Dave’s Football Blog

Every football team’s fan base has its quirks. Pittsburgh Steelers fans swing their Terrible Towels. Denver Broncos fans like to mock incomplete passes in unison. Washington Redskins fans dress up like female pigs. It’s all just part of the grand football tradition.

But seriously, could somebody explain where this tradition came from?

Chelsea warned their fans on Friday against throwing celery during matches, saying it was a criminal offence and that anyone caught lobbing the popular salad vegetable could be banned.

The unlikely warning follows referee reports which mention celery-throwing at two recent Chelsea matches and which are being investigated by the Football Association, the club said on its website.

Tossing celery. That sounds kind of dirty, actually — just like the song that Chelsea fans started singing during the dark days of the 1980s to keep themselves entertained:

Celery, Celery,
If she don’t come,
I’ll tickle her bum,
With a lump of celery.

How that managed to stick is beyond me, but if you go to Flickr and look for Chelsea photos, you’ll find a ton of them tagged “celery” — like this one:

According to the description, this was taken last year during Chelsea’s Premiership victory parade in London. A woman opened her window to take pictures of the party, and fans started throwing celery at her. No word on whether she spread Nutella on the projectiles later. (Seriously, try the ants on a log with Nutella instead of peanut butter. That’s quality snacking.)

I suppose these random bursts of creativity strike when your team sucks, and occasionally they stick around even after the team stops sucking. Detroit Lions fans should start looking for a vegetable to call their own. Oh, wait, they have one already — the general manager. *rimshot*

Hey, can someone point me to an MP3 copy of that chant? I’d like to hear Stamford Bridge’s insanity for myself.

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