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Knowsley Safari Park's infamous baboons are the stars of a new taxi advertising campaign which urges the England squad to repeat their historic victory in the 1966 tournament. A group of football fans from Africa are backing England's World Cup campaign - despite the fact that this year's competition is being held on their home turf. The soccer supporters in question's are Knowsley Safari Park's infamous baboons, who are the stars of a new taxi advertising campaign which urges the England squad to repeat their historic victory in the 1966 tournament. The origins of the campaign can be traced back to the 2006 World Cup in Germany when the mischievous inhabitants of the Knowsley monkey jungle amassed a huge collection of England flags stolen from visitors cars. As a result, attraction bosses were forced to issue a warning to families to remove the flags before setting off on the safari drive. Now some of the photographs of the baboons antics from four years ago have been used to create an eye-catching promotional livery which is being featured on 30 taxis operating in towns and cities all over the North West. To launch the campaign safari chiefs decided to give the baboons a close-up view of their advertising equivalents and - predictably - it didn¹t take long before they were on top of the cab and up to their old tricks. Safari Park General Manager, David Ross, commented: The baboons are always great fun but they are the vandals of the animal world and they weren¹t going to ignore a colourful target like our World Cup taxi. The driver, Ray Grocott, said that although he was used to dealing with problem fares this time he was just glad to get out of the monkey jungle with most of his cab intact, even though a couple of the baboons had left unwanted Otips on his bonnet! Steve Hale, Operations Manager for Transport Media, the company co-ordinating the campaign, said: "We're delighted with the taxis - at the design stage we knew they were going to be good but they're so much better in the flesh than we expected". This is a unique campaign. There's nothing like it anywhere else in the country and we're sure it will bring a smile to people's faces throughout the region. The antics of the 140-strong troop of baboons are an ongoing problem for park bosses. Last year they had to warn visitors with rooftop luggage boxes to avoid the monkey jungle after the baboons learnt how to break into them. Ref: HSLP0101AA352
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