gary Speed qualified as ‘ a s s i mi l a t e d ’ through his development in the Leeds youth system.

The quotas were scrapped three years later after being deemed illegal by the European Court of Justice. Combined with the Bosman ruling on transfers, the change was profound. When Celtic defeated Manchester United in 2006 to record Scotland’s next Battle of Britain success in the Champions League, they did so with only two native players in Gordon Strachan’s starting selection.

Brendan Rodgers has at least redressed the balance somewhat. Six Scots featured in his side that lost narrowly to Bayern Munich on Tuesday evening. England’s champions have, however, headed in the opposite direction. Chelsea included only one homegrown player — defender Gary Cahill — in their midweek defeat to Roma.

‘Was the three-foreigner rule a good thing? I think so, yes,’ argued Wilkinson, who is the last English manager to win his nation’s league title. ‘I don’t see any evidence to say it wasn’t.

‘ If you look at England’s performances these days, they are winning everything from Under- 21 l evel down. But that’s not reflected in the Premier League (in t e r ms of English players being given an opportunity). Hopefully, it will change. But I’m saying hopefully.

‘I do think Scottish football, i n the general sense, has a responsibility towards Scottish football in the national sense. The same is true of England or anywhere. The clubs that play in the league under the auspices of the association, one of their responsibilities is to ensure the country in which they operate is looked after.

‘If Shell go into the Amazon rainforest, I think the Brazilian government would expect them to look after Br a z i l ’ s interests to some extent. Not just take the oil out and bugger off.’ Wilkinson, now 73, was also pained by the financial traumas that befell both Leeds and Rangers in the years after their memorable collision. Reckless overspending plunged the Elland Road club into administration in 2007, three years after they last featured in the top flight. For Rangers, administration and liquidation in 2012 began a long climb through the divisions. Five years on, the Ibrox outfit remain in a rebuilding process. ‘The two clubs reflect the best and the worst of football,’ insisted Wilkinson. ‘Both reflect that — in the boardroom or whatever you want to call it — you’ve got to have people who understand the responsibilities they have to that club as an institution. And therefore not to make rash decisions, especially financially.

‘What we are talking about here is sport. We are not talking about industry, where you can go under if you are not making something correctly or at the right price. We are talking about something which brings much more than that to a community.

‘ Hopefully, we can now feel optimistic about both situations. While it is nice to see smaller towns and cities with smaller clubs doing well, clubs like Leeds and Rangers carry such a weight of history. That heritage has to be looked after and protected. It’s important.’

I had a feeling about Goram that night. He got his hands to everything