The blimp first appeared for one
of the Manchester derbies, hovering over Old Trafford. Do blimps float or do they hover? Either
way it was up there in the sky, moving in a slow circle above the stadium,
silently extolling the virtues of vulcanised rubber.
People joked that it said “Ice
Cube is a pimp” on the side. It didn’t, it said “Goodyear”. People expected it
to move on once the derby was over. It didn’t.
The blimp stayed there all
season. You could say it loomed ominously, but it didn’t because in fact there
are few modes of transport less ominous than a bright yellow and blue blimp. Really
as far as transportation goes that is as festive and non-ominous as you can
get.
The citizenry of Manchester wondered if it
was part of a sponsorship deal: Sir Alex Ferguson would not be drawn on the subject.
Goodyear remained silent.
Towards the end of the season it
was suggested that the league cup was inside and that if City won the league it
would buzz (or drift?) over to the Emirates. They won and the blimp remained
obstinately above Old Trafford.
In fact it stayed there the next
season, and the season after that, moving in those long graceful circuits over
the Trafford skyline.
Goodyear went bust in the end,
because of the hovercars, but the blimp stayed there regardless. No one really
knew whose responsibility it was to deal with the blimp, it wasn’t causing any
harm so there was no real clamour to remove it. If anything it had become a
landmark, a symbol of the city, something that had entered people’s consciousness.
“Let your troubles float away (like the Trafford blimp)” people would say, “Your
troubles will circle back around in the end (like the Trafford blimp)” the
cynics would retort.
As ever with these thing the
cynics were eventually proved right, to the frustration of decent friendly people
everywhere, and the blimp started to become a problem. You see the blimp’s
endless cycle had begun to deteriorate and it was at risk of becoming snagged
in the cables of one of the cities mighty and world famous cloud towers. And so
it was that, years after it had first appeared, the city was forced to hire
some adventurous soul to strap on a jet pack and try to take control of the
ancient piece of machinery.
Inside was a perfectly preserved
time capsule of a bygone age and resting at the controls a skeleton wearing a
t-shirt stating “World’s #1 Blimp Pilot.” Who he was we may never know, all
records from that era at the club having been consumed in the construction of
Fergie’s vast funeral pyre.
