Leaving unusual items at the scene of a death.

Factual Questions
1

I’m not sure if this is the correct place to post this, although I am looking for a general answer.

A bit of background:
Last weekend a young man from my village took his life by jumping from a bridge into motorway traffic. I cross this bridge each morning and again in the evening on my walk to and from work. Each time I pass, I notice the growing number of items tied to the railings, usually with a note of respect or sympathy for his family, attached.

My question is, when and why did it become so popular to leave Football shirts at the scene ?

I can understand that if someone played for a club or was even a massive fan of a club, that shirts and scarves of that club could be left, and signed with a message of respect. What confuses me is, this particular lad has got Celtic, Rangers, Hearts, Dunfermline Athletic, Scotland and Dundee UTD shirts left in his memory, none of which seem to bear written messages in bad taste.

Is there a new tradition or trend, where one would sacrifice their Football shirt, whatever the club, for the memory of a friend ?

2

Such displays at the scene of a death are found here in the U.S. as well. Flowers are a popular offering, since they’re generally associated with memorials and funerals. However, it’s also common for people to leave items more directly associated with the victim, such as toys or stuffed animals for a child. Perhaps people left football shirts in this case because a young man died, and they assume that a young man would have followed football?

3

Maybe they’re all commiserating… their teams are bad enough to make them jump off a bridge, too.

4

Dunno. Chew Barker. Even if they were all football shirt of the lad’s own preferred team, it still seems odd to me. But it’s not ALL that new, I think. I seem to have seen this on things like television reports of, say, a fatal accident or a murder for a few years now.

I tend to suspect this weird fondness for odd public display instead of just a tasteful bunch of flowers or two dates from the sainted Diana Spencer but perhaps not.

(Cynical thought - it’s dreadful to think how bad this guy’s life must have seemed to him but it was NOT nice of him to choose that way of doing it. Sorry, but if I want to do away with myself, I probably wouldn’t try to give nightmares to a whole lot of uninvolved strangers just driving on the motorway.)

5

I call it power grieving. It’s an effort to let the entire world know Just How Horrible you feel about someone’s death. And Just How Much you Loved the Deceased.

6

I asked a similar question some time ago about the origin of these roadside shrines. The thread is apparently gone in the mass pruning ('cause I can’t find it).

My question was specifically about the increase in the number of roadside shrines here in the US in recent years. IANAanthropologist, but I suspect that if you’re seeing a recent growth in roadside shrines in the UK, it may be influenced by the earlier popularity of these shrines in the US. Where they originated from in the US is not quite clear, but the best guess is that they came from the southwest/Mexican tradition of erecting descansos to honor accident victims.

I dun’t know why football shirts in particular are left at these spontaneous shrines, but here’s an anthropologist studying the subject who says,

So perhaps the football shirts are simply appropriate for the young man in question.

(This isn’t all that good of an answer, I’m aware, but it’s an interesting question and I hope someone else can add better factual information.)

7

Celtic and Rangers? He certainly was divided. It wasn’t suicide, the part of him that loved the Bhoys threw bluenose off the bridge.

8

Here in the USA, this phenom has morphed into a weird custom-people leave junk-booze, fruit, balloons, teddy bears-all kinds of crap! There are even written testimonials to the deceased-such as "We all luv ya’ and “see yuh in heaven”…The road crews have to clean up all of this crap. What gets me: the “victims” are invariabley drunk teenagers who wrap their cars around trees…I have yet to see any of these people get a sign with "stupid’ on it!:smack:

9

I don’t know much about euro-football, but isn’t it traditional to exchange shirts with the other team after matches sometimes? Could that have something to do with it?

10

Not that I’m planning to jump off any bridges any time soon, but my family has strict instructions regarding this - if I should happen to die in some public place, I especially do not want to be commemorated by litter.

11

You are the king of the one liners!

12

Caught me by surprise there,just had a choking fit.

13

The one I saw for several months was to a young woman who was abducted at roadside and murdered.

And the items left are pretty much what zut’s anthropologist described.