Louis McKechnie is the face that launched a thousand British football memes. In March, the 21-year-old caused a stop to play when he ran onto the pitch at Goodison Park during a match between Everton and Newcastle and zip-tied himself to a goalpost by his neck.
If anything could have enraged the 40,000 jeering football fans more, it was the solemnity with which he did it. But while for many the episode will have merely been jotted down as another entry in the annals of absurdity, his cause was deadly serious.
A day earlier, Maddie, 21, and Kai, 20 – who did not give their surnames – attempted to stage a similar action at Arsenal’s Emirates Stadium in north London. Kai took a long pause and looked around him at the slowly filling stands before describing how he felt about what they had planned.
“Every single second I spend here, I want to do what I’m going to do less, because I can see everyone just trying to have a nice time,” he said. “But I know it’s what is right; I know that it has to happen.”
