by Last month we both laid out the best ghosts in our four-year-old collection of the world’s most valuable team nicknames, and opened them up for Guardian readers to examine. Then the messages started coming to fill the gaps in our knowledge, and to encourage us about those we should have taken into account in the first place.
One sport we excelled at was rugby league. Horrified at the random animals being applied as team names in this once proud game, we turned away screaming. But we were delighted to discover pockets of resistance where the old northern spirit exists: there are still people who have escaped the thought police and think of Warrington as the Wire, Oldham the Roughyeds and Bradford Northern as the Steam Pigs.
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And wouldn’t children be delighted to learn that Huddersfield were the Fartowners? This is much more fun if you add a hyphen after the T.
But of course football is in charge, and the deeper you dig into its soul, the more treasure you find. We even lost some gems in the Football League: Wycombe the Chairboys and Harrogate Town, thanks to the spa waters, the Sulphurites. (But how do you sing that?) And Hartlepool, who dropped out of the League again this year, have learned that they love being Monkey Hangers even though 30 years ago it was an insult to their enemies.
We chose not to go into deep questions like why Exeter the Grecians or Bristol Rovers (unofficial) the Gas. The Cobblers weren’t mentioned either, because one of us comes from Northampton and sang “Up the Cobblers” from the Hotel End long before he found it made foreigners titter.
Outside the League, the smaller shoe towns in Northamptonshire are home to big names: Wellingborough are the Doughboys, Raunds Town is the Shopmates, Desborough “Ar Tarn” (our slang town), and Rothwell Town were the Bones, after the medieval ossuary. in the church harp. The team, sadly, is also dead. Nearby in Lincolnshire, is Bourne Town of the Wakes (after Hereward).
We also liked the Glassboys of Stourbridge, the Brakes of Leamington, the Terras of Weymouth (for their terra cotta shirts) and the Rocks of Bognor Regis.
And, before we leave the tittering behind us, we must mention Hampton & Richmond, seeking promotion from the National League South, whose supporters shout “Up the Beavers”. It could, given Hampton’s place in rhyming slang, be a triple graphic entendre. The other week they met Hemel Hempstead, known as the Tudors, whose supporters are said to have chanted “We hate the Stuarts”, which is more idiosyncratic.
But other countries can be even less hindered. In Germany, it is called Alemannia Aachen Gambling (potato beetles, from the colors) and cologne death of Geißböcke (the goat bill). In Argentina, Estudiantes de La Plata, once famous at home and abroad for being the bad boys on the pitch, were known as Los Pincharrata (the rat stabbers); their neighbors are Gymnasium Los Triperos, because their fan base was drawn from the tripe factories. A South African national under the age of 23 is called Amaglug-glug: the interesting theory is that this is due to the drinking habits of previous generations; more boring than that, the team is sponsored by a petrol company.
In Major League Soccer, New York City are the Pigeons, Nashville the Six Strings and Philadelphia Union the Zolos: apparently, at an initiation event, the players were meant to wear name tags saying 2010 but didn’t read it’s somebody. The official names of the minor league football teams are giant prairie delight. Mark Redding, who was from this parish, reports that he saw a game in Georgia between the Piedmont Boll Weevils and the Savannah Sand Gnats.
Also featured are the Amarillo Sod Poodles, Binghamton Rumble Ponies, Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp, Lansing Lugnuts, Lehigh Valley IronMigs, Pensacola Blue Wahoos and the Toledo Mud Hens. And if you browse through a newspaper from Rochester, Minnesota, circa 1945 (as one does), you can find the local, distinctly male, baseball team called The Queens. The Honkers are their successors.
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In Ireland, where Gaelic sport is county-based, most teams have multiple nicknames. Various sources call Cork the Rebel County, proudly, or the Donkey Eaters. Wicklow likes to be called the Garden County. Otherwise they are the Goat Sugars.
There is no doubt in our minds, however, about the world headquarters of nicknames. Scottish Nationalism may have had a rough passage and their England football team has not broken through this century. But, jings crivvens, they are brilliant about this. In the gold mine nickname Scotland is the mother lode.
In addition to those listed in the previous article, we now have the Buddies (St Mirren), Blue Toon (Peterhead), the Gable Endies (Montrose), the Pars (Fermline Castle, reason unknown), the Honest Men ( Ayr United) to add. ),
Auld Ayr, that is not a town near to breach,
For the honest and phonie men [sic] fifty. – R Burns
Falmouth (the Bairns), Strathspey Thistle (the Strathy Jags), and above all, Yoker Athletic of the West of Scotland League known as the Whe Ho. It’s a shame they can’t play Third Lanark, the long lost Hi Hi. Or indeed even further lost Champfleurie, from the tiny village of Kingscavil, who won Hearts of Midlothian as far back as 1889-90. They were called the Celestials.
Even some of the official names have a rare beauty. Who couldn’t fall in love with those bold Scottish League rebels Kelty Hearts and Bonnyrigg Rose, who sound more like a hound?
Thank you to everyone who responded. It was beautiful to hear about the school teams in the small town of Greenwich (pronounced as spelled), New York, all known as the Witches. Or the team of social workers in Cardiff who called themselves the Do-Gooders. And the Illinois school that plays a sport like the Teutopolis Wooden Shoes.
If Scotland win this World Cup, the prize (the usual Guardian prize: just the honour) for second place will go to Argentina’s Rat-stabbers, sent in from China by Cameron McGlone. But the overall winner was announced last month and comes from Australian journalist/farmer Phil Derriman. Nothing beats a Sydney bowls club called The Diddy, more formally Longueville Sports Club in Sydney. The full story can be found here.
Anyway, it was a joy to put these pieces together. It was Whe Ho and Hi Hi and Wahoo and hopefully we can do it again sometime, and not just once in Blue Toon.
