Before there were inflated sponsorship figures, there were inflated bananas. Or the inflatable ones, anyway. In the days when Manchester City met with a mixture of admiration, amusement, mockery and pity, but rarely hate, the supporters who had gone decades without seeing a major trophy could fairly be described as long-suffering. They found their own entertainment, and not merely from the tragicomic adventures of their team. Some of it came in the form of inflatable fruit, which they waved to Erling Haaland and co after a victory that might prove momentous or meaningless.
At a point of existential peril, the City supporters sought solace in the distant past and in blow-up bananas. They were waved in the corner of the Anfield Road Stand they occupied, adding a further element of the surreal to what always promised to be an unusual occasion. It is not often that chants of “going down” are directed at the team top of the league; but then these are scarcely normal times.
