Perhaps in Britain, but also throughout the world, Liverpool fans are renowned for their passionate support of the team in Red from Anfield's Kop End and of course the club association with  the song You'll Never Walk Alone and raised scarfs.   Whilst Liverpool players from Hunt to Dalglish and in the modern era Torres have spent decades making history on the pitch, the club's supporters have always been busy off it making creative banners.   The list is endless and the grounds they have appeared in uncountable. From the classic 'Joey Ate the Frog's Legs' banner to the likes of 'Them Scousers Again', 'Yet Another Amazing Night Out With My Bird' and at Galatasary the famous 'Welcome to Hell - My Arse, If You Think This Is Hell, Try The Grafton on a Friday Night'.  Many banners have been created in humour and jest but there have been plenty of nasty ones through the years.  Some of the banners that appeared at Heysel 1985 were uncomplimentary to say the least about rivals Manchester United and its them manager Ron Atkinson.

Many of the flags on Merseyside are a colourful celebration of the philosophical and witty pageantry that Scouse fans seem to relish and what characterizes the Liverpool area.   The book builds on this and explores the tales behind the banners; who the fans that made them are and the journeys that they have taken them on from Anfield to the greatest stages in Europe: Wembley, the Nou Camp, the Bernabeu and the Ataturk Stadium in Istanbul.

Football banners have long been displayed in and around the football stadium during matches.   Even if a small crowd is in the stadium a selcetion of colourful banners can enliven an occasion that would otherwise be dull in the extreme.   Banners may feature logos, supporters statements expressed as a means of support or criticism for rival teams.  Unlike football shirts and scarfs which are traditionally made by clubs or manufacturers, making a banner is a relatively easy process for fans to engage in successfully and indepentantly of the club. The process in many cases requires only a few simple and easy-to-find supplies or suppliers. Often a sewing machine and some paints can see something special  or unique created from virtually very little.   Against this if it's a classic football flag design required or a European 'ultra' style banner many flags making organisations have emerged.  These allow fans and supporters to collect or raise monies to purchase the idea or design and order and facilitate banner creation from a home PC via an online portal or homepage.

As opposed to 1970's-esque simple made bedsheet football flags made at home or in a garden, with a can of spraypaint, those made by modern manufacturers can be made from high quality colour-fast woven material that is reinforced by stitching and jet colour printed design.    Many of those also come complete with rope ties to make hanging the flag easier and of course more displayable and with greater impressionable qualities.

A banner or flag for any purpose is a piece of fabric often flown from a pole or stadium station that is used symbolically for signalling and identification.   Many of the first flags were used to assist military coordination and strategic movements on war battlefields going back to medieval times.  Flags were most commonly used to symbolize a country or geographical land mass and often flew from strategic important buildings such as castles, fortifications or more recently government buildings.  Although many banners appeared at football matches as far back as the 1930's as an accompaniment to the cloth capped fan (the appearance of sandwich board man can be seen at many early FA Cup finals) since the 1950's flags have since evolved into a general tool, marker for rudimentary signalling and mass identification by supporters.  Many fan groups grew out of the use of a single flag which encapsulates the group name and club colours.

Like the others aspects of fan creativity explored in previous articles (stickers and graffiti ) flags form a means of messaging, indentification and symbolic power through statement or proclamation. With the growth in traditional club and national team colours, travelling fans use national type flags as a potent patriotic symbol and adopted it with club symbols and/or lettering. Outwith this, a variety of wide-ranging interpretations go into the meaning of the flags  or banner these often include militaristic, local, national or historic associations.

There are of course differences between national 'flags' and fan created 'banners.' Where as flags will commonly be flown for nationalistic purposes, a banner is a flag of a type that bears a symbol, logo, slogan or other message supportive of the team or club. At club level these will be more common than the national tricolor or national flag when fans follow national teams.  The word  banner derives from the latin bandum, a type of cloth out of which a flag was made (latin, Baneria, Italian, Bandiera). The German word Banns meanwhile can mean an official proclamation, whilst abandon in English means to change loyalty or disobey orders, semantically to leave the cloth or flag or national loyalties behind.

The backlash against flags and banners deemed offensive  or unwelcome has long been apparent in England and the United Kingdom even if the banners themselves contain no such threats  or offence whatsoever.  From a personal perspective, after trying to take a Scottish St.Andrews flag iwith associated club logo into a UEFA Cup tie between Aberdeen and Bayern Munich in  Scotland, I was told that the nationalistic nature of the flag could cause offence and be deemed threatening to visiting German supporters. Such threats and strict enforcement from law enforcers  or clubs is a common occurance in the United Kingdom at many grounds.  

From a club stand point many flags are seen as a hinderence to pitchside advertising and strack ponsorship  banners in the same way that shirt removal by players is seen as a being detrimental to shirt advertising exposure.   In Italy massive flag and banner displays are a common occurance on curvas and home ends but the backlash against this type of fan behaviour has gathered strength in a country increasingly self conscious of outside perceptions of its fans. 

One of the most noticeable incidents in recent years were the 'insults' directed at Napoli by Internazionale fans at the San Siro during a Serie A match.  The media and Italian government, eager in the enforced introduction of an English Premership beaucratic model at Italian grounds, argue that the kind of insults contained in the banners are unpleasant and unacceptable within the  modern game.  Against this, fan groups and hardcore Italian Ultras organisations have responded and stated that the wholesale banning of banners is an over reaction to messages which in many cases are simply put downs based on regional stereotypes or inter club historical rivalries. 

With respect to the Inter v Napoli game the specific banners displayed by Inter fans made reference to Naples the city being 'the sewer of Italy.' Another banner at the same game spoke of 'Neapolitans with cholera.'  Both were references to the fact that unsanitary conditions in some parts of Naples led to a cholera epidemic in 1973  but also to more recent binmen strikes in the Southern Italian city.  Almost crazily and hard to believe is that the backlash in the media against the banners was massive and extensive.  It is said that one Napoli supporter took legal action against Massimo Moratti, the Inter president, as a result of the offence and 'moral anguish' caused by the banners statements.  

Whilst of course the Inter banners directed at Napoli perhaps cross the line of being put downs and express crass generalisations about Naples and its residents these type of banners are few and far between.  Many banners at Serie A games serve as a means of support for the team rather than as an offensive insult to a city or rival club.  At a recent Empoli v Fiorentina regional derby match visiting Viola fans displayed a banner poking fun at the ramshackle nature of Empoli's Stadio Carlo Castellani ground 'Where did you get your ground..Ikea?'.  Many visiting fans to Juventus will make reference to Fiat in banners, whilst Parma fans will be subjected to insults about ham or Cheese.  Historical landmarks meanwhile find a way onto banners of clubs.  Pisa fans may utilise the leaning tower on banners, while Roma or Lazio fans made reference to SPQR or ancient Roman monuments.

Essentially in whatever country banners and flags serve as a means of banter or support in most and almost every case.  The word offensive or to cause offence is generally not the aim of flags and banners.   In the UK the prohibiting of banners with slogans has seen the game head more and more we down the slope of de-fanaticism and de-colourisation.  Flags in the UK are seen as a means of comunicating negativity and mis-support similar to how the booing and abuse of players (traditional means of game banter) are saught to be eradicated from the game and deemed disrespect by administrators. 

Football's eagerness and determination to adminisister antiseptic remedies to traditional tools  of support it deems 'unacceptable' means that the flag and creative matchday banner in the UK at least, has almost become lost to the game.  Outwith a random St.Georges Cross flag flags are seldom flown  or seen.  Not that that are not totaly visable but when they are the message is often lost amongst a sea of ground sanitisation.  At Arsenal there is a famous 'In Arsene We Trust' banner' but it is so small and insignificant that the message is barely readable.   Old Trafford has become known in recent years for its anti-flag agenda with many supporters being banned and season ticket removals threatened.  Some exceptions exist on the Stretford End but these are generally manufactured and rubber stamped  atmosphere creators far from the confines of surprise and generally, although extensive, very hard to notice to tv cameras.  These range from 'The Republic of Mancunia' to the more recent 'Wife, Kids, United'.   More recently as Liverpool the city celebrated its status as European City of Culture some Manchester United countered by displaying a 'European Capital of Trophies' banner. 

Any flag at a game in England will more often than not have to be rubber stamped as 'acceptable' by club security staff before it can appear at games.   Matchday originality in England is almost a thing of the past in many stadiums.  Liverpool's Kop may be one exception, but that fact that any of the Liverpool flags are seen and photographed abroad rather than at Anfield speaks for itself. 

Banner advertising has long overtaken matchday fan banners in England but essentially the same banter will often underpin the means behind it, just it is done in a corporate way.  The new Manchester City tried to get one over on its inner city rivals through a corporate billboard banner advert that appeared in Manchester picturing Carlos Tevex under the slogan 'Welcome to Manchester!'  Unsurprisingly the banner caused ruptions at Old Trafford with Alex Ferguson clearly upset.  Unlike in Italy with the Napoli fan, Manchester City have yet to pay Sir Alex damages for hurt to his feelings that the banner caused.