Animals
have played a serious role as mascots, with mammals dominating, though by
no means being the only types of creatures to grace team crests. As popular as
they are in heraldry, they are very popular in football. Cats appear time and time again
in the form of Lions (Aston Villa, Millwall), Tigers (Hull City) and Black Cats
(Sunderland). Scottish influence at both Villa and Millwall seems to have
resulted in the borrowing of a lion from the Scottish coat of arms, whereas
Tigers comes from an obvious reaction to black and orange striped kits. The
Black Cats boast two origin stories, one involving a black cat that became good
luck when it ran across the pitch and one involving a local artillery unit known
as the Black Cat Gun Battery.
Canine
enthusiasts need not worry as dogs and their brethren are also well
represented. In the running for cutest nickname in football are the Terriers
(Huddersfield Town), unromantically bestowed on the team by a promotions' man
within the club. Elsewhere on the Canidae family tree are the Foxes (Leicester
City), alluding to Leicestershire as the birthplace of modern fox hunting, and
Wolves (Wolverhampton Wanderers), an obvious syllabic reduction but one too
classic to file with the rest of the short forms.
Rounding
out the animal kingdom are horns and hornets. The Rams (Derby County) take
their name either from an existing city symbol or an old regimental folk song
called “The Derby Ram,” depending on who you ask. Like the Tricky Trees before
them, the Stags (Mansfield Town) make their home near Sherwood Forest but are
named for the beasts within rather than the foliage. The Hornets (Watford) and
the Bees (Barnet) are both named for kits featuring black and gold stripes, but
the Bees (Brentford) emerged as a result of homophonous confusion over
19th-century fans chanting a song called “Buck Up B’s.”
Hands
down, birds are the animal that more football team nicknames are named after
than any other. There are multiple Magpies (Newcastle United, Notts County), at
least three Robins (Bristol City, Cheltenham Town, Swindon Town), but
surprisingly few Eagles (Crystal Palace). Seagulls provide a key soundtrack to
any seaside visit, so their connection with Brighton & Hove Albion is an
absolutely natural fit. The Bantams (Bradford City) are not named for the
boxing weight class but the alleged similarity of their claret and gold kits to
the feathers of a small but mighty bantam chicken. The Canaries (Norwich City)
have zero association with their role as the harbingers of coal mine disaster;
rather, they trace back to Renaissance-era weavers who brought the birds with
them when emigrating from Flanders to Norwich.
There are even a handful of teams with bird names that are not technically named for our feathered friends. Owls (Sheffield Wednesday) is a shortening of Owlerton, a suburb of Sheffield, with Swans (Swansea City) following a similar approach. Though it’s fallen out of use as a sobriquet since the introduction of an all-white kit, the Peacocks (Leeds United) stemmed not from the regal bird but the original name of Leeds’ ground, the Old Peacock Ground, which in turn was named after the neighbouring Old Peacock pub.
But the most obscure among the
bird-inspired names are the Bluebirds (Cardiff City), named not for the club
switching to a blue kit in 1910 but for a play called The Bluebird of Happiness
by Nobel Prize winner Maurice Maeterlinck that found incredible success when it
was mounted in Wales in 1911. Theatre!
A fair few clubs take their nicknames from the world of architecture. The Spireites (Chesterfield) are named for the famously crooked spire of the Church of St Mary and All Saints. Others opt for references to their home ground, with the Cottagers (Fulham) nicknamed not for the cottage built at the stadium in the early 20th century but for an earlier cottage built on the same site 125 years earlier.Despite their name, the Millers (Rotherham United) do not have a history of grinding grain, but rather evolved from the name of their ground, Millmoor. The Riversiders (Blackburn Rovers) are, unsurprisingly, named for the River Darwen that runs adjacent to the stadium. (see badge)
There are
some clubs that truly defy classification, but it’s in their idiosyncrasies
that some of football’s best nicknames are found. There are the Wombles (AFC
Wimbledon), taking their name from a series of environmentally conscious
children’s books about creatures called Wombles. Then there are the Trotters
(Bolton), which is allegedly local slang for someone who likes to play practical
jokes (not Dell Boy), but a story involving players trotting off to retrieve out-of-bounds
balls in muddy pig pens certainly demands consideration as well. The Shakers
(Bury) are not the church team of a local religious sect but an immortalization
of the club’s first chairman’s threat to an opposing team: “We shall shake ’em.
In fact we are the Shakers.” The Toffees (Everton) reflect a 1950s tradition in
which a woman distributed toffees to fans waiting inside the ground for the
match to start, a brilliant piece of promotion for a nearby confectioner.
Posh (Peterborough United) has zero connection to Victoria Beckham but was named with about as much thought when the club’s 1920s manager said he was looking for “posh players for a posh team.” At the opposite end of the spectrum, the Smoggies (Middlesbrough) hold the distinction of being the only team nicknamed for industrial pollution, a dubious honour at best but one that is slowly being embraced by locals as they try to reclaim the pejorative term.
No such obvious
origin exists for the Baggies (West Bromwich Albion), who could be named for
the men who would carry box office cash in large bags through the stadium to a
central office, or they could be named for a bunch of theories revolving around
the loose trousers worn by local ironworkers who frequently attended matches or
even players in kits in sizes far too large for them. There might also be a nickname of "Throstles", after the thrush that diligently sang in a tree near the ground.
Perhaps the most colourful nickname of them all is the Monkey Hangers (Hartlepool United). Whether it’s the stuff of legend or the genuine truth, the tale told over the years involves a shipwreck on the shores of Hartlepool during the Napoleonic Wars with France. Hartlepool’s patriotic citizens put the only survivor, a monkey, on trial and when the monkey could not answer their questions owing to its lack of ability to speak English, it was promptly declared a French spy and hung. As you do when you encounter a shipwrecked monkey in the Napoleonic era. “Monkey Hangers” is, of course, meant to be rather derogatory, but the club embraced the name and introduced a monkey mascot named H’Angus, his name a portmanteau of “hang” and “Angus.”
There’s still time left to mine the depths of the football pyramid should a name like the Red Imps (Lincoln City), the Avenue (Bradford Park Avenue) or the Little Club On The Hill (Forest Green Rovers) pique your curiosity.
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