Craze for alternative club names

[Not a jock]

Am I alone in being hacked off by the growth of clubs adding an alliterative suffix to their names? Usually in the form of a large, carnivorous animal eg Sale SHARKS, Bristol BEARS, Leicester LIONS (in Nat 1) etc. (Plus the former Worcester Warriors). Presumably it's part of a marketing/PR exercise.

I get why the London clubs go by a nickname and others eg Tigers & Saints are long established and not alliterative. How long till we go down the path of the Southern Hemisphere where the teams are just known by their (mainly animal) monikers eg Sharks, Bulls etc? By going down this route they risk losing any regional identity especially to the casual fan. Even their shirts are losing their individual identities.

In an attempt to bring some light relief to this board, how about some alternative names for current and former Prem clubs:
Northern Bungees
Bristol Headless Chickens
Cabbage Patch South
Jasper Nomads (or Vesper Nomads)
Enfield Sinners
Pulteney Aquanauts
Cherry Brandies
Cobblers
Yorkshire Fat Rascals (sponsored by Bettys)
Not not nots
Tom Brown FPs
Orwellians

Can you do better?!

[TiltonTiger]

I think you might be holding on too tight.

[mol2]

I agree.
If your club has history don't meddle.

If your club has no history nobody gives a monkeys because it has no association with the team.

Who on earth gave the sharks handle to Sale?
Doubt many get up the ship canal!

[LE18]

Am I alone in being hacked off by the growth of clubs adding an alliterative suffix to their names? Usually in the form of a large, carnivorous animal eg Sale SHARKS, Bristol BEARS, Leicester LIONS (in Nat 1) etc. (Plus the former Worcester Warriors). Presumably it's part of a marketing/PR exercise.

I get why the London clubs go by a nickname and others eg Tigers & Saints are long established and not alliterative. How long till we go down the path of the Southern Hemisphere where the teams are just known by their (mainly animal) monikers eg Sharks, Bulls etc? By going down this route they risk losing any regional identity especially to the casual fan. Even their shirts are losing their individual identities.

I get so lost with these names, what town are they from, what Country are they from

Would some kind person provide a list of Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Argentina club names and what city they come from.

Many thanks in anticipation.

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Super rugby Pacific with original names.

Auckland Blues
Wellington Hurricanes
Canterbury crusaders (Christchurch)
Waikato Chiefs (Hamilton I think)
Otago Highlanders (Dunedin)
Queensland Reds (assume Brisbane)
New South Wales waratahs (assume Sydney)
Melbourne rebels
Western Force (Perth)
ACT Brumbies (Australian Capital Territory Canberra)
Fijian Drua (Fiji)
Moana Pacifica (Seems they play in Auckland)

Dunno about SA team, but assume they're in the big cities, Jo'burg, Durban, Pretoria...

Jaguares was Buenos Aires.

[jgriffin]

I agree.
If your club has history don't meddle.

If your club has no history nobody gives a monkeys because it has no association with the team.

Who on earth gave the sharks handle to Sale?
Doubt many get up the ship canal!

Sharks up the ship(t) canal? Even they would turn back. (from a natal Manky).

[sk 88]

I agree.
If your club has history don't meddle.

If your club has no history nobody gives a monkeys because it has no association with the team.

Who on earth gave the sharks handle to Sale?
Doubt many get up the ship canal!

I think it was their then owner who was a big fan of West Side Story, so their first team became the Sharks & their reserves that played in the A League became the Jets. When they took the name they also rebranded as Manchester Sharks, so it wasn't even alliterative to begin with.

Yes this is a serious attempt at an answer!

[sk 88]

Super rugby Pacific with original names.

Auckland Blues
Wellington Hurricanes
Canterbury crusaders (Christchurch)
Waikato Chiefs (Hamilton I think)
Otago Highlanders (Dunedin)
Queensland Reds (assume Brisbane)
New South Wales waratahs (assume Sydney)
Melbourne rebels
Western Force (Perth)
ACT Brumbies (Australian Capital Territory Canberra)
Fijian Drua (Fiji)
Moana Pacifica (Seems they play in Auckland)

Dunno about SA team, but assume they're in the big cities, Jo'burg, Durban, Pretoria...

Jaguares was Buenos Aires.

South Africa have the tricky apartheid and language legacy issues.

Their teams are/were:
Northern Transvaal -> Blue Bulls -> Bulls (Pretoria)
Transvaal -> Golden Lions/Gauteng Lions -> Lions (Johanesburg)
Western Province -> The Stormers (Cape Town)
Natal -> Natal Sharks/KwaZulu-Natal Sharks-> The Sharks(Durban)

The other teams were:
Orange Free State -> The Cheetahs (Bloemfontain)
Eastern Province -> The Kings (Port Elizabeth)

Plus the Currie Cup ones that I've sort of lost total track of tbh, Griqualand became the Griquas, Border became the Bulldogs, I think there was a South Western Districts that became the Valke (Falcons)? The Pumas are in east South Africa & I think they were Eastern Transvaal in the Apartheid era.

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Bristol were 'Shoguns' at one point, when they were sponsored by Mitsubishi.

Maybe Bath should adopt a new name and call themselves the rubber ducks!

[johnthegriff]

The thing with non geographic identity names is that they can easily transfer to Franchises..London Wasps, get rid of the London and Wasps could appear in Wycombe, Coventry or Kent. Sale Sharks no longer Sale RFC although they maintain a connection they p!at a few miles away in Salford but as Sharks they could move anywhere. Obviously a well supported team with historic connections to a particular area is unlikely to gamble by moving far from its fans but if say Falcons decided that bigger crowds could be achieved in say Portsmouth why not up sticks and go leaving Newcastle Gosforth to reinvent itself.

[tripeandonions]

Sale's stadium is in Eccles, isn't it? So shouldn't the team now be named after the pastry-encased bakery confections known as Eccles Cakes?

[tigerburnie]

When I played for Wigston Old Boys we had teams named Vikings, Vandals and Visigoths instead of 5ths, 4ths and 3rds.(or something similar)

[Not a jock]

Sale's stadium is in Eccles, isn't it? So shouldn't the team now be named after the pastry-encased bakery confections known as Eccles Cakes?

A physical team like that should be called the "Ecky Thump(ers)".

[WhitecapTiger]

Sale's stadium is in Eccles, isn't it? So shouldn't the team now be named after the pastry-encased bakery confections known as Eccles Cakes?

I agree, if that is their currant location, it would be a good raisin to call them that!

Sale's stadium is in Eccles, isn't it? So shouldn't the team now be named after the pastry-encased bakery confections known as Eccles Cakes?

A physical team like that should be called the "Ecky Thump(ers)".

Black Pudding Bertha’s?

[LE18]

Thanks for all your replies, not sure I will remember the Southern Hemisphere ones but my UK geography is OK for our teams.