Bananas!
We rewind to a Boxing Day game that few who attended will ever forget...
In the late 1980s inflatable bananas brought City supporters to the attention of the national media, Europe and then the world.
There are various reasonable claims as to how it all began but it is difficult to pin the source down to the founder of probably the most endearing and genuinely funny trends City or any football club have introduced over the years.
The defunct City fanzine Blue Print seemingly played a large part in the arrival of our bendy yellow plastic accessories, and if it is indeed the case, Bill Borrows and Frank Newton take a bow.
Another school of thought is that former City striker Imre Varadi played a major role, with theorists reckoning that some City fans chanted ‘Imre Banana’ on Kippax as a variation to his name.
He was around at the right time so maybe it’s possible, but it’s also possible Imre’s name adaptation occurred after the arrival of the yellow perils – we will probably never know for certain.
Matchdays during the 1988/89 season were a colourful affair, especially on the Kippax or at away grounds and the Blues’ faithful were rightly praised by the media for bringing some much-needed humour back to a bit of a dull period for the club and football in general.
With English clubs banned from Europe from 1985 to 1990 and with crowd trouble a major problem, City fans, renowned for their gallows humour, dug deep to find an alternative to the doom and gloom and while bananas were the popular choice, soon, many inflatable variations began to appear – in fact, anything went!
Who could forget the fights between the inflated Frankenstein and the green Dinosaur? ET, a giant claw-hammer and a hundred other variations. Particularly impressive was the pink pterodactyl (ahem!) but I can’t imagine who owned that…
The craze caught on and supporters at other clubs had their own varied themes, one of the best being Stoke City and their legions of Pink Panthers, Grimsby Town and their ‘Harry the Haddocks’ and Norwich City with their yellow canaries.
It was a colourful and funny sight, and it all started right here at Manchester City.
Lifelong Blue and City Magazine regular Kevin Cummins, one of this country’s best photographers, was approached by iconic magazine The Face to document this fascinating craze.
Says Cummins: “The guy with Frankenstein’s monster was called Eli, a friend of mine, who would always carry ‘Frank' fully inflated to every game. We would often get stopped by the police when driving to away games, for having a 6ft ‘monster’ in the back seat - or sometimes through the sun roof - of his car.
“Every week it was a battle to get him through the turnstile, when the local constabulary would ask to see his ticket, then debate whether he should be allowed in without one, as he’d probably be taking up a seat.
“Watching football back then definitely wasn’t like it is today, but City fans helped to alleviate the gloom around the game with this bonkers idea.
“It took off really quickly and reached its peak, when the actual City team ran out clutching giant bananas at Stoke on Boxing Day, to the delight of over 12,000 banana-waving City fans.
“It’s great to see the banana craze has been passed on to different generations of Blues too.”
So, let’s look at Boxing Day 1988.
Manager Mel Machin has shaped a decent, young City team that was making a decent fist of challenging for promotion.
The Blues were unbeaten in eight games going into the Christmas fixtures, with a tough Boxing Day clash at Stoke’s Victoria Ground the pick of the festive fixtures – in fact, it was the only game in a two-week period from 17-31 December.
A movement among the City fanbase – pre-internet and social media, don’t forget – began to make this Christmas a blue one. The mandate was simple – go to Stoke in fancy dress and bring your inflatables.
Things gathered pace quickly, and it was a game nobody wanted to miss.
Our allocation was enthusiastically increased by Stoke until somewhere in the region of 12,000 tickets had been sold.
One Stoke fan recalled: “I have always liked Man City fans and my brothers and I bumped into a few having a pre match pint in the Cottage in Oakhill where we had an amicable chat. There were a lot of them that day with 12,000 journeying down the M6, many carrying their giant bananas while Stoke fans took their Pink Panthers.
“The Man City players came on before the start of the game to throw inflatable bananas into the crowd and they been given the paddock area as well to accommodate their many supporters.”
Among the City starting XI that day was Paul Lake.
Our graceful midfielder, also a lifelong Blue, wrote in his autobiography ‘I’m Not Really Here’: “Costume hire shops were plundered, wives’ wardrobes were ransacked, and City’s diehards would yet again brighten up the football world with their unique brand of lunacy.
“As our team coach drove up to the stadium that day it wasn’t the usual sea of blue shirted fans, instead it was a swaying mob of Dracula, Nazis, Mr Blobbies, Mother Superiors, Tommy Coopers, a pantomime horse, Bernie Clifton ostriches and lots of hairy crossdressers - total mayhem. The decision to stage a mass fancy dress party in the Potteries was quite a brave one; Stoke could be a menacing town on a match day and in the 1980s was notorious for its special brand of ‘hospitality’ to visiting supporters.
“In keeping with the party atmosphere, the club made us run onto the pitch carrying our own inflatables to launch into the away end. We weren’t exactly thrilled by the idea, I remember Neil McNab spewing out a stream of Scottish expletives when he was handed a huge blow up banana, but we did as we were told.
“If our woeful performance was anything to go by, it should have been us City players who turned up in fancy dress costumes that day. Eleven clown outfits would have sufficed for the farce that culminated in a 3-1 defeat, a result which no doubt put a dampener on all the revelling on the terraces.
“There was a feeling of deep embarrassment on the team coach as we headed back up the M6, all of us lamenting our lacklustre display.”
“Twelve thousand fabulous fans had gone to all that trouble to create a carnival atmosphere, yet our response had been to truly rain on their parade.”
Nigel Gleghorn tried to get the party started as he put the Blues ahead, but Stoke fought back strongly to score three second-half goals in the space of nine minutes with Peter Beagrie and Chris Kamara outstanding for the Potters.
Kamara levelled the scores for the home side and debutant Dave Bamber forced home a second shortly after and City’s misery was completed when Brian Gayle’s clumsy challenge on the electric Beagrie ended with George Berry converting from the spot.
Stoke won 3-1 and though the defeat was disappointing, the Blues would then embark on a nine-game unbeaten run to get the (ultimately successful) promotion bid back on track.
While Lakey is correct – our players didn’t turn up that Boxing Day in 1988 – the fact is the fans definitely turned up off it.
Words by David Clayton
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