What's in a Name?

Phill Chadwick wonders why humans feel the compulsive need to give sporting teams cheesy nicknames - especially now that his beloved club is about to fall victim to an inevitably horrid new moniker.

Adelaide United Football Club are running a competition to find an official nickname for the coming A-League season. What a pity! Please don't do it!

One of the things I really liked about the way United was set up was that they remained faithful to the traditions of our great game. Not for us some silly marketing brand name, like "Glory", or "Victory" or an artificial, contrived, Americanised team name, like "Power" or "Jets".

We were a football club.

We were a football club brought together out of the ashes of the old ethnic rivalries. We were a football club designed to unite all South Australian football followers. The name Adelaide United has it all. It is almost too good to be true.

What could possibly be better than "United"; a traditional football club name that expresses the coming together of all football followers, regardless of their background. It has the name of our beautiful city, while neatly distancing it from the old Adelaide City club. Truly the right name for "The People's Team".

Sadly, in the name of PR, or marketing, or simply a perceived need to excite non-football followers, it has been deemed insufficient. A nickname is now required.

But wait a minute. The real fans already have a nickname for the club. They call it "The Reds". This name has grown organically and taken hold naturally. The Stand and the Red Army supporters groups have spontaneously chanted "Come on you Reds" from the very first game. Some fans, myself included (for personal, Evertonian reasons), would have preferred something else.

But given the playing strip, it is right. The point is that "The Reds" is not something that has been decided by branding gurus or PR people. It is not a merchandising opportunity. It is not the result of a focus group, or a survey, or a competition. For better or worse, "The Reds" seems to be a natural addition to Adelaide United's already perfect name.

Remember back to your school days. Most of us had a nickname, given to us by our school mates. Mine was Chaddy, pretty obvious I suppose, but my point is that there was no need for a competition among my friends with the best suggestion winning a new pencil, the nickname just stuck because it was right.

So now we have a newspaper and web site competition. Anybody can suggest a nickname. The winning suggestion will win some prizes. The winning name will become the official nickname and, I assume, appear on merchandise; T-shirts, scarves and hats.

Newspaper articles will refer to the "Whatevers" as though that was the club's actual name. And Adelaide United will stand to lose what little tradition it has managed to build in its short existence. And football in South Australia will lose some of its connection to the great worldwide traditions of our game.

On the bright side, there are prizes to be won, so I have, of course, entered my own suggestion. After toying with a few alternatives:

"The Destroyers", in honour of the Navy Ships to be built here;

"The Builders", for major sponsor Fairmont Homes, and Saint Gordon Pickard;

"The Buffalos", to remember the ship that brought the free settlers to this state;

In the end, after agonising for all of 10 seconds, I finally settled on the only one I could submit and still look myself in the eye. You guessed it, I suggested "The Reds".

I hope I win, but I have a feeling there may be a few more people with the same suggestion.

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