Bad team names.

[Ron The Bear]

Haven't Levi's (the jeans) stopped Freo from calling themselves the 'Dockers'?

I think Melbourne is also quietly ditching the Demons moniker.

Merv - u state:
"Team names should be related to the history, the geography, the colors...."

Do a bit of research and u will understand why Power was selected as the new nickname for Port Adelaide.

Interesting to note most people have no issue with their own team - a bit of a holier than thou toppic.

It's the singular nature of 'Power' that people see as a bit of a wank. You can't refer to an individual Port player as a 'Power' in the way that you can a Tiger, a Swan or a Crow.

 

[drew_j]

If I recall a comment on the TV some time ago which I have no way of verifiying if true. The Fremantle side originally wanted to be called the Fremantle Doctors. But due to AFL policy no teams where allowed to be named after a profession. So the side chose Docker so they could still be known as the Freo Doc's.

Sounds a little far fetched granted but on a side note the term 'Fremantle Doctor' (the wind that comes late in the day, and helps swing bowlers from the Members end at the WACA) is in some circles beleived to be a mariners term, although the origins of it are widely disputed. It supposedly comes from the wind helping a sea captian wharf a ship. As in "I've Docked Her".

 

[Margim]

The only bad thing about Bombers for Essendon is the modern trend of having large scale mascots running around for the purposes of marketing towards kids. Without the need for a mascot (which for us becomes a silly little mosquito), the Bombers is a perfectly reasonable name, and fits in terrific with the history and geography (ie, the airport) of the area the team comes from. Dockers, as much as the name annoys me, is likewise acceptable. St Kilda Saints also probably fall into this category, drawing their nickname directly from their locality, as do the Crows (from Croweater, traditional representative nickname for South Aussies).

There are other teams that perhaps struggled to be creative, but their nicknames are directly derived from club colours... namely, the Magpies, Tigers and the Blues. That's all fine.

The Eagles can't be faulted for their choice in nickname - the wedgetail is an awesome bird, plentiful in W.A.

All these names make infinitely more sense than Hawks, Bulldogs, Swans, Cats, Lions and Bears (oh my!). None of these are particularly relevant to their given area (however lame, Mayblooms probably made more sense for Hawthorn for a time at least). I know the Bears' mascot was a Koala. Newsflash, Koalas are not bears. Not only was the name irrelevant, it messed up ealry learning differentiation between Australia's marsupials and northern hemisphere animals. But... these names were following conventions that had been established by some other clubs that used animal names as identifiers.

That gives us the Demons, who leave us asking "What the...?", and Port Adelaide. Neither, to my knowledge, are connected with their origins, character, icon or colours.

 

[La Vache]

I had a mate who played for the Gladstone Cane Toads, I always thought that it was a classic name for a footy team.

I thought Gladstone were the Mud Crabs?

 

[Ron The Bear]

That gives us the Demons, who leave us asking "What the...?", and Port Adelaide. Neither, to my knowledge, are connected with their origins, character, icon or colours.

Checker Hughes arrived at Melbourne from Richmond (successful at the time) and decreed that Fuschias was no name for a football club. This sentiment was expressed by Herb Powell in The Simpsons in reference to car names: "They want names like 'Mustang' and 'Cheetah' - vicious animal names."

Fitzroy Gorillas (1940's) was an interesting one.

 

[peternorth]

(this picture was taken down at Fremantle's own south beach a few weeks ago)

fantastic


someone posted earlier about how melb teams are referred to as their suburb instead of the whole hog (i.e. st kilda vs st kilda saints). imo it sounds better instead of elongating the teams name to include all and sundry! memo tim watson, not always needed - especially when "football club" is chucked on the end i.e. west coast eagles football club. actually a lot of commentators do this now!

 

[Rave Slave]

Fremantle Shitfish

 

[SJ]

Hawthorn Hawks.
Sydney Swans

Gee lots of imagination went into those names.

You do realise why Sydney are called the Swans? Has nothing to do with the alliteration.

 

[Truckasaurus]

Gold Coast will go Sharks, which fits well. West Sydney will flog some US crap name like the 'Supersonics' or 'Steelers' (not that Steelers is actually a crap name for a team from Pittsburgh).

Could be worse. At least they won't be the West Sydney Raptors, surely?

 

[peternorth]

maybe name the team after its year of inception?

so, west sydney 10-ers (2010)

joking

 

[ming65]

The Dockers is a shocker all right. Brought to us by the same 'creatives' who, at one point, changed the WAFL name to 'Westar Rules'.

It's an obscure reference at best. I lived (and played footy) in freo on and off from 1982 to 2000 and never once heard the term 'Docker' to describe who everyone else knows as 'Wharfies'.

It's a lame attempt to manufacture some sort of connection to working class roots and 'aussie battler' soul that never existed in the first place.

What on earth was wrong with 'Fremantle Football Club' for a few years and let a nickname generate organically like it has for every other traditional club.

The Dockers people will say that they like to be original and different - if that's the case then why go for an american nickname-based image in the first place?

 

[Whispers]

According to footypedia.com, the most common nicknames are the Tigers (133), followed by Eagles (97), Demons (84), Bulldogs (82), Blues (80), Saints (73), Lions (70), Bombers (64) and Kangaroos (60).

The most common nickname that isn't used in the AFL is the Bloods (26) followed by the Sharks (24).

 

[thewest]

The Dockers is a shocker all right. Brought to us by the same 'creatives' who, at one point, changed the WAFL name to 'Westar Rules'.

It's an obscure reference at best. I lived (and played footy) in freo on and off from 1982 to 2000 and never once heard the term 'Docker' to describe who everyone else knows as 'Wharfies'.

It's a lame attempt to manufacture some sort of connection to working class roots and 'aussie battler' soul that never existed in the first place.

What on earth was wrong with 'Fremantle Football Club' for a few years and let a nickname generate organically like it has for every other traditional club.

The Dockers people will say that they like to be original and different - if that's the case then why go for an american nickname-based image in the first place?

I am a wharfie and like you have said i have never heard us being referred
to as 'dockers' although there are plenty of dockers fans down on the waterfront sadly...

 

[Vitamin K]

Why aren't Port Adelaide Power more widely referred to as "the Smears"? As in PAP Smears?

 

[Scotland]

The Japanese Rugby Union side is known as the Cherry Blossoms. That is quite possibly the gayest moniker for a representative side I have ever heard.

In terms of international soccer team nicknames, Colombia are the Coffee Growers, Slovakia the Fighting Jondas, and Finland the Eagle Owls...

 

[ming65]

I am a wharfie and like you have said i have never heard us being referred
to as 'dockers' although there are plenty of dockers fans down on the waterfront sadly...

Cultural commentators have probbaly already got a term for this - maybe 'reverese cultural osmosis' or something like that - it's kind of a 'tail wagging the dog' scenario.

Humour me if you will........

I was in Bruce Rock recently on a friday arvo and was pleased to see the amount of young people in the pub - it's one of those energetic wheatbelt towns that is doing better than most at reversing the drift to the city.

I was looking at some of the young fillies in the place - most of whom had come in after a days work on the farm. What intrigued me was the way that they dressed. Tight hipster jeans, big RM Williams belt buckle, riding boots, tight midriff showing T-shirt and Akubra. I wasn't complaining because it was good look (on most of them) but I had a couple of thoughts...

1) I grew up on farms and no farming woman that I ever knew would have dressed like that.

2) How impactical such clothing would have been for a hot day on the harvester, ute or quad bike (most of them were still dusty and dirty so hadn't appeared to gave changed before coming for a beer).

The it hit me - McLeods Daughters! In attempt to show an idealised version of farm life in oz, the producers of that show of course had to sex it up a bit because nice looking chicks in baggy King Gee's and check shirts, while accurate, is probbaly not good for ratings.

But now, this has actually influenced how some country rural chicks actually dress. So now they are copying the show that was badly copying them.

I think we see the same effect with gangsters now - how most of them will try to emulate a pretend gangster like Al Pacino in scarface, rather than the real thing.

WTF is my point?

the west....it is a matter of time before you wharfies start to call yourselves 'Dockers' Welcome to hell......

 

[SJ]

The Japanese Rugby Union side is known as the Cherry Blossoms. That is quite possibly the gayest moniker for a representative side I have ever heard.

In terms of international soccer team nicknames, Colombia are the Coffee Growers, Slovakia the Fighting Jondas, and Finland the Eagle Owls...

And didn't they go from the Samurai to the Cherry Blossoms? Nice improvement.

 

[Alberton_Magpie]

The Power nickname does have a historical presence in our history and thats why we chose it.

When Port Adelaide were dominating the SANFL in the 50s/60s and were winning alot of premierships the cheer squad had a banner that said on it quite simply "PORT POWER" and Brian Cunningham rememberd that banner and though it sounded good and thats why it was chosen as our nickname!

 

[old_clint]

Chicago White Sox (1919), Carlton (2007).

 

[Forrest Gimp]

New Zealand basketball team: "the Tall Blacks" LOL, or even thier soccer team, "the All-whites". Shockers. Not too mention our own soccer side, the Socceroos <-cringeworthy, IMO.

 

[Niximus]

There are so many bad team names in Australia, largely due to US influences.
With the inevitability of 2 new AFL teams I hope like hell they dont have crap names attached.

Here are some examples of bad sport names. Thankfully there is only one AFL club that has a bad name and that is the one I'll start with.

Port Power.
Queensland Roar.
Perth Glory.
Gold Coast Galaxy - Mooted.
Sth East Melb Magic.

Team names should be related to the history, the geography, the colors, or an animal (other than a razorback!!!)

Comment.

Mayblooms.

It's the singular nature of 'Power' that people see as a bit of a wank. You can't refer to an individual Port player as a 'Power' in the way that you can a Tiger, a Swan or a Crow.

Perhaps a Volt or Jule or Watt?

 

[jim boy]

New Zealand basketball team: "the Tall Blacks" LOL

The badminton team was officially known as the 'Black *****' until they were forced to drop it. Its still their unofficial name.

 

[Ice-Wolf]

US Basketball team i.e The Dream Team (bunch of arrogant tossers)

 

[Forrest Gimp]

The badminton team was officially known as the 'Black *****' until they were forced to drop it. Its still their unofficial name.

That can't be beaten. There is just no way. All aspiring badminton players in NZ want to play with the "black *****" - it's thier goal. LOL, NZ come up with the worst/best.

 

[Zzzur]

Its interesting that the two most recent expansion teams went down the dodgy track of being 'Dockers' and 'Power'. You have to wonder how different the dockers history would have been if they had sorted out a compromise with the WAFL feeder clubs and been the Freo Bullsharks.

What's more interesting though, is some of the more traditional clubs whose names we are so used to we no longer question how silly they actually are. Essendon for example, naming their team after a piece of military equipment. Essendon Submarines? Essendon Tanks? Essendon .410 Calibre Shotguns With Underslung Grenade Launchers?

IMO if you aren't named after an animal or mythical creature, ideally capable of causing gbh to a fully grown man, you need to go back to the drawing board.

Hang on, Carlton have already taken 'The Tanks' as their logo.