It is 30 years since Hurricane Paolo reached these shores. It caused mayhem, bouts of self-destruction, and some brilliant, redeeming moments of genius. Di Canio's signing for Celtic occurred on May 31, 1996. He checked out just more than a year later in August 1997. This is a story of what happened in that tumultuous spell. It contains golden boots, council tax advice, a noose, and a shark's head in a bed. It is told by the men who were there and survived the storm.
The Arrival
David Hay scouted Di Canio, who was bought from AC Milan for £1 million. 'I had been alerted to him by a contact. I had obviously watched him on television but I like to go to see a player... just to check he has two legs and two arms. AC Milan were playing Bordeaux in the second leg of a Europa League quarter-final. Bordeaux won 3-0 after losing 2-0 in Milan. To give you an idea of the quality, Bordeaux had Christophe Dugarry, Bixente Lizarazu, and Zinedine Zidane. Milan had Paolo Maldini, Franco Baresi, Marcel Desailly, and George Weah. Di Canio came on at half-time for Roberto Baggio. This was the level. Yes, he was on the bench but so were Demetrio Albertini and Mauro Tassotti. I was convinced pretty quickly. His desire and commitment were obvious and so was his level of fitness. Given the stage, the ability was always going to be there. But he never let up, was fully into the game, and was booked. The attitude absolutely convinced me he could do a turn for us. Hot-headed, yes, but also a player. Tommy Burns agreed with my verdict and Fergus McCann was keen to move ahead quickly. My recollection is that the deal was fairly smooth in terms of getting it over the line. It was the time of Pierre van Hooijdonk and Jorge Cadete so it was an exciting line-up. The fans loved him and I liked him a lot. He lived just up the road from me and would come down to my house for wee bits of advice on living in Scotland. One night he chapped my door and said: "What is this council tax?" I told him what it was but added: "I'm not paying it for you, Paulo, you are on much more than me!" Any wee issues and he would come to me. He was such a character. I got close to him and admired him. He was extremely fit and hugely talented. He was truly top level and there was a theory that he could replace Eric Cantona at Manchester United. I would not disagree with that. He was loved at Sheffield Wednesday and West Ham before he went back to Italy. The quality he had will always be fondly remembered by those who saw him.'
The Team-Mate
Peter Grant, room-mate and occasional backing singer, recalls: 'We will get to the shark's head, the true story of the training round row, and the singing, but first I want to say it was an honour and a privilege to play with him. I was blessed to play with Paul McStay and my hero Danny McGrain, but Paolo was the one who could produce a piece of match-winning skill out of nothing. I used to drive down London Road on a Saturday looking forward to playing with him. I was immediately delegated to share a room with him. Tommy Burns broke up Paul and I, who had been sharing for about 12 years. Tommy said I could tell Paolo what it was like to play for Celtic. He was an unbelievable professional. I have never met a stronger player. You looked at him and thought there was nothing of him but he trained hard. He would come back from holiday fully fit as he would take a personal trainer away with him. He knew he was a player and he could throw the dummy out the pram. He would criticise some of the boys in training but I would say: "You are not with Baresi or Maldini any more. And, by the way, when you were with them you were on the bench." That would put him in his box and he would laugh at that. There is the story that he walked off in a huff at the first practice match as he was not impressed with the quality. The truth is that big Gordon Marshall threw a ball towards him but it was intercepted. Paolo started waving his arms and shouting. Marsh ran out of goal and would have killed him. But Tommy intervened and sent Paolo down the road. Remember, it was Barrowfield at this time. When we got back to Parkhead, Paolo was in the shower. He always wore a lovely scarf so we hung it from his peg in the shape of a noose. He loved that. I remember the golden boots too. He was No 7 and I was No 6 so our pegs were next to each other at Pittodrie when he brought them out (Boxing Day 1996, Celtic won 2-1). I remember saying to him: "You better play well tonight wearing them." He scored that wonderful goal with a marvellous touch and deft finish. It is one of the best goals and it never gets the full credit. Listen, anywhere in the world that goal is regarded as top-class. It was worthy of such as Maradona, Messi, Zidane — have a look at it online. I became good friends with him. Tommy putting him in beside as a room-mate was an experience in itself. It was Scotland in the nineties. Here is Paolo shaving his full body to be more aerodynamic and I didn't even have a toilet bag. Then there is the shark. We went on pre-season to Sweden and we were served up a barbecue of shrimp inside the body of a shark. All that was left of the shark was this huge head and its tail and the buffet of fish was in the middle. I didn't fancy it and Paolo noticed that. On return to the hotel, I said I would bring him up a coffee and I saw the sly wee look on his face. I didn't think much of it and got the coffee and went to the room. In those days I always slept with two big pillows at the bottom of the bed. I needed to have my leg raised to diminish the pain in my knee. Every night it was like the Waltons. There were about 100 good nights before Paolo would shut up and put out his light. This night he was keen to get to sleep but I thought nothing of it. I put my legs under the sheets and... my foot was immediately soaking. I lifted the sheets and there was blood everywhere. What I thought were the plumped pillows was the shark's head. It was huge. I've jumped up squealing and Paolo has made a dash for the door. I picked up a fire extinguisher to go after him. Everybody was soon out in the corridors with all the commotion. It was really funny and it had a bit of an aftermath. When I was manager at Norwich, we were playing Ipswich in the derby and all their fans were wearing fish heads and making fish jokes. I didn't get it until someone told me that Paolo had written in his book that I had a fish phobia. I didn't. I had a bleeding shark's head in my bed phobia! Another time, I went out with him and Simon O'Donnell. We went back to his house and Paolo put on the karaoke machine. We were all singing away and I noticed a wee red light flashing. He was recording it. One day on the coach to a game, he told me he was going to send it to the gaffer. I told him I would throw him off the bus, so he thought better of it. I loved him. Sometimes you had to put him in his place but I cannot say a bad word about him. It is a pity the way the season played out. We only lost one game in the league but that was enough to finish second.'
The Bitter End
Jock Brown, general manager, reflects: 'He was a magnificent player but he didn't win things. I looked at his background and he had only two medals in his career, and both times he was on the bench. I did the commentary in the cup semi-final replay against Falkirk (Celtic lost 1-0) and he was never off the ball but nothing happened. However, he was a wonderful player and as fit as a butcher's dog. He is lumped with the Three Amigos in terms of character. I wasn't involved in the departure of Pierre van Hooijdonk but I can tell you we had a four-year deal with Jorge Cadete. He telephoned me in tears from Portugal saying he could not stay on because his wife didn't want to stay in Scotland. Now, imagine him with Henrik Larsson. Jorge was and is a lovely man. The background to Di Canio's departure is that Wim Jansen had arranged a pre-season trip to Holland. I was told Di Canio was refusing to go so I had to sort it out. I had this conversation with him when he was saying that Holland was not the right place for him to go to train. I pointed out that we could not have, say, Alan Stubbs deciding to train in Saltcoats or Jackie McNamara at Strathclyde Park or whatever. Football clubs don't work that way, I said. I went to Glasgow Airport on the scheduled departure day and he didn't turn up. I arranged a meeting with him and his agent and Paolo didn't come into the room for that. His agent said he was intimidated. By the way, his agent was a lovely guy and had no words of excuse for his client's behaviour. The player was automatically fined two weeks' wages. He believed that Fergus had promised him a bigger contract but that was never the case. The team was then heading to Ireland for a brief tour. Di Canio turned up for that but in his own gear, not that agreed for the team. He then absconded from Ireland and went to Italy and the word was he wasn't coming back. There was no further dialogue and the fines continued. There was no chance of him playing for Celtic again. But we could not put him up for sale. We had to protect the value, we could not say we wanted to sell a player so soon. Wim, though, wanted Regi Blinker from Sheffield Wednesday. David Pleat, the Wednesday manager, said he didn't want to sell but mentioned he was interested in Di Canio. It took a while but the deal was made with a huge lump in our favour.'
The Aftermath
Di Canio's stay in Yorkshire (1997-1999) was marked by a ban of 11 matches for pushing a referee to the ground. His move to West Ham United (1999-2003) was sprinkled with extraordinary goals. And a Di Canio moment when he grabbed the ball to stop play when the Everton goalkeeper was lying injured. He was awarded the FIFA Fair Play award. The pantomime villain had become a saint, if only briefly. The hurricane blew into Lazio and there was a storm over a fascist salute. It all subsided with his retirement in 2008. And then he became a manager. But that is another story, another bracing encounter with a force of nature.
