By Tony Attwood
Having already seen “Wrong One – Moyes Out” fly over Old Trafford just when David Moyes was booking his summer holiday ticket, and later “United 20 Gerrard 0” flitting over New Anfield at the end of the season, Manchester United fans seem to have found their way in taunting other teams – or attacking their own manager.
The latest banner read “Giggs 13 Gerrard 0”, and was behind a plane above Ireland’s national stadium as Liverpool played a friendly organised to appeal to a supposed Liverpudlian following therein.
At least it didn’t crash unlike the UKIP plane during the last elections, when the anti-EU anti-foreigners party in the UK hired a plane with a banner, but wanting the cheapest, having spent the campaign attacking Polish people, hired a very cheap Polish plane, that then crashed.
Arsenal 1 Tottenham 15 I suppose, or something like that.
The trouble is, these banners and things like them tend to explode and be copied (I don’t mean explode literally) just like the Everton and Liverpool flares at the Emirates (a subject to which I shall return, because with flares we are talking about human safety – with Man U banners we are talking about buggering about by and large.
What of course could happen could be a leaflet drop during a match, from a plane. That would probably be illegal, but it would certainly be a retaliation – and believe me, just as with flares and smoke bombs if there is one thing that Liverpudlians do it is retaliate and copy. (I speak in generalised terms of course, I know they don’t all do it, but there is a tendency towards sameness in Liverpool – just with lots and lots of people using incredibly dangerous sunbeds in the city – far more than anywhere else – and a much higher skin cancer rate than anywhere else in the UK as a result).
According to some commentators, “Liverpool fans remain nonchalant” – which is not something I’ve witnessed when they have come to the Ems nor when I have visited Anfield or Goodison. I think “nonchalant” actually originally meant, “not singing” which in the case of Liverpool would be an improvement for me. Could never stand the Beatles. Nor Gerry and Pacemakers.
But Liverpool and Man U do have things in common. Both finished seventh or thereabouts in recent times. Both have financial issues (one with the owners taking money out of the club to keep their other failing businesses going, the other trying to find how to buy a lot of players without running into a loss this year or next year, and so collapse under FFP problems).
Fortunately we don’t do this sort of thing at Arsenal – and unlike our noisy neighbours these days we don’t throw stuff at players or ambulance men either.
But still, I do wonder what Tottenham could put on a plane banner to worry us. Happy St Totteridge Day? No that wouldn’t work. Happy St Daniel Day? No that doesn’t go either. When was the last time you won the league? No. When did you last win the FA Cup? No. Bet you wish you had a stadium like ours? Hard really
Incidentally, talking of all this, there is a Wikipedia piece on Arsenal supporters here which incorporates a mention of the AAA and a reference to Untold. Not a bad summary really.
Last off, because of our down time, please do read the excellent article on Season the Media Got Everything Wrong. You may have missed it when we went off air once again.
Here are the last three articles here – and there is one about transfers on the Woolwich Arsenal site about transfers.
Apologies for typos etc – it has been a difficult day getting the site back on line, and I am running out of time for things that really must be done.
Thanks for coming back to Untold.
Off topic..but Ramsey is getting married in summer. Wait..What??!!! I didn’t even know until I read it at Arsenal.com..
The mirror ran a story yesterday about the FA Cup, which has a couple of mentions that Ramsey is getting married this year. No mention of to whom or when (sorry, I don’t follow that kind of news).
That wiki piece as Arry Redknapp as an Arsenal fan!! FLMAO!!! Some of the others are hilarious too…
I am not convinced that flying banners of any sort are all that helpful and in some circumstances can be hazardous. The flight paths need pre approval from the appropriate authority and in addition if there are any COMAH sites in the vicinity the HSE would need to be consulted – and may well refuse permission.
Off topic, its something like 8000 days since Liverpool won the league title, perhaps even more.Never gets a mention!
Arsene Wenger:
“There are only two clubs in Europe who have qualified for the Champions League for 17 seasons consecutively and that demands special values. I have nothing against being asked about one trophy in nine years, but some clubs haven’t won for 20 years and they don’t get that question.”
Respect to the great man for waiting till he has won a trophy before hitting back on the matter of “no trophy for X years”. Had it been yours truly, I would have literally told them to fuck off long long time ago. I guess anyone wondering now knows why I can never be made manager or even spokesman of our darling Arsenal 🙂
It is 8794 days, 21 hours, 25 minutes, 4 seconds since Liverpool last won the league.
How many days since Manure last won the FAC?
Aha and Amen!
How many days since Spuds won the league? Unfortunately I don’t have a big enough screen on my calculator.
@robl
Grok perl? Fill in the appropriate year/month/day values, and this will calculate for you. Should work for any Gregorian dates actually. But, that package (Date::Calc) can calculate all kinds of date related things.
#!/usr/bin/perl
use Date::Calc qw(Delta_Days);
my $year1 = ”;
my $month1 = ”;
my $day1 = ”
my $year2 = ”;
my $month2 = ”;
my $day2 = ”;
my $Dd = Delta_Days( $year1, $month1, $day1,
$year2, $month2, $day2 );
print “$Dd days\n”;
One thing that comes to mind about flying banners, and Bootoomee’s thread. What if you flew a banner that said something like “BBC Sports Sucks”? Think the BBC would report it? Think other media would?
@robi
According to Goonerholic’s countdown clock it is, as of today, 53 years,1 month and 2days. That’s about 20 000 days. Shame
LOL Gord, or a banner: ‘PGMOL sucks, Probert even more’
On the subject of banners, I seem to recall in my youth, that the old Div 1 Champions were awarded a flag to fly in the season following their success.
I’m sure Arsenal flew such a flag pre-war although it could have been their own design.
Perhaps someone will put me right 😉
Good read, thanks Tony.
And how is it that the name Tony Attwood does not appear along with that of Nick Hornby under writers .
He has written and published many pamphlets and stuff !
And while at it could someone introduce the Arsenal world to the mighty AKBs of UA – those awesome and loyal supporters of the club and manager !
Nick is more famous than I am, but I have written more than he. Fame is more important.
@ Tony – Well to us you and this site is important ,and you ARE famous ! There’ll be UA banners flying one day !
In the meantime the Moaningone is plotting his revenge !
Jose Mourinho has targeted new summer signings.
He’s just left his nearest London Bus depot with 3 new drivers and a ticket inspector.
@Walter
As the press sticks up for the referees so much, I doubt they would show a PGMOL Sucks banner.
@Brickfields
Is Chelsea going to end up with the tallest team in the EPL, a Double Decker bus, so to speak?
@ Gord – Probably , but its a ‘fare’ bet that Chelski soon tire of him and he is thrown under it .
The Double Decker Bus
Two bowling teams, one of all blondes and one of all brunettes, charter a double-decker bus for a weekend bowling tournament in Atlanta.
The brunette team rides on the bottom of the bus. The blonde team rides on the top level.
The brunette team down below is partying having a great time, when one of them realizes she doesn’t hear anything from the blondes upstairs.
She decides to get up and investigate. When the brunette reaches the top, she finds all the blondes frozen in fear, staring straight ahead at the road, and clutching the seats in front of them with white knuckles.
The brunette asks, “What the heck’s going on up here? We’re having a great time downstairs!”
One of the blondes looks up at her, swallows hard and says, “YEAH, BUT YOU’VE GOT A DRIVER!”