Back in Premier League action for the first time since being found guilty of serious financial rules breaches, Manchester City entered the pitch against Liverpool to a predictably hostile reception from the Anfield faithful.

With accusatory banners unfurled, boos audible, and chanting reverberating around the stadium, many of the traveling City fans decided to put on a defiant display of their own with one particular aspect of their matchday counter-protests raising quizzical eyebrows among onlookers — namely, the large number of inflatable bananas being wielded among the away section.

While looking like an ostensibly odd choice to those unaware, it was not a spur-of-the-moment call — nor is it a recent phenomenon. In fact, City fans have actually been taking inflatable bananas to games since the 1980s.

Indeed, the practice dates back to the 1987-88 season in particular. Having been demoted down into the English second tier from the old First Division the previous season, it’s said that one match-going City fan decided to lighten the atmosphere at Maine Road by taking a large inflatable banana along to a game.

It also happens that the club had a popular striker by the name of Imre Varadi playing for them at the time. Varadi spent two seasons with City during his nomadic career, in which time he acquired the affectionate nickname “Imre Banana” on the terraces. This led to a rise in the number of inflatable bananas showing up in the crowd at Maine Road — the practice quickly caught on and has endured, if fairly intermittently, for almost 40 years.

Bananas were relatively commonplace at City matches during the 1980s and ’90s though the fad did appear to phase out during the modern era, following the club’s stadium change and takeover in the mid-2000s. However, last Sunday’s heated faceoff with rivals Liverpool saw the trend revived as hundreds of yellow plastic effigies were seen bobbing around in the Anfield Road Stand.

Ahead of City’s Premier League clash with Ipswich Town, manager Enzo Maresca said he was looking forward to seeing the stands filled with bananas.

“It’s very nice,” Maresca told reporters on Friday. “I didn’t know the history behind the banana, but I hope tomorrow I can see many bananas in the stadium.

“I think it creates a nice environment for the fans and for everyone that is in the stadium.”

So, while City were busy being lambasted as “cheats” from fans around the league and being threatened with potential relegation, their fans were waving bananas around as a slightly eccentric homage to their days in the lower leagues.