This is better than any Superbowl entertainment, for it’s real, it happened only a few hours ago, and it’s already over the internet. (Thanks to Matthew Cobb for spotting it.)
Liverpool versus Spurs at Anfield, game began at 8 pm UK time.
From the Guardian live feed:
11 mins: There’s a cat on the pitch. It’s currently settled in Tottenham’s penalty area. Not a fox in the box, but not too far off. “After the Manchester United game Carroll said that Kuyt had shouted at him to knock the ball down for him to run on to it. Which he did. To great success,” writes Phil Sawyer. “And then carried on doing during the Wolves match. Had it not occured to Dalglish to mention this tactic in the previous 12 months, or have Carroll’s travails at Liverpool been because he’s really really hard of hearing?”
13 mins: The cat has now been removed, quite gently, by a burly steward. Carroll celebrates this with a couple of tasty touches.
As Matthew reports, “Turned out to be the most interesting part of the game, which finished 0-0 and seems to have been rather dull.”
And here it is, already on YouTube:
From Dirty Tackle:
What is it with unusual pitch invaders on Merseyside lately? Last week, a protestor cuffed himself to the posts at Goodison Park to register his disgust with a budget airlines, and tonight a cat found its way onto the pitch during Tottenham’s bout with Liverpool at Anfield.
Brad Friedel was visibly freaked out by the impromptu appearance of the misplaced moggy — perhaps he thought Harry Redknapp had sent one of his pets in his absence from the match — and Liverpool fans responded with the inventive chant “a cat, a cat, a cat, a cat, cat.” Spurs fans rebutted by directing a chorus of “You’re Spurs and you know you are,” at the feline intruder.
Naturally, the cat already has its own Twitter account, @Anfieldcat:
As a Liverpool fan I have to agree with the cat’s twitter comment:-(
Evolution, rational thinking, atheism, wildlife photos & now football on Merseyside – if you could feature a bit more physics Jerry then this website would have all my interests covered! 😛
To explain the wit of the Liverpool fans, as described by Dirty Tackle: a common chant by fans wanting their team to get on with it is “attach, attack, attack”. A slight spoonerism and you get “a cat, a cat, a cat”. Amusing (and not simply hate-filled) chants are the high point of many dire matches. Do you get witty chants in US football (not soccer)?
I really miss Chris Charles’ chants of the week on BBC Sport pages (eg. http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/chrischarles/2010/05/chants_of_the_season.html)
My favourite (I forget the teams) was a relegation battle where the fans from one side started to taunt the opposition with “Going Down, Going Down, Going Down”, to which the opposition fans replied “So are we, So are we, So are we”.
I like the Leeds United song: “We had joy, we had fun, we had Man U on the run, but the joy didn’t last ‘cos the bastards ran too fast!”
A few years ago there was a not very good movie entitled ‘Annapolis’, about the life of midshipmen at the US Naval Academy (which is often called Annapolis, after the Maryland city in which it is located). At the Army-Navy football game that year, as the Army cadets marched past Navy, the midshipmen chanted at them, “Watch our movie!”
Ah, thanks for the much-needed explanation.
Oh, yeah. That pretty much defines the NFL…
Rhymes with “witty”, anyway…
And the drunker, the “wittier.”
Kitty went to the wrong half-time show. Puppy Bowl, Kitty, Puppy Bowl!
Though a dull game (sans kitty), Brad Friedel’s clean sheet brought me enough points in my fantasy league to squeeze me past two competitors and up two notches in the standings (out of the relegation zone, actually), so I say ‘Bravo!’
I have Agger… my team is mostly Scandinavians. Gone are the heady days when I could fill it with 5-6 Norwegians alas!
Jerry forgets to say if he was happy with the point for Spurs!
Most of the Jews I know in Liverpool support Liverpool FC. I think the days of Spurs being the ‘Jewish team’ are over. Just like Everton FC being ‘Catholic’ and Liverpool being ‘Protestant.’ I hope a certain city North of the border takes note.
But did the kitteh get back home safely?
Dalglish (the Liverpool manager) was cradling the cat in the post match interview. If It has no name tag or is not claimed then I think it has found a new home.
Apparently the cat got a pretty rare honour these days – a fur play award.
A couple of summers back I was at a cricket match at the Oval (south London) when a fox ran across the ground. It wasn’t Middlesex v. Leicestershire either (Leicestershire has a fox on its coat of arms).
Reminds me of the Half Man Half Biscuit song
“Even men with steel hearts love to see a dog on the pitch”
My favourite (sadly apocryphal, I suspect) chant was to Leeds fans after the French genius Eric Cantona left to go to Man United. The Leeds fans used to chant “Ooh ahh, Cantona, said ohh ahh Cantona” (to the tune of Ooops Upside Your Head). After Cantona had crossed the Pennines to United, the fans of Leeds’ next opponents allegedly chanted ‘Où est Cantona, I said Où est Cantona”.
It may well be, but I’d almost be more surprised if it didn’t happen!
There is a story going around that the cat was looking for Harry Redknapp over a certain bank account!
http://tinyurl.com/885clhd
The reference to the “the misplaced muggy” Is a reference to Moglet, an abandoned cat that became the unofficial mascot of Liverpool in the 80’s.
When goalkeeper Andy Gorham was reported to be suffering from schizophrenia the opposing fans chanted: “Two Andy Gorhams, there’s only two Andy Gorhams”
That should of course read Andy Goram. Or The Flying Pig.