Here’s Frank Newton's take on the inflatable craze, from the same issue of Blueprint:
BANANA DRAMA
WHAT'S ALL THIS: Giant bananas, a huge beer can and even an inflatable Frankenstein monster… so said the caption to a photograph in the West Country Sunday Independent after City’s triumph at Plymouth earlier this season. Football has never seen anything like it, how did it start?
Inflatables at City matches are nothing new. Over the years I’ve spotted an ET at Brighton in 1983, a large banana at Coventry in 1985 and a snake at Walsall in 1986. What is unusual is the scale of the current phenomenon. Previously, no football crowd has had sufficient imagination and organisation to reach the stage where around 1 000 assorted inflatables have given me some spectacular sights, humorous moments and unforgettable scenes this season. Little did I think that when I took The Banana to its first match last year that Banana Mania would spread to such epic proportions.
In the close season I visited a friend, who happened to let slip that he had a large inflatable banana. I spent the rest of the evening persuading him to lend it to me and refused to leave without it! He eventually agreed provided I proved to him that I actually took it to a game. Proof enough Alan? (I never did give it back!). The banana's first match was the Plymouth home game last season, where it sat on the wall in the open section between the Kippax and the North Stand. I felt it was time to do some unusual to make up for being in the second division again. I went to the match with a friend, Mike Clare, who drew a face on The Banana for effect. It was a hot day so I took my City shirt off, somehow this ended up on The Banana and the first glimpse of things to come was seen.
The following week we all got soaked at Oldham, where The Banana attended its first away match. It missed several games then, but reappeared at Reading. Here, it was smuggled into the ground in Mark Todd’s wheelchair as the police reaction was unknown. This was soon revealed as I stood on the terraces at Elm Park struggling to put a bobble hat on The Banana. A large uniformed figure approached and I braced myself for the worst. "I hope you don’t have as much trouble putting a condom on as you’re having with that hat," he said. After that, I was quite open. It was a joy to be asked, on being searched, "What’s that?", and to be able to reply, "A plastic blow-up banana". They didn’t know whether to believe me or not!
The next away game was West Brom. Here, Mike Clare took The Banana into the middle of the massed City fans and started the immortal chant: Imre Banana was born. For those of you lucky enough to have a copy of the video, ‘Life With The Blues', Mike’s waving Imre about and I’m three to the left looking as if I’m trying to nut someone! After the West Brom game, if I went to a match without Imre, I always heard some comment about The Banana not being there.
Imre started going more often, to Stoke on Boxing Day, where a kind official informed me that no banners or flags were allowed in the ground (?), Huddersfield in the FA Cup, Plymouth, Everton (who could forget the City following that night?), Huddersfield in the Cup replay and Blackpool in the next round.
At the end of February, there was an important milestone in The Banana story. At Leicester, Imre turned up together with a smaller counterpart, immediately christened Baby Banana. Both also travelled to Sheffield United for the midweek match. My thanks to the City fan, who loudly pointed out how Baby Banana must have been conceived. Imre's only other appearance at Maine Road was for the Liverpool match, but apart from a fleeting glimpse, we didn’t get him on TV.
The stress of watching City was getting too much and Imre split at Barnsley. He reappeared off his sick bed heavily bandaged at Huddersfield and Middlesbrough. However, help was at hand! Mike Kelly finished his article in BLUE PRINT (an excellent fanzine, you must get a copy!) issue 2 by saying, " We urge our readers to take a blow-up banana to Crystal Palace". Peter Gregory and Noel Bayley decided to jump the gun, so at Birmingham Imre Banana and Baby Banana were joined by two others and a small furry semi-peeled banana held by another City fan. The victory there was sweet after the constant barracking of debutant Neil Lennon (edit - whatever happened to him?) by the Birmingham crowd who also suggested "You can shove your big banana up your arse!" I didn’t try, but was pleased to get a mention. Fame at last!
And so to Crystal Palace. I understand that every shop in Manchester that sold bananas sold out in the week leading up to the game. Despite the police trying to stop bananas entering the gates on the grounds of racism (just because Mark Bright got Eric Nixon sent off at Maine Road), about 50 or so were smuggled in; we must have had the best endowed set of supporters to enter Selhurst Park last season! The imagination that had gone into the decoration dressing of the bananas was marvellous to see, whilst the appearance of a rhino and a penguin added a new dimension to the craze.
From little acorns mighty oaks grow, and this one’s growing by the week. At one stage, though, I thought phenomenon had Dier a death. I bought a 4ft 6in crocodile for this season, thinking I’d stay one step ahead of the crowd. (How wrong I was to be proved!) At Stockport, in the pre-season friendly, there were just four bananas and Niccy the crocodile (named after a female colleague, who snaps at everyone). At Old Trafford, the situation was better, but not up to the standards set at Crystal Palace. And the season started…
Looking at the spectacular scenes at Hull, it was as if the close season was spent by City fans scouring the shops for anything plastic and blow-up. Giant golf clubs, skeletons, gorillas, and pink panthers (to name but a few) were the order of the day. At Leeds, the first blow-up doll appeared, as did an ALF and a number of sharks. Any naughty City fans, who travelled to Chelsea for the midweek match may have been privileged to see the first appearance of Frankenstein. At Barnsley, a whole host of new inflatables appeared, at Ipswich, I stood next to a 6ft dinosaur knocking a beachball about at half-time made me laugh so much that tears were streaming down my face. At West Brom, we were treated to a fight between two Frankensteins , the giant dinosaur, a lilo wearing a City shirt, a 6ft diameter paddling pool, a 5ft Newcastle Brown Ale can and a 4ft diameter fried egg, whilst an authentic 7ft long rubber dinghy looked on. A fine humorous touch was provided by a shark with a blow-up sailing boat in its mouth! It was a far cry from Imre Banana's appearance 11 months before, and a far more entertaining than the match! It was disappointing to lose, but when a car drove past with a gorilla sitting through the sunroof, I had to raise a smile.
Numerous newspaper articles, a personal mention in the match programme and even a TV interview (ugh!) later success hasn’t changed me at all. I would have bought the Porsche and the house in Wilmslow anyway! So City now have a huge and good-natured away following, an excellent relationship with the police wherever we go, acclaim from the media and provide a spectacular scene at all the grounds we visit. Home fans at Plymouth were spotted queuing up to take pictures of the City crowd!
My personal list of different inflatables spotted now runs to over 70, but I’m sure I haven’t seen them all. Why has banana mania caught on with City fans? It beats me, but we’re having a hell of a lot of fun in the process. Whatever’s next? Turn up at Stoke in fancy dress and we'll see how things go from there…
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