My teacher friend, a Grimsby Town supporter, was incandescent. For the second time in a year his hometown club was in the news. Back in January, it was because Southampton had banned visiting Grimsby fans from bringing inflatable Harry the Haddock mascots to St Mary’s for their FA Cup tie (a ban later reversed). This time, it was thanks to a woolly Grimsby Town FC hat Boris Johnson was sporting as he left the Covid inquiry this week.
My friend had just one question: “WTF is he wearing that for?” Grimsby fans have now set up an online petition to make Johnson desist. The petition claims he is “bringing the town into serious disrepute”.
A more incongruous match-up of football club and celebrity fan is hard to imagine. Of course, Boris is not a Grimsby fan; he is not even a football fan. When he ran for London mayor, he was asked which team he supported.
“All the London clubs,” was his weaselly response. Though it was arguably better than “fellow Old Etonian seeking to be a common man”, David Cameron, “forgetting” he was an Aston Villa fan and exhorting an audience on the campaign trail to support West Ham. Well, they both play in claret and blue, don’t they? It was a “brain fade”, our new Foreign Secretary said later.
Boris wearing a bobble hat is not new, especially when jogging. This hat was a gift from the Great Grimsby constituency’s local MP and Boris ally, Lia Nici, after the 2019 election. Johnson had used Grimsby fish market as a “symbolic battleground” for that election, given that 70 per cent of voters there had voted Brexit.
Johnson promised that leaving the EU would be a “massive boost” for the region. This rings hollow today, as so many in the fish industry lament just how much harder it is to trade with Europe now and the local economy struggles as a result.
How can we control what symbols others choose to appropriate? We often see politicians wearing badges: a male stickman (prostate cancer), a silver heart (Terrence Higgins Trust), a pink and purple oval (World Holocaust Memorial Day) and the rest. Often, this support is welcome. But sometimes it can spark outrage too. One doctor told the then health secretary Jeremy Hunt he was “not fit” to wear an NHS badge in his lapel. His successor, Matt Hancock, was ridiculed by care workers for announcing a “care” badge during the pandemic.
Arguably worse than Boris’s bobble hat was the garish Michael Jackson statue at Fulham’s Craven Cottage stadium. It was as tacky as it was incongruous. Jackson had visited once, and then owner, Mohamed al-Fayed, built a statue to him.
Like Johnson’s hat, it became our unwelcome symbol. It made my club a laughing stock. That statue has now been removed from the Museum of Football and Fulham fans can once again bask again in the support of Hugh Grant and Margot Robbie. Yes Barbie is a Fulham fan, and she can wear a Fulham beanie any time she likes.