I’m a former Arsenal star – I was convinced I’d time travelled two years into the future and became a laughing stock
FORMER Arsenal star Anders Limpar once believed he had time travelled two years into the future after being the subject of a TV prank.
The midfielder played for the Gunners between 1994 and 1997, winning the First Division and FA Cup.
Spells at Everton and Birmingham followed for the man with 58 international caps.
However, in his homeland of Sweden he became a laughing stock after falling for the two-day long prank.
Limpar exclusively told Ladbrokes Fanzone about the unbelievable story.
He said: “I think this is easily one of the best pranks ever. I actually thought I’d flown two years into the future; that’s the long and short of it.
“For years afterwards, I was a laughing stock in Sweden, no one could understand how I believed it all. But it was unreal, the production levels were so, so good.
“There were something like 20 guys involved, all to fool me, and I just bit.”
Limpar was on a plane from Gothenberg to Stockholm when he believed he had gone from 1997 to 1999.
The ex-Arsenal star continued: “There were these two ‘scientists’ on the flight who were talking about being able to time travel, and the plane was diving up and down and all over the place.
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“I can laugh at it all now, but at the time, my God, it was scary, it was really, really scary.
“They actually involved these jet fighters to guide us into Stockholm… actual jet fighters.
“We could hear everything that was going on over the radio: ‘Where have you been? This is the tower speaking, you’ve just shown up on the radar.’
“The whole production was so cleverly done. I felt it was all real. It was absolutely crazy.
“We had two doctors on board in case I flipped, there was someone who could essentially press a button and the plane would just start diving up and down and all over the place.
“Food and drink was flying everywhere in the plane, and then we started to level out. I’m just thinking ‘what the f*** is going on?
The ‘scientists’ managed to trick Limpar into believing they had gone into the future and the prank didn’t stop there.
He explains: “I went into the pilot shouting at him, demanding to speak to the tower. He ordered me to go back and put my seatbelt on.
“We were fighting with the scientist in the plane because we wanted to know what was going on.
“Apparently they’d done something similar with a Canadian guy two years before me and he actually had to have psychological help afterwards because he was in such a bad state.
“We landed the plane, and they took us straight into a hanger, where there were science guys asking all of us questions.
“They wanted to know what happened to us, where we’d been, had we been in space? All of these things. It was all absolutely mind-blowing.
“It was such a horrible feeling. We thought we were dead. When we landed, we were told they’d had funerals for us and everything, because apparently the assumption was that we’d died.
“This prank went on for two days, by the way. It wasn’t just a quick joke.
“They showed us newspapers, which obviously weren’t real, where crazy things had apparently happened.
“They told us Norway had won the World Cup in 1998.
“From the two days we spent in this prank, they cut the whole thing down to just one hour for TV. There was so much more to the whole story.
“Of course I was so glad when the guy, Lennart Swahn, finally showed up to tell us it was all a prank. I felt like I’d had a rucksack full of stones just fall off my back, I was so relieved.
I couldn’t believe it. I was happy, of course, but I just felt ridiculous for something like half an hour afterwards, to even think that I was flying two years into the future.
“But, for years afterwards, I was angry with it all, because it made me a laughing stock in Sweden. I wasn’t happy with that at all.
“That’s why, when they asked me if they could sell the whole thing as a DVD, I said no.
“Look, it was an incredible prank, so funny when I look back now, and I felt so many emotions at the time. But when everyone in the country laughed at me for years afterwards… that was hard to deal with. It affected my personality, my profile.
“I was later told that their normal production budget per stunt was £10,000, this one was £200,000.
“They had to pay for jet fighters, take over the airport, and everything. It was the biggest production ever made in Sweden, when it came to prank shows.
I never found out why they chose to do it on me. I’m probably too trust-able a guy, easy to fool, naive, whatever you want to call it.
“It’s one of the cleverest pranks ever done.”