Last month the two of us laid out the finest gems in our four-year-old collection of the sporting world’s most priceless team nicknames, and opened them to Guardian readers’ inspection. Then the messages began arriving to fill in the gaps in our knowledge, and nudge us about those we should have included the first time.
One sport we skimped on was rugby league. Appalled by the random animals imposed as team names in this once proud game, we turned away with a shudder. But we were thrilled to discover pockets of resistance where the old northern spirit survives: 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.
And wouldn’t children be thrilled to learn that Huddersfield used to be the Fartowners? Which is much more fun if you insert a hyphen after the T.
But of course it is football that dominates, and the deeper you dig into its soul the more treasure you find. We even missed some gems in the Football League: Wycombe are the Chairboys and Harrogate Town, thanks to the spa waters, are the Sulphurites. (But how do you chant that?) And Hartlepool, relegated from the League again this year, have learned to love being the Monkey Hangers even though 30 years ago it was an insult sung by their enemies.
We chose not to get into deep questions like why Exeter are the Grecians or Bristol Rovers (unofficially) the Gas. Nor did we mention the Cobblers, because one of us comes from Northampton and chanted “Up the Cobblers” from the Hotel End long before discovering that it made outsiders titter.
Outside the League, the smaller Northamptonshire shoe towns are a hotspot of great names: Wellingborough are the Doughboys, Raunds Town are the Shopmates, Desborough “Ar Tarn” (our town in dialect), and Rothwell Town were the Bones, after the medieval ossuary in the church crypt. The team, alas, are also dead. Close by in Lincolnshire, Bourne Town are the Wakes (after Hereward).
We also liked the Glassboys of Stourbridge, the Brakes of Leamington, the Terras of Weymouth (from their terra cotta shirts) and the Rocks of Bognor Regis.
And, before leaving the tittering behind us, we have to mention Hampton & Richmond, striving for promotion from National League South, whose supporters shout “Up the Beavers”. Which, given Hampton’s place in rhyming slang, may constitute a graphic triple entendre. The other week they beat Hemel Hempstead, known as the Tudors, whose supporters are said to chant “We hate the Stuarts”, which is more erudite.
But other countries can be even less inhibited. In Germany, Alemannia Aachen are known as Kartoffelkäfer (potato beetles, from the colours) and Köln are Die Geißböcke (the billy goats). In Argentina, Estudiantes de La Plata, once notorious at home and abroad for being bad boys on the field, became known as Los Pincharratas (the rat-stabbers); their neighbours Gimnasia are Los Triperos, because their fan base was drawn from the tripe factories. The South African national under-23s are known as Amaglug-glug: the interesting theory is that this was due to the drinking habits of a previous generation; more boringly, 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 inaugural event, the players were meant to wear nametags saying 2010 but someone misread it. Minor League baseball teams’ official names constitute a vast prairie of delights. Mark Redding, formerly of this parish, reports he saw a game in Georgia between the Piedmont Boll Weevils and the Savannah Sand Gnats.
There are also the Amarillo Sod Poodles, Binghamton Rumble Ponies, Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp, Lansing Lugnuts, Lehigh Valley IronPigs, Pensacola Blue Wahoos and the Toledo Mud Hens. And if you browse through a newspaper from Rochester, Minnesota, circa 1945 (as one does), it is possible to find the local, clearly male, baseball team referred to as The Queens. Their successors are the Honkers.
In Ireland, where Gaelic sport is county-based, most of the teams have multiple nicknames. Different sources call Cork either the Rebel County, proudly, or the Donkey Eaters. Wicklow like to be referred to as the Garden County. Otherwise they are the Goat Suckers.
There is however no doubt in our minds about the global HQ of nicknames. Scottish Nationalism may be having a rough passage and their football team has not beaten England this century. But, jings crivvens, they are brilliant at this. In the nickname gold mine Scotland is the mother lode.
In addition to the ones listed in the previous article, we must now add the Buddies (St Mirren), Blue Toon (Peterhead), the Gable Endies (Montrose), the Pars (Dunfermline, reason unknown), the Honest Men (Ayr United),
Auld Ayr, wham ne’er a town surpasses,
For honest men and bonie [sic] lasses. – R Burns
Falkirk (the Bairns), Strathspey Thistle ( the Strathy Jags), and, above all, Yoker Athletic of the West of Scotland League who are known as the Whe Ho. What a pity they cannot play long-lost Third Lanark, the Hi Hi. Or indeed even longer-lost Champfleurie, from the tiny village of Kingscavil, who held Heart of Midlothian to a draw as recently as 1889-90. They were known as the Celestials.
Even some of the official names have a rare beauty. Who could not fall in love from afar with those two bold Scottish League insurgents Kelty Hearts and Bonnyrigg Rose, which sounds more like a greyhound?
Thank you to everyone who responded. It was lovely to hear about the school teams in the small town of Greenwich (pronounced as spelt), New York, who are all called the Witches. Or the team of social workers in Cardiff who called themselves the Do-Gooders. And the Illinois school who play sport as the Teutopolis Wooden Shoes.
If Scotland have won this World Cup, the prize (usual Guardian prize: just the honour) for the individual runner-up goes to Argentina’s Rat-stabbers, sent in from China by Cameron McGlone. But the overall winner was published last month and emanates from the Australian journalist/farmer Phil Derriman. Nothing can beat the Sydney bowls club known as The Diddy, more formally the Longueville Sporting Club in Sydney. The full story can be found here.
Anyway, these pieces have been a joy to compile. It’s been a Whe Ho and a Hi Hi and a Wahoo and we hope we can do it again sometime, and not only once in a Blue Toon.
