I DO IT FOR OTHER CHILDREN
WE DO some fun stuff to break the ice: photos, some quick-fire questions that reveal it mattered far more to Patrice Evra for him to defeat Liverpool than Manchester City, not least because Alex Ferguson, his manager, wouldn’t speak to the players for two weeks if they lost to the Merseyside club.
But when I ask the former Manchester United and France defender, “Do you want to see him in jail?”, there’s a pause, the sort of reflective, intense pause that you don’t normally experience when interviewing one of the ebullient greats of the game.
This question is much tougher than the ones that went before because Patrice is being asked how he feels about the man who sexually abused him.
He was 13 years old and living in the house of a head teacher to cut down on the hours spent commuting to and from school.
The teacher, an authority figure, someone expected to protect those in his care, instead exploited his position of power and would force his way into Patrice’s bedroom.
The abuse is detailed at the beginning of Patrice’s excellent and compellingly honest autobiography. He’d not intended to be so frank when he embarked on his book and had never told his mother about what happened.
A few months ago he travelled
