by Four years ago, a journalist, who likes to attend obscure non-league football matches on winter nights, emailed another journalist, who likes quirky facts, to inform him that Cornish team Perranporth , who play in Division 4 West of the St Piran League, were known as the Pilchards. Also that he once quoted his manager as saying, “I’m gutted.”
Thus began an intermittent correspondence in which we gave each other new revelations about nicknames from the lesser-known categories of English football. We discovered the Highwaymen, the Peppermints, the Jam Boys and the Dabbers. Muscular names like the Nailers, the Closers, the Turbines and the Irons. And delicate like Tulips, Lilies, Marigolds and Dolly Blues.
Related: The Joy of Six: sports nicknames | John Ashdown
We found varied delights such as Bloods, Urchins and Holy Blues. Animals from Pewits to hippos. The most obvious ones, like Mintcakes and Baht’atters… If even these stump you, all the answers are below.
But it’s the non-obvious names that are the most fun. For example, West Midlands team Halesowen Town are known to their devotees as Yeltz. It dates back to at least 1881 and appears to connect with the Black Country custom of turning an initial H into a Y. It could therefore refer to the name of the place or is a corruption of “Ye Earls”, the Earls of Dudley, who were the main landowners. of the area. Or something else.
Stamford FC in Lincolnshire are the Daniels, the town is the burial place of Daniel Lambert (1770-1809), 52 stone and famous for being the fattest man in England. Although he is not a role model in sports. Then there are the Geordies, Hanwell Town FC, on the Paddington line west of London, who were founded by exiled Novocastrians and still play in black and white stripes 103 years later. And what about the Krooners, Camberley Town? They play at Krooner Park, supposedly so named because it was paid for with the proceeds of a horse named Krooner.
On a planet that only recognizes about six English football teams, this was splendid fun. It was a lesson in geography, history and local tradition and also a vision of the wisdom of crowds and the infinite variety that still persists in an increasingly homogeneous country. It is also highly addictive. But the rarely explored depths of English football are by no means the only well gushing from the so-called oil field.
Perhaps nowhere else in football is this achieved better than in the Scots. Consider the Bully Wee, the Blue Brazil, the Red Lichties, the Doonhamers, the Loons and the Hi Hi. Loch Ness FC, who managed to qualify for the Scottish Cup this year, do not recognize the obvious nickname that could sink even the Hippos. But they do not hesitate to use the connection to sell products.
Some nicknames seem to have gathered dust. Do the inhabitants of the northernmost colony of Abu Dhabi talk among themselves about the Citizens? When did you last hear mention of Spurs as the Lilywhites or Leeds as the Peacocks? Even when they were still in the Football League almost half a century ago, did anyone in Southport ever shout: “Come on, Sandgrounders”?
And while nicknames, like rooftop chanting, should constitute a popular art form, this is now a global infantilization spread by marketing departments. Crystal Palace (née the Glaziers) and Reading (née the Biscuitmen) are now the headline-friendly Eagles and Royals. And top-down fake nicknames abound in rugby (which has provided zoological nonsense like the Leeds Rhinos and the Sale Sharks) and cricket.
Only one decent name has emerged from that source: the Northamptonshire Steelbacks, which was the nickname of the local regiment whose 18th-century soldiers were famous for their phlegmatic behavior when subject to the discipline of the cat o’ nine tails. It could also refer to the modern cricket team, which also remains stoic despite being frequently whipped.
Sometimes public opinion overrides officials. West Bromwich Albion’s former nickname, Throstles, has long been replaced by Baggies, which probably refers to the baggy shorts or bags in which turnstile attendants carried coins. Writer Phil Shaw, now based in Shrewsbury, reports that it is wrong to call the local team the Shrews; the crowd always calls him Salop. There are also nicknames within nicknames. Like the Gooners.
But look further. Wikipedia has a huge list of US college teams with lots of boring and obvious animals, but also banana slugs, pronghorns, thunder chickens, fighting cocks, triceratops, fighting artichokes, Minutewomen and Zips.
American nicknames are usually part of the official name and are therefore selected and discarded according to changing tastes. In the nation’s capital, the basketball-playing Washington Bullets became the Wizards and the Redskins more recently became the Commanders, for obvious reasons. And this same year, the city’s George Washington University changed the name of its teams from Colonials to Revolutionaries, a change that might have made more sense in the 1770s.
We should also note the Alabama-based minor league baseball team, the Rocket City Trash Pandas (local slang for raccoons), a name that dates back to 2017 and should be noted for its obvious and evidently successful attention-seeking.
Nicknames are not an Anglophone monopoly either. Every African soccer team has a nickname, from the evocative Bafana Bafana (the boys, the boys) of South Africa to Les Écureuils (the small but climbing squirrels) of Benin, which the country’s soccer authorities are trying to change to Cheetahs, a measure that deserves to fail. Spain has Los Boquerones (Málaga), Los Colchoneros (Atlético de Madrid), Queso Mecánico (Albacete) and Los Pepineros (Leganés): the Anchoas, the Colchoneros, the Clockwork Cheese and the Pepineros (multiple congratulations to Niall del Guardian). McVeigh).
In Germany, Eintracht Frankfurt goes by various nicknames such as Die Adler, Schlappekicker and Launische Diva: the Eagles (boring), Slipper-kickers (charming) and Moody Diva (ditto, referring to their improbable fluctuations in form).
Perhaps best of all we know so far is “The Diddy”, the now official nickname of the Longueville Sporting Club in Sydney. Dedicated primarily to bowling, though now especially child-friendly, the club long suffered from the average age of members and the inevitable consequences. Old friends would disappear and when someone asked where they were, they would be told the sad news that was regularly greeted with the words, “Oh, he died, didn’t he?” And the phrase stuck and they became Diddy-Dies, before shortening them even more so as not to scare the children.
Someone, somewhere in Cowdenbeath or China, may have a better nickname story than this. Let us know and maybe we can uncover a few more gems.
On Tuesday, Richard Whitehead will watch Wimborne Town (the Magpies) against Larkhall Athletic (the Larks). Matthew Engel won’t do it.
What’s in a (nickname)name?
HighwaymenMorpeth town, Northumberland
Probably because of the proximity to the once crime-ridden Great North Road.
mints Newquay, Cornwall
jam boys Whitchurch United, Hampshire
Dabbers Town of Nantwich, Cheshire
nailers Belper Town, Derbyshire
locksmiths Willenhall Town (suspended), West Midlands
turbines Peterborough Sports, Cambridgeshire
Formed as a factory team for an engineering project.
Iron Scunthorpe United, Lincolnshire and Braintree Town, Essex
tulips Spalding United, Lincolnshire
lilies Chatteris Town, Cambridgeshire
marigolds Town of Littlehampton, West Sussex
blue doll Lancaster city, Lancashire
The T-shirts were the color of the blue Dolly bags that used to help bleach clothes.
bloods Saffron Walden Town, Essex
urchins Hornchurch, east London
Holy Blues Gainsborough Trinity, Lincolnshire
Pewits Emley (Yorkshire)
hippos Honiton Town, Devon
mint cakes Kendal town, Cumbria
Baht’atters Ilkley, West Yorkshire
Bully Tiny Clyde, Glasgow
Origin uncertain, but possibly “bully” in the Victorian sense of excellent, although “small”
Brazil blue Cowdenbeath, Fife
According to the programme’s editor, David Allan, this arose from a season in the 1980s in which they played exciting football.
The hello hello Third Lanark, Glasgow (defunct 1967)
From an old fan song
red lychees Arbroath, Angus
After the red light that guided the fishing boats into the port
Doonhamers queen of the south
Nickname for the people of Dumfries, the home of the club.
loons Forfar Athletic, Angus
From the original meaning of loons: men.
banana slugs University of California, Santa Cruz
pronghorns Gillette University, Wyoming
Thundering Chickens Community College, Wheeling, West Virginia
fighting cocks Jacksonville State University, Alabama
Triceratops Community College, Cuyahoga, Ohio
Fight against artichokes Community College, Scottsdale, Arizona
Minute women University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Zippers University of Akron, Ohio
