The balloons are attacking! Take cover!

Why are the balloons attacking? Why do they hate us?

First we have this banana down in Colorado, hiding his kids in the attic and then luring a compliant media with this bat-shit-crazy balloon boy stunt.

Then we have this wacky thing happen in Sunderland. With a balloon!

The Man won’t let you see it on-line now, as all video links have been confiscated. But if you didn’t hear about it (or haven’t seen it), here’s briefly what happened:

A shot by Sunderland that Liverpool goalkeeper Pepe Reina appeared to have covered deflected off a balloon and into goal. It was the only goal in a Liverpool loss that could later impact the entire EPL title race.

The best sound bite on this bit o’ bizzaro (tipped to us by Steven Goff’s excellent blog) is from the Sky Sports Soccer Saturday analyst, as he describes the goal live from the studio.

"It’s hit a balloon. It’s hit a balloon! … It’s a heavy balloon, not one of them light ones!"

Brilliant!

Courtesy of the Guardian in England, we are reminded that is not the first time something like this has happened. "Sheffield United had some help from a balloon when they knocked Manchester City out of the FA Cup last year, while Paul Peschisolido scored for Derby against Nottingham Forest in 2004 after Barry Roche misjuded a backpass that took a deflection off a stray coffeee cup. It has also not gone unnoticed that the balloon was a Liverpool branded one, and appears to have been thrown on to the pitch moments earlier by a young fan in the away section."

Whatever we did to the balloons … we are truly, truly sorry.