Missing Swoop head was returned to the Philly-themed bar it was stolen from

– Anna Orso

J.P. Teti woke up Monday to learn his security, nay, his entire existence, had been threatened. The being that looks over his Philadelphia-themed dive bar in London was kidnapped over the weekend by a couple of British bandits.

They took Swoop’s head.

In an act so sinister that it has captured the attention of an international cohort of online crimestoppers, two bar patrons on Sunday evening appeared as though they were posing for a photo with an Eagles mascot head that has sat at the front of the establishment since a fan gifted it to the bar, called Passyunk Avenue, when the Birds played in London last October.

Instead of simply posing for a pic, the couple swiped Swoop and dashed down the street, disappearing into the ether without so much as a “cheerio!”

But as fast as they took the head, the international nightmare was over. A day after customers absconded with Swoop, he was brought back to his home at Passyunk Avenue “shaken, but unharmed and happy to be home,” the bar tweeted Tuesday…

(The Philadelphia Inquirer, 2019, United Kingdom, <https://www.inquirer.com/news/eagles-mascot-head-stolen-from-london-bar-east-passyunk-dive-reward-20190624.html>)