by Matthew Cobb
Jerry noticed this nice photo from Liverpool Football Club’s ground, Anfield, which was originally posted on Retronaut about 18 months ago, and for some reason has just popped up again on Tw*tter. The photo was taken in 1964, and shows a rather fine-looking cat running towards the stands.
The photo is as interesting for what it says about English football as it is for the cat. The young boys are all down at the front of an all-standing terrace – they would be pushed down there, where it was safer and they could see better. And several of them have retro ‘rattles’ which you’d whirl round to make a noise. These have started to make a bit of a come-back. And there are no women that I can see and the crowd is 99% white – women now make up a substantial minority of spectators, and the ethnic composition of Liverpool has changed substantially since then.
Anfield apparently has a tradition with cats. In 2012, a match against Jerry’s beloved Spurs was interrupted by a rather battered tom running onto the field.
The cat instantly acquired several Tw*tter accounts, one of which @AnfieldCat, is still going strong with some rather tiresome sexist tw**ts and 56,000 followers who like that kind of stuff.
The cat was taken to a stray cats’ home, named Shankly after Liverpool’s most famous manager (let’s hope he wasn’t an Evertonian), was cleaned up, had the snip, and was eventually rehoused:
Other animals also get involved in sporting events. This squirrel came onto the US Women’s Tennis Open:
This Swiss fox steals golf balls (to be honest, the golfers are chez lui, so they get what they deserve):
And just to prove that Switzerland is a dangerous place to play football, there was the famous pine marten incident with footballer Loris Benito (there’s a bitey mammal joke there but I’ll leave it to you):
The moral of that story is fairly obvious: don’t try picking up a frightened mustelid with sharp teeth…
D*gs appear so regularly on playing pitches that they aren’t worth remarking on.
Day of the World Cup Final, 1966. My brother’s mate wanders in, rattles his rattle chuffin’ loud. Our cat jumps out the window. We never saw it again. Poor cat.
Slaínte.
The post reminded me of a famous incident for Mets and Cubs fans: the 1969 “black cat” game at Shea Stadium:
http://www.newyorkmetsreport.com/2011/09/09/today-in-mets-history-the-black-cat-game/
I was just thinking the same thing. One has to take amusement in the fact that the black cat appeared to have changed their season… just fuels superstition of the masses. lol
You can get autographed Ron Santo pictures of the incident.
http://www.grandstandsports.com/pages/19555.htm
In Mexico we don’t us those wimpy rattles:
Only one photo was in blog.
Frank Bartell Assoc. Prof. Anthropology Chair Dept. Of Social Science Community College of Phila. 1700 Spring Garden St. Phila., PA 19130
>________________________________ > From: Why Evolution Is True >To: fbartell@yahoo.com >Sent: Wednesday, April 23, 2014 12:10 PM >Subject: [New post] Cats (and other animals) on sports fields > > > > WordPress.com >whyevolutionistrue posted: “by Matthew Cobb Jerry noticed this nice photo from Liverpool Football Club’s ground, Anfield, which was originally posted on Retronaut about 18 months ago, and for some reason has just popped up again on Tw*tter. The photo was taken in 1964, and shows ” >
One of my favorites is the footage of a kestrel catching and eating a moth during a night baseball game. It’s on YouTube under “Kestrel catches moth”.
Did you never hear of Friedel Rausch,dangerous dogs and languid lions?
For a picture see:
http://mediadb.kicker.de/news/1000/1020/1100/3000/3307/artikel/773074/rausch_hundebiss_69_sw800-1345716626.jpg
Even Men With Steel Hearts Love to See a Dog on the Pitch.
Hank the Dog
This little guy wandered onto the spring training field of the Milwaukee Brewers this year. He was a stray but now he’s become a sensation, named in honor of Hank Aaron.
Jerry is a Spurs fan? Nice! COYS
The Anfield cat is significant because it featured on the very first broadcast of Match of the Day on the new BBC2 channel in 1964, Liverpool v Arsenal. The afternoon game wasn’t shown live, an edited version was broadcast later that evening. Match of the Day and the BBC are still going strong 50 years later. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Match_of_the_Day
Frankly Mr Shankly – I think that may be a beech or stone marten
Did I hear her right? It sounds like neutering cats in Britain is a three-week process. Ouch! Poor cats. Here in the States, we have modern technology that lets the cats go home just a short while after the procedure. Maybe y’all might be interested in sending some of your vets to America to learn about it? Our vets are quite friendly, and generally don’t bite. Very hard.
b&
I think they also wanted the three weeks for the antibiotics to clear up the abscesses and possibly to let the cat get used to ‘captivity’.