A 19-YEAR-OLD Crawley Town fan was arrested by police and banned by the club for life after he was filmed taunting Manchester United fans about the 1958 Munich air crash.

The incident occurred while the non-league club filmed an official song ahead of the sides’ FA Cup Fifth Round meeting this weekend.

In the video for the song – a reworked version of The Specials’ hit entitled “A Message to You, Rooney” – the youth can be seen extending his arms in an “airplane” gesture and mimicking an explosion.

A Manchester United fan spotted the gestures and reported the incident to Crawley officials, who subsequently informed Sussex Police.

A spokesperson for the police force released a statement earlier this afternoon, detailing the terms of the arrest of the individual in question.

The man from Crawley was arrested under the Public Order Act on suspicion of causing harassment, alarm or distress and has been bailed until 25 February pending further inquiries.

As part of his bail conditions the man is not allowed to travel to Manchester for the Crawley Town Football Club match against Manchester United on Saturday 19 February.

Unsurprisingly, Crawley have moved to distance themselves from the incident as quickly as possible. The Guardian’s website carries comments from the club’s chief executive, Alan Williams.

We immediately pulled it off the website and removed it from YouTube.

We’ve called in the police to see if they will press charges and we have identified the idiot responsible and banned him from the club for life.

He’s not welcome here now or ever again. This should be an unbelievable week for us, playing the biggest club there is, and if anyone thinks Crawley would deliberately insult Manchester United over something so sensitive, that is what gets to me more than anything.

A modified version of the video has now been reposted on Crawley’s official website. The original footage is available below.