The following article appeared in the Sunday Telegraph in 1989.
CULT STATUS: 25 - BLOW-UP FRUIT
Rattles and scarves are old hat among the followers of the new-look Football League. Today's fans prefer to leave home equipped with inflatable fruit, preferably bananas, with which to demonstrate their approval of the skills deployed on the park.
Suddenly, bananas are everywhere. Like gigantic market stalls come to life, the terraces are burgeoning with six-foot finger fruits. The Mexican Wave has given way to the Tropical Tribute.
It began, so legend has it, with the arrival of a lone banana at Manchester City's Maine Road. The reason was the appearance of a talented player, Imre Varadi, known to the aficionados as `Imre Banana'.
The dirigible digit with which he was applauded was an immediate hit, and soon the yellow peril had reached Arsenal - inflatable cannons must have been too difficult to make. At West Ham, however, blow-up hammers were soon making their impact felt, while at Grimsby the air-filled fish surfaced. Bury's bloody response was the world's first black pudding blimp.
League officials were nonplussed. Bananas were mushrooming to the extent that a view of the pitch - and the action between the goalposts - could only be obtained from the touchline. Spectators were even turning up at the turnstiles carrying children's inflatable dinghies and airbeds.
There was no alternative. Police sent in the Ludicrous Crimes Squad and began to confiscate the offensive fruit, and soon the sight of a billowing banana may be as rare as a bottle of scotch in the Ayatollah's cocktail cabinet. A sad day indeed for the seriously silly.
(Just to prove that Scrobs is not just a grumpy old man who hates football. He's just been reading the obit for Nat Lofthouse, who was never a 'Jodrell Banker', but he was a damn good centre forward).
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ReplyDeleteWe don't do football here at The Hovel. I remember a doctor talking to my boy and asking him what team he supported? "I'm not interested in football" my son replied. To cut a long story short the doctor kept asking him questions about football until, after a pleading look from my boy, I leaned forward and told the doctor "excuse me, he's been trying to tell you HE'S NOT INTERESTED IN FOOTBALL!" And Cameron is going to give more power to GP's like that who ignore patients. Oy Vey!
ReplyDeleteI love the blow-up hammers. We had a couple that squeeked when the kids bashed each other on the head. Hours of fun.
We prefer real bananas Chez Electro (and hammers for that matter).
ReplyDeleteNeither do we do football actually Pips, but this morning, I just felt like doing a post on the first thing that came into my head!
ReplyDeleteYou wouldn't believe it was an inflatable banana would you...?
I think I can imagine the look on your face telling the GP that; hilarious!
It hasn't occurred to me that this will become a 'blow up' sort of post, but there you go, that's what happens when you feel like doing a post on the first thing that comes into your head...!
And so you should Elecs, the very thought of it...
ReplyDeleteFrom what I have seen, most of these overpaid ball kickers deserve inflated raspberries rather than bananas.
ReplyDeleteBut bananas? Hrrmmph!!
In my day we used to take extremely noisy wooden twirly rattles to the match (in order to either deafen or bash the guy in front who supported the visiting team).