An unforgettable Boxing Day match at the Victoria Ground turbocharged the English football inflatable craze

The return of inflatable bananas in the stands at Manchester City is unlikely to spark the same kind of trend it kicked off nearly 40 years ago – rocket fuelled by a memorable Boxing Day match against Stoke City at the Victoria Ground.

Man City have given supporters blow-up fruit as a way of trying to show solidarity after being found guilty of breaching football’s financial rules between 2009 and 2018, creating ‘sham contracts’ to inflate sponsorship deals by £830 million.

It is a throwback to the late 1980s, when bananas were adopted on the Maine Road terraces in the face of very different adversity.

Back then, Man City supporters took the lead in showing country and particularly Margaret Thatcher’s government that being football fans did not mean being hooligans. Their message of fun, often despite defeats on the pitch, swept across the divisions via penguins, skeletons - and, at Stoke, Pink Panthers.

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Football historian and Man City fan Dr Gary James said on BBC’s Sporting Witness: “We were told that football fans were hooligans and football fans were being blamed for all sorts of things. Margaret Thatcher’s government was talking about ID cards and closing stadiums down.

“[Man] City fans always had a different way of looking at things and a guy called Frank Newton basically had a friend who had a demonstration banana, an inflatable banana, and between them they concocted this idea that Frank would take it to a [Man] City game. He took it to Plymouth on the first day of the 1987/88 season he took it to Plymouth and it caused amusement. I was at the next game, at Oldham on a miserable day, and this banana was waved around and it cheered us up. It was one banana, then two bananas then it just kept growing.

“It ended up that it got to the Stoke game the following season and we took well over 12,000 to the game. They ended up giving two sides of the stadium to [Man] City fans. Everyone was in fancy dress, everyone was in fancy dress, everyone was having a laugh, players ran out carrying giant inflatable bananas and even the stadium announcer said, ‘Welcome to all the fans from banana land.’ And Man City lost the game.”

It had started off with bananas but Man City fans had also started waving blow up aeroplanes, turtles, snakes, cigarettes, tennis rackets, toothpaste, saxophones, lilos and rubber rings. There were some who had 4ft Champagne bottles to wave at unpopular chairman Peter Swales. The inflatables were sold for between £2 and £6 and it had got to the point that Fyffes were reported to be considering a sponsorship deal.

Then-Man City manager Mel Machin said: “The people who are attacking football, be it Maggie Thatcher or the sports minister Colin Moynihan, should come and see our fans. They’ll be amazed and realise there is another side to the argument. Our fans are leading the country now in good behaviour. What is going on here is amazing. I can’t speak highly enough of them. They are bringing the fun back into the game. They not only have a laugh themselves but they entertain the opposing fans as well, which can’t be a bad thing.”

In December 1988, Stoke gave Man City an initial allocation of 7,000 tickets for the away end and then sent up a further batch of 4,000. The Manchester Evening News called it Man City’s biggest away following in 20 years. “Manchester City bringing that many fans is remarkable at any level of football,” said Stoke secretary Mike Potts.

A crowd of 24,056 – with bumper gate receipts of £85,000 – was almost double the 12,758 Stoke had hosted for a home defeat to Chelsea earlier that month.

They saw Nigel Gleghorn, who went on to become a Stoke hero, give fourth-placed Man City the lead in the eighth minute but Wayne Biggins, who also would be loved by Stoke fans in time, missed a golden chance for the visitors 12 minutes later. Stoke midfielder Chris Kamara turned the match on its head with two goals in the second half before George Berry dispatched a penalty won by new signing Dave Bamber.

The win lifted Stoke to 10th but that wasn’t the only takeaway from the game. Paul Gerkin, who was manager of Stoke’s souvenir shop, was alert to the commercial possibilities. He immediately made inquiries to see if he could find a mascot that Stoke supporters could adopt.

The choice at that time was fairly limited and he plumped for inflatable Pink Panthers. He didn’t have much time to think whether he had made the right decision because the first batch sold like hot cakes and additional deliveries couldn’t keep up with demand.

Paul explained later in the season: “It all started with Manchester City and their bananas. I spoke to [Man] City about getting a supply after the wholesalers had needed such large numbers ordering but the man dealing with the bananas was not available.

“After looking around for an alterative I went to Seaside Supplies in Burslem and they had the choice of a 36in caterpillar, a 42in dolphin or the crouching Pink Panther. Because I was not sure they would sell I only took 24 at first but it has gone crazy in the shop since, with 600 sold in a week.

“I have been in the shop for over a season and a half and last Saturday (January 14, 1989 – a 2-1 home win over Bradford City with a crowd of 9,919) I have never seen anything like it. The shop was packed with everyone from small kids to old age pensioners buying our Pink Panthers.

“Now we are trying to get them with the Stoke crest and ‘Panthermania’ printed on them in our next supply. On Saturday the players threw 13 Pink Panthers into the crowd and we also had someone dressed as such giving away sweets around the ground.

“We hope to get Potters Panthermania T-shirts on sale by the weekend. This has really proved a lucky mascot as Stoke have not lost since we began selling them.”

Stoke lost 5-1 to Ipswich Town two days later after that interview but their form recovered. They had taken 19 points in 10 matches by March – by which time the club shop had sold 2,600 inflatables.

Ironically, a decent run ended with a 2-1 defeat at Man City and the season fizzled out into a 13th-placed finish – although that might seem like giddy heights to fans from the last eight years. Man City finished second and won promotion.

Other other sets of supporters caught on although the choice inflatable was more obvious at some clubs while others had to make do with what they could get.

Port Vale had penguins, Man Utd had skeletons, Grimsby Town had haddocks and Hull City had sharks.

Oldham Athletic had dogs in response to former Man City manager Jimmy Frizzell saying that the Latics “played like yard dogs”.

Bristol City had “giant Joe Jordan fangs”. Blackpool, where Stoke backroom stalwart had just taken over as secretary, had tangerines and sticks of rock.

It was claimed that the Met Police stopped supporters taking in bananas for a match between Arsenal and Millwall, apparently at Arsenal’s requests due to fears that spectators’ views would be obstructed.

Dr James said: “The ironic thing is that the previous season we had been demonstrating against our chairman but all of a sudden we had these inflatable bananas and they were selling them in the club shop. It was bonkers. There were some clubs who didn’t understand what it was all about but it was a great time. Other clubs were winning trophies but we were waving bananas.”