1997 – Pyro On The Pitch

In this photo-series we take a look at some low-fi old school examples of ultras and hooligan group banners, club supporter group banners and regular club flags, when used in the context of an international match. This was particularly common for countries who would rotate home stadiums on a regular basis and hence visit a lot of clubs’ home grounds (with the most prominent example being Italy), while away games provided the opportunity for the likes of England’s firms to display banners that would not have been seen at Wembley.

Italy vs Argentina, friendly, 21/12/1989
“Sconvolts” and others of Cagliari Calcio:

England vs Germany, US Cup, 19/06/1993
Bristol City:

Germany vs Portugal, World Cup 98 qualifier, 06/09/1997
“Dietmar Bottrop” and “Menden Sieg” of FC Schalke 04, “Blue System” of “Hamburger SV”, and many others:

Switzerland vs Scotland, Euro 92 qualifier, 11/09/1991
Arbroath FC:

Switzerland vs England, friendly, 28/05/1988
Hull City, “Blades Business Crew” of Sheffield United, and “6:57 Crew” of Portsmouth FC:

Slovenia vs Ukraine, Euro 00 qualifier, 13/11/1999
“Green Dragons” of NK Olimpija Ljubljana:

*****

Welcome to the debut edition of our newest gallery series, where in a spin off of What Football Is Supposed To Look Like (and there may be a slight bit of overlap here or there but that’s ok) we celebrate the increasingly lost art of flag and banner hanging.

In modern stadiums, we regularly see soulless competition branding uniformly adorning any available space (well, “we” don’t), making every ground look the same in many tournaments. Even where this isn’t the case, there is often an uncomfortable slickness to the production and hanging techniques of banners by some big, modern day supporters groups, impressive though they still may be. Here we shall look back to a time when this wasn’t the case, when chaos and home-made were king, and the noun “smattering” was amongst the most apt to describe the banner-hanging glory of the era.

Young Boys Bern vs Den Haag, UEFA Cup, 04/11/1987: