“An incredible April Fool’s joke. Unbelievable that it was possible to implement.”
The Swedish sports journalist Olof Lundh writes that Xattaching an image of the former football magazine ‘Shoot!’, which was published in the UK between 1969 and 2008.
April Fools in the press both here at home and abroad is something we have become used to over the years, such as Strømsgodset who announced today that a weakened squad will be sent to the elite series opener against Molde due to the corona outbreak (so not true).
And some jokes are better than others.
There were probably many Brits who put their tea down their throats when they saw Liverpool hero Ian Rush wearing an Everton kit on the cover of the football magazine in question, labeled “first in the world“.
Here he gives notice
– Took off completely
“Rush signs for Everton. Big deal inside the magazine”, it read in 1989, just after the striker had returned to neighboring Liverpool.
It was not as easy to check the veracity of stories in those days, without the internet and the like. Fortunately, it quickly dawned on those who read the case that it was a joke.
As journalist Dominic King in the Daily Mail points out on X:
“This is still the best April Fool’s joke of all time. It’s 35 years ago today, and the morning it came out it took the city by storm. Those were different times: The picture was taken at Melwood. No PR team, just a good old fashioned innocent laugh.”
This remains the greatest April fool of all time. It’s 35 years old today, the morning this came out the city went into meltdown.
Different times: the picture was taken at Melwood. No PR teams just a good-natured innocent laugh. pic.twitter.com/DCNQjOWN4O— Dominic King (@DominicKing_DM) April 1, 2024
– Went straight on
Melwood is the former training ground of Liverpool’s men’s team. Ian Rush played his second spell at the club between 1988 and 1996.
It is, to say the least, difficult to imagine Erling Braut Haaland posing on the cover of FourFourTwo magazine today, wearing a Manchester United kit, for example.
The old joke has taken its victory lap in social media this Monday.
Kasper Wikestad is among those who point out that he read the case as a young boy – and went five on.
“The April Fool’s joke I remember best. 13 years old, and went straight on. Shocked, until I read inside,” writes the football commentator X.