Best footy club monikers

Just putting a call out for the best footy team monikers in the country. I just posted some photos featuring the Mount Gravatt Vultures – now there’s a team name that strikes fear. I can’t help but picture a 40-year-old backman, bald as Mil Hanna, sharp elbows, a fearsome stare, ready for his opponent to take his eyes off him.

On the other hand, you’d love to play the Appin Grasshoppers in the old Kerang District footy league (who knows what it’s called now). “Go Hoppers!” their loyal but lovingly mocked fans would call from their cars that ringed the boundary.

Any other classics?

About Stephen Cooke

Cumbersome ruckman of the garden variety

Comments

  1. Mines Rover in Kalgoorlie are the Diorites.

  2. Stephinboots says

    Not local here. But Minnesota’s Aussie Rules club is the Freeze. VERY APT!

  3. What was that one going around a few years ago about Collingwood relocating to the Phillipines and being known as The Manilla Folders?

  4. One suggestion from twitter – the Congupna Road

  5. The local junior footy club around here in Brisbane is called The Gap Dragons, after the native cold-blooded fauna, not the ones which breathe fire, unfortunately.

  6. The Sandgate Sea Hawks and the Wilston Grange Gorillas are good ones too.

  7. John Harms says

    Glencoe in SE South Australia are the Murphies. A stack of spud farmers I’m told. In that league there is a team called the Mozzies – I suspect that is Mt Burr. They play against some great places like Kalangadoo.

  8. Gothenburg Berserkers, in the Southern Sweden Regional League.

    Not sure of the origin of the moniker, but it may have something to do with the fact they play their home games in Richmond jumpers and away games in Collingwood jumpers.

    Go Berserkers!

  9. QUITE right, Cookie. Appin are the Grasshoppers. So too are Colbinabbin (Heathcote DFL) and Navarre (Maryborough-Castlemaine DFL.)
    Met an ex-Appin bloke on — of all places — the train from Marrakesh to Fez in Morocco in 2009. He was a V-Line engineer so we stood on the back carriage’s observation deck while he inspected the railway lines.
    Pronounced them better quality than Victoria’s. Apparently Morocco boasts the best trains, running on the best tracks in all Africa.

    Wedderburn in the North Central league and Carisbrook in the M’boro-C’maine League are both known as the Redbacks. Both clubs have the insignia of the poisonous little beast on their guernseys.
    One club’s colours has more red than white — the other the opposite way around with more white. Incidentally both took out the flags in their leagues last month.

  10. Skip of Skipton says

    Rokewood (Central Highlands) are the Grasshoppers also.

    Golden Point (now merged with East Ballarat, and known as East Point) were the Rice eaters.

  11. Queenscliff, who have won the last two flags in the Bellarine League, are known as the Barracoutas or more usually The Coutas. They wear Bulldogs jumpers but with a giant Fish on the front rather than a stylised Bulldog, It is a great name for a seaside club.

    Go Coutas!!

  12. Ben Footner says

    The Southern Football League in Sth Australia has a few of good ones – The Noarlunga Shoes, The Port Noarlunga Cockledivers, and the Reynella Wineflies.

    Flagstaff Hill were formally known as the Bushpigs before switching to the more PC Falcons apparently.

  13. YEAH Cookie …. the Appin Grasshoppers folded at end of ’95.
    For the new Central Murray F.L. season in 1996 the amalgamated Kerang-Kerang Rovers outfit (formed in 1990) merged with Appin and this combine was known as Kerang Rovers.

    The name simply Kerang was adopted in 2000 and has remained ever since. 2012 CMFL grannie: Kerang 19.19 def. Woorinen 10.12.

    Congupna’s nickname “The Road” is my favourite anywhere in the Aussie Rules world.

  14. One of my favourites is the Mt Helena Hillbillies – they play in the Hills Football League just East of Perth. They wear a Melbourne Demons jumper with a silhouette of a guy sitting on a rocking chair cradling a shot gun!

    Never a more appropriate moniker was adopted by a footy team! I don’t think they have a team polo shirt – more of a team flanny!

  15. Newcomb in the Bellarine FL used to be the dinosaurs and they played at Jurassic Park. Changed to the power a few seasons ago.

  16. Noel, kills me that a club would change from the Dinosaurs to the Power. The Power, of all things.
    Nik, I want to believe that more than anything.
    Ben, you’ll be glad to know the Clermont Bushpigs still play in the Central Highlands rugby league in central Queensland. Used to win the comp every year, 40 year olds fitter than most blokes in the AFL.
    The Golden Point Rice eaters, a nice nod to the region’s history. Very un-PC now, of course.

  17. This is always my favorite topic! HATE Americanisms, like the Giants! HATE!

    The maninji Yabbies is my all-time.
    The Gladston Mucrabs. Hell yeah!
    Nothing will ever, ever beat the Fitzroy Gorillas! My old man said they looked the part, too.
    When my old team went to a new league and had to change their jumpers, I put it to them to become the Otway Panters, after the legenday black panter that many say is still roaming the gullies. We settled for Melbourne jumpers. The Demons.

    I always wanted to see an Outback team called the Sky. The Munawarii Sky.
    Or the Dirt.
    The Colangu Dirt.
    I would play for any team called the Mud!
    The Birragurra Mud.

    Names should reflect a club’s location or charater. I reckon.

  18. Rugby team from Bungendore near Canberra is called the Mudchooks.

  19. Matt Zurbo says

    Oh, Rocherlea, in Tassie are the Tigers officially, but eveybody knows them as the Rock Apes.

  20. Peter Schumacher says

    Surely the Kerang team is screaming out to be known as the Kerangotangs!

  21. Kerangotans?

  22. Yes Matt, good call. Named by league icon (still) Geoffry “Sos” Price, OSCFC , in the late 1970’s

    First they were grumpy but then they warmed to the idea, but just referred to them selves as ‘The Rocks’.

  23. In the MPNFL (Mornington) comp we have the Tyabb Yabbies … sadly the Dromana Grasshoppers changed to the Tigers a few years back.

  24. Wayde Petersen says

    We have some good nicknames in Northern Victoria for football teams, including Congupna “Road” (which was the name of the town before it changed to Congupna, but the footy team kept the name).
    The Lancaster “Wombats”, the Blighty “Redeyes”, (they have as a logo the Native American from the comic strip, REDEYE), the Thornton-Eildon “Shinboners” (who have sadly folded in 2009), and my team, the Murchison “Grasshoppers” (a pretty common name for any club wearing Green & Gold jumpers, as Yaroweah are also the ‘Hoppers)

  25. In the EFL Div 1 Norwood is known as the Norsemen (Vikings). Just noticed on their website that their club song is sung to the tune of the 4 and 20 pie song!

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