Who Started The “Banana Craze”?
Frank Newton started it, and his story is told in City: The Untold Story of a Club That Went Bananas, by Peter Oakes.
In August 1987 a toy collector friend of Frank's, Allen Busby, mentioned he owned a giant inflatable banana. Frank thought it would be funny to take it to to the opening game of the season at Maine Road and was lent it on condition that he took photos as proof.
It was an instant hit with other fans.
“We don't serve bananas in here, mate,” he was told in one pub before the game. It was a hot day, and after arriving on the open terrace between the Kippax and North Stand, Frank took his replica shirt off and put it on the banana. Soon the banana had a face and bobble hat.
"We could hear people talking and laughing about the banana," Frank said. "If there had been an adverse reaction the whole thing would have died there and then."
After taking it to the next game away to Oldham, the banana became a regular on the terraces. At West Brom on 28 November, City fans were chanting the name of forward Imre Varadi. Mike Clare, who was with Frank for the opening game on 15 August, started an 'Imre Banana' chant.
That prompted further chants of 'Loyal banana' and 'Part-time banana'. In February Frank took a two-foot banana to the game at Leicester, resulting in the chant of 'Baby banana'.
In April two more bananas turned up for the game at Birmingham, carried by Peter Gregory and Noel Bayley, editor of the Bert Trautmann's Helmet fanzine.
After Frank discovered a shop in Prestwich selling inflatable bananas he bought their entire stock and sold them on to City fans.
At the opening game of the 1988-89 season at Hull, the away end was filled with inflatable bananas. And a parrot, a gorilla, a Spitfire, a Red Baron, and a seven-foot golf club.
The banana craze was born.
It soon spread to other clubs. Grimsby fans waved inflatable haddocks, Wigan fans baked bean cans. Hull had tigers, Norwich canaries and West Ham hammers.
But peak silliness came at City's visit to West Brom on 26 October 1988. After two giant inflatable Frankensteins battled it out to chants of "Oh, Frankie, Frankie", a dinosaur arrived to challenge the winner. Then a six-foot paddling pool decided to take on a Frankenstein, before someone threw a dolphin into it. Quickly followed by a shark in a City shirt.
Well, there was a lot of Ecstasy around back then.
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