It's transfer deadline day, and for some reason, in the warped mind of the Balls.ie staff, talk of the transfer window somehow always turns to talk of dildos.
There was a time when it all went a little haywire, a strange period in our history, when there was an all too frequent collision of two, distinct worlds: the monied world of professional sport, and the humble Dildo.
These seem like strange bedfellows, but in many ways, they make reasonable bedfellows. One is something plastic and fake through which consumers live out their fantasies, while the other is the Premier League.
So without further ado, we will now take a brief trip through the anals (annals - Ed) of the history of dildos in sport.
Dildo Deadline Day
You grow up watching All The President's Men, and inspired by Woodward and Bernstein, you knuckle down and do well in school to pursue your dream. You make it to college to study journalism, lengthening your days with voluntary but necessary work with your college newspaper. Ultimately you graduate, you work for free with a whole host of obscure outlets, chasing your dream.
And then you snatch it, and land a role on national television. Your legacy? Writing about The thrusting of a purple dildo in your ear live on TV.
It took the guts of seven years but 2024 finally gave us a Transfer Deadline Day dildo moment.
Did anyone else just see this on Sky Sports News? 😯 #DeadlineDay pic.twitter.com/rkl6Ymq2P8
— Rob Lee (@fscollector1985) August 30, 2024
To the winner the spoils...
Liverpool's 2000/2001 season was remarkably successful: Champions League qualification for once the least impressive achievement in comparison with a cup treble: success in the League and FA Cups were matched with European success in the UEFA Cup. That final was utterly mad: Liverpool eventually beating underdogs Alaves 5-4 after extra time. A pretty remarkable game, although Gary McAllister's memory from that game is somewhat surprising.
Robbie [Fowler] was warming up behind me as I was taking a corner. Just as I stepped back, something comes flying out of the crowd and just whizzes past my ear.
I'm thinking, 'Gee, what's that!?' Robbie was just stretching, he was ready to come on. So I have a glance and I think... 'Surely not?'
On closer inspection.... it was the biggest double dildo I've ever seen in my life. Somebody had thrown it from the top of the stand. And people ask my memories from the UEFA Cup!
And Robbie Fowler, cool as a cucumber, walks on the pitch and he flicks it up with his right and volleyed it back into the crowd.
Wrong-headed support
Much has been made of the decline of Aston Villa, one of the great institutions of English football in the last couple of years. The dwindling interest of Randy Lerner, the stultifying dullness of the Paul Lambert reign, the flabbergasting appointment of Tim Sherwood, the helplessness of Remi Garde, the careless tweeting by Joleon Lescott and the uselessness of Roberto Di Matteo are all staging posts in the fall of a great club.
But where did it all begin? We think it might have been after an FA Cup win at home to West Brom, which featured a pitch invasion, and the BBC catching this fan wearing a dildo on his head.
The Fifth Fall of Buffalo
It's not an easy business trying to stop Rob Gronkowski, with this effort from a Buffalo Bills fan a most lamentable effort. Either that or a remarkably commitment to a very infantile joke. Gronk blasted through the Bills' defence to score his 69th TD for the Patriots in 2016, and was met by a soaring dildo.
Some fan threw a dildo in the pats bills game pic.twitter.com/Qb5Z9bHTDJ
— Jeremy K (@JRowMe) October 30, 2016
The target of the tossed dildo was Chris Hogan, a wide receiver wearing number 15 who'd left Buffalo to join Tom Brady's Pats.
After the match, the Bills' VP Andy Major confirmed a stiff punishment for the perpetrators: the dildo throwers are now banned from the Bills' home games. We're pretty surprised that there was more than one person responsible for the throw: it can't be that heavy, can it?
Interestingly a dildo would be thrown from the same corner of the stadium when the same two teams met in the 2022 wildcard playoff game.
THE DILDO RETURNS!!! #Bills fans are hilarious 😂😂😂 pic.twitter.com/wlt6muYEqm
— uSTADIUM (@uSTADIUM) January 16, 2022
Dildos on Ice
In 2008, Swedish ice hockey fans delayed the beginning of a match with a downpour of sex toys, festooning those on the ice with dildos.
The fans in questions supported AIK, and the chucking of sex toys was an orchestrated campaign to unsettle Leksand defender Jan Huokko, after a sex tape featuring he and his girlfriend was leaked online.
The website for AIK’s unofficial supporter group organised the campaign, with Swedish paper The Local reporting that the AIK organization knew about the fans' plan but decided not to intervene. What follows is quite a quote from the club head, Mats Hedenstrom, who comes across as anything but headstrong in this incident.
We heard mention of it, but decided that it would only be worse if we went out and told the fans they were absolutely not allowed to throw dildos on the ice.
Watch it below:
Hammer Time
During West Ham's loss to Brighton in 2018, the game was momentarily stopped as referee Kevin Friend was forced to remove a sex toy thrown onto the pitch by at a West Ham fan.
At least of the photographs taken of the incident may haunt poor Mr. Friend for many years to come.
A West Ham fan threw a dildo on the pitch away at Brighton yesterday...😅😂 #WHUFC pic.twitter.com/KraAV0nYgX
— Casual Mind (@CasualMind_) October 7, 2018
Originally written in 2017 by Gavin Cooney
