Sprout of order
FOOTIE FOOLS WHO’LL CABBAGE YOUR HEAD
BOOTED out football boss Steve Bruce has boiled over after a cabbage was thrown at him during a match between his Aston Villa side and Preston earlier this week.
The manager, sacked after his team’s poor form, branded the act “disrespectful” and police now want to nab the fan responsible for hurling the veg.
Yet it’s just the last in a long line of bizarre items chucked on to the field of play by football fans.
Here JAMES MOORE has thrown together other examples of unusual pitch invaders…
SEXY FOOTBALL: Despite being named man-of-the-match in Liverpool’s Uefa Cup victory against Alaves in 2001, Gary McAllister says: “What I remember most was the huge sex toy that landed on the pitch!” Robbie Fowler kicked it back into the crowd.
BETWEEN THE STICKS: At the 2007 Carling Cup Final between Chelsea and Arsenal, Cesc Fàbregas dodged celery sticks thrown at him by Blues fans. Chucking the veg, while singing bawdy songs, has been a tradition since the 1980s but is now banned.
HITTING THE BAR: While playing for Newcastle, Paul Gascoigne took a bite of a Mars Bar that had been thrown at him. It echoed the actions of the club’s porky player Mick Quinn who chomped on a pie jokingly tossed towards him by fans in March 1992.
FOWL PLAY: In 2012, Blackburn Rovers fans protested against owners Venky’s, a poultry firm, by releasing a chicken on to their Ewood Park pitch.
CAR-AZY: In 2001 Inter Milan fans stole a scooter, set it on fire and chucked it down the San Siro terraces. A year later, a game between Chile and New Zealand was interrupted when a car door ended up on the turf. BARROW BARRAGE: When a 2004 scrap between Mexican club side America and Brazil’s Sao Caetano turned into a brawl, fans got equally dirty by throwing a wheelbarrow on to the pitch.
ULTIMATE LOB: In February this year, disgruntled Hull City fans threw tennis balls on to the pitch during a clash with Sheffield United. The game had to be halted after the protest by Tigers fans who were demonstrating against the club’s owners Assem and Ehab Allam.
CRUNCH FIXTURE: Charlton Athletic fans have organised a series of pelting protests against the club’s owner Roland Duchatelet. Earlier this season thousasnds of Addicks supporters threw crisp packets on forcing a game against Fleetwood to be stopped. In 2016 they flung hundreds of toy pigs on to the pitch during a game against Coventry.
SNORT ON: When Barcelona’s Luis Figo joined arch-rivals Real Madrid in 2000, fans showed their disgust by throwing a pig’s head at him when he returned to the Nou Camp.
LIFE’S A BEACH: Kicking a beach ball on to the pitch backfired for a Liverpool prankster in 2009 when a shot by Sunderland’s Darren Bent hit the inflatable and deflected into the goal. Sunderland won 1-0.
HAVING A BLAST: In a match at Brentford against Millwall in 1965, the home goalie Chic Brodie had a grenade thrown at him. He calmly picked it up and threw it behind the goal – it was later found to be a dummy.