SPICE BOY SHANE DID ITALIAN JOB!

FROM KINGSMEADOW TO CANNAVARO

- Edd Paul

IT’S March 2005. AFC Wimbledon, nearly three years old at this point, host Newport – the Isle of Wight remix – in a Ryman South clash. The Dons boasted a shiny new addition up top; having cast the net out into the murky depths of free agency they managed to haul in New Zealand international Shane Smeltz.

Intrigue filled Kingsmeadow as the Dons heralded the arrival of the White Caps striker who had a brief spell in the Football League with Mansfield. The match, like most that season for the phoenix club, is a procession, and debutant Smeltz permeates the sense of expectation with a brace, including a belting 25-yard volley.

At the same time, Fabio Cannavaro, future World Cup winning captain and Ballon d’Or winner, is preparing for an away fixture in Verona, fresh from marshalling Juventus to a 2-1 win over Roma at the Stadio Olimpico. Cannavaro netted the Bianconeri’s first.

Football, though, has a great way of throwing people together, in the stands and on the pitch. In theory at least, the beautiful game is a level playing field – it doesn’t care whether you’ve torn up the seventh tier of English football or pocketed the world’s top player’s honour. For 90 minutes all previous accomplishments go out of the window.

Which is how, five years later in 2010, Smeltz and Cannavaro would cross paths on the biggest of stages: the World Cup.

Cannavaro, il Muro di Berlino (the Berlin Wall), had already written his name into World Cup legend. Smeltz was about to.

“We had gone for a curry one night and Steve Butler, the captain, had ordered Shane what we called a ‘chicken semtex’,” recalls Dave Anderson, the man who brought Smeltz to Wimbledon and the Ryman South.