Banter is defined as ‘irony or sarcasm’. In the olden days, people called it ‘piss taking’. Nevertheless, the art of ‘Football Banter’ is a carefully honed skill. Its exponents can be found down the pub, on the football pitch and online.

On this page, we celebrate ‘Banter Artists‘ who have brightened our day. You’ll find funny videos, tweets and memes that’ll make you laugh. Remember, it’s just a bit of banter – don’t get all ‘Joey Barton’ about it!

If you’re new to whole banter thing, you should probably take it slow at first. You don’t want to make newbie mistakes.

Telling your friend his football team is shit, and his mum is a slag, can be funny, but not his Dads funeral! Remember, timing is everything with banter. Don’t post that meme until your club has played and won – you could look like a massive bellend if your team loses to Wrexham in the Cup.

The safest way to start some banter is with a GIF. Post it on social media or text it to a mate. You’ll find millions of appropriate and inappropriate gifs at giphy.com, including loads of funny football memes.

Twitter can also be a source of footy bants. @FootyHumour is an excellent salt mine for the bantz.

The best banter often comes from former and current players. Peter Crouch is the Archbishop of Banterbury online. The ex-Liverpool and Stoke City player is one of the funniest accounts on Twitter. He once posted a photo of himself feeding giraffes with the comment ‘Summer is about time with the family’.

However, banter can sometimes go wrong. Stan Collymore and Rio Ferdinand famously came to blows on the platform. Jamie Carragher is another ex-player who’s not shy about calling people out online. Gary Lineker once tweeted ‘hope Pellegrini has been informed from the start about Guardiola’s arrival. Incredibly disrespectful otherwise’ to which Carragher replied ‘Totally agree…hope you informed Everton in 1986 when Barcelona made first contact!!’.

It’s not just the football players who give out the bantz online. WAGs can dish out a fair amount of stick. Who can forget Coleen Rooney’s epic Twitter thread, which ended with the immortal line “It’s ……………. Rebekah Vardy’s account.”

England legend Jimmy Greaves famously said “It’s a funny old game” and he wasn’t wrong. Football has an endless capacity to entertain us with funny incidents, crazy own goals and hilarious clips of Phil Jones’ facial expressions.

The advent of Fan Channels has given us more comedy gold. Whether it’s Gooners crying on ArsenalFanTV or Andy Tate on TheUnitedStand ranting about David Moyes “You got the job on a technicality of a legend who recommended you. You’re nothing, you’re a fool and you’re a waste of time. Goodnight.” We all love to see real football fans react with passion and humour.

In recent years, one of the funniest incidents occurred when 2000 diehard Newcastle fans visited Sunderland. Newcastle’s rivals had recently been featured on a Netflix docu-series called ‘Sunderland Til I Die’. The series followed the club in a disastrous season which saw them relegated from the Premier League. The travelling Newcastle supporters serenaded the home fans with a chorus of ‘We saw you crying on Netflix‘ – classic terrace banter.