If you’re anything like us, then you’ll try and get football references to your favourite team or player into everyday life, whether that’s naming an all-important work project your team’s stadium or christening your new pet after your favourite player or manager.
Sometimes life is all about these small wins that will go under the radar for most, but some super fans have the chance to project their fandom onto millions of people.
Throughout the years we’ve seen countless examples of movie or television creators sneaking references of their favourite team into their work, something which will go over the heads of the majority of the audience, but will be lapped up by eagle-eyed fans of that team.
Arsenal stars keep appearing in acclaimed Apple TV+ show
One of the latest instances of football references gatecrashing art comes courtesy of the critically lauded Apple TV+ show Severance, which has recently returned for a second season.
The premise of the show, which is primarily directed by Dodgeball and Zoolander star Ben Stiller, is that employees of a fictional corporation ‘Lumon Industries’ undergo a ‘severance’ programme that sees them lose all memories of their outside life when they enter their work building, and then have no memory of their work on the outside.
While this is something Manchester United fans may be interested in undergoing every time they enter and leave Old Trafford, the show is actually crammed full of references about one of their Premier League rivals.
The show’s Reddit page features a thread listing a series of Arsenal references, starting in the first season where there is a senator Arteta, who has named his children Kai and Declan, with Gunners fans pointing to Havertz and Rice, although this was first broadcast before the two players signed for the club.
But the second season, which started earlier this year, features another Arsenal reference, as a character named Saliba (as in William) is interviewed, again fueling speculation that writer Dan Erickson is a Gunners fan.
However, in an interview with GQ, Erickson moved to debunk this rumour, as he said: “I will be honest, I am just learning of this connection for the first time. Yeah, it may be that in some other life, in some other corner of my consciousness, I am a huge fan and did that intentionally. But I can't claim that. I can't claim any knowledge of that.”
While Arsenal fans may be left disappointed at that admission, their north London rivals Tottenham can point to another recent hit show Black Doves which contains plenty of Spurs easter eggs, including a character receiving a Son Heung-min shirt, with the show’s creator Joe Barton being a huge Spurs fan that often gets references in his work.
Perhaps the most bizarre cross-pollination of football and TV in recent years came in the HBO series Veep, which features Julia Louis-Dreyfus as the Vice President of the USA. In the penultimate episode of the show’s seven-season run, Louis-Dreyfus can be seen wearing a Leeds United hoodie featuring the infamous ‘salute’ badge which the club hastily withdrew just 12 hours after it was introduced as their new crest.
