British Expatriate Network

When you were at school in the UK, did your school sports teams have a name other than the school name?

As far as I know, naming a team is not an important thing in the UK -even the top footy teams are generally named after the place where they play, although most have unofficial nicknames.

But here in the US, every team has a "proper" name. I coach PeeWee soccer, and one of the most exciting parts of the season for the kids is choosing the team name (surpassed only by snack time, really). (60% choose Tigers, 30% Sharks, 5% Lions, 5% bizarre witty names really chosen by overly pushy coaches) The main Detroit teams are not just Destoit basketball, Detrot Baseball etc.... but the Pistons, Tigers, Redwings..........

I just signed Hebe up for soccer this autumn, and we were considering what team she might be in. There are about 80 teams of varying ages, all with different names. Most are animal names. But there aren't that many aggressive and majestic animals, so some are really pathetic. I have yet to see the "Slugs" but I won't be surprised when I do.

Cynicism aside, though, it does seem to be a very good way to pull a team and it's supporters together. But I'm not sure if that would be so true in the UK.

What do you think? What's the silliest team name you have come across?

First year I was here, I played in a soccer league for a team called "The Loggers". Hopefully it was because we were loosely associated with the local industry and not for our toilet habits.

My kids seemed to play on teams that were named after weather events - Thunder, Tornadoes (against teams called Lightning, Storm, Hurricanes, Cyclones, Whirlwind...)

In city recreational soccer, it makes sense to have names for each team, if what they do is play each other within the same club.

In select (which is closer to the UK set-up in general), it seemed that they used the Club name, followed by the team name. For example, the club my son played for was Mid America Soccer Club, and the U12A team was called Thunder. Everyone just referred to the team as Thunder, and never made any reference to the club. The rest of the club was a mystery to everyone and certainly outside their interest zone. Funnily enough, when we played other teams, we always referred to them by their club name.

I think in the UK, the club is more important than the individual teams and so it's the club that pulls the players and supporters together. I don't think there's any less spirit in the UK than there is in the US.

My son now just plays for his school team (Ist XI) and our church team (U13) - no subnames! For intra-mural games, they use their House names (at my boys' school, the Houses are named after explorers, and at the girls' school after British Isles' rivers).

I like names like Twins and Wild -?

Seriously, I think they sound ok for American sports but sound daft for football teams. Miami Heat, Utah Jazz are expecially cool sounding names but Chicago Fire and DC United just sound pony.

The trouble in the UK is that neither our weather or our animals are too exciting.

The Darlington Drizzle or the Birmingham Badgers just don't cut the mustard.

Mmmm.

Stockport are the Hatters, but only locals really know that and "Come on you hatters" just doesn't have much of a ring....

Sounds like a Luton fan :o

Makes ya think we should play in Brown..............

You could keep the theme going by adopting the starfish as your mascot.

A few of my acquaintances play on a sockeer team called Kickers for Jesus.

I think that the africans have the best team names.

A few from the South African leagues

Two for Joy FC
Chess
Naughty Boys FC
Wildebeast South
Man-Dolphin
Try Again
Corrugated Bantams

Also from the Liberian league is the wonderful "Shoes FC"

Africans also borrow names from European leagues so you will often find Real Madrid or Manchester United playing in the lower leagues of some African countries.

Played in a 3 on 3 basketball tournament at work, nobody was English and I was the team captain so we were called "Thirty Odd Foot Of W**k"

Took somebody a couple of days....before we were disqualified.