Where Do Sports Teams Get Their Nicknames?

When it comes to nicknames, most Aussie sports teams typically choose from one of two options: Animals, which don’t play sport, or words to describe great warriors. Like, the Magpies or the Power. The Sea Eagles or the Force. But behind every team name is an origin story that can tell you a lot about their communities and the place they call home.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
If I had a sports team, what would I call it?
The Armstrongs, the Tones, Tonys, the Tonys. Yeah, I like
that pretty sure that's available. When it comes to nicknames,
most Australian teams choose from one of two options. Animals
which don't play sport, or words to describe great warriors.

(00:27):
So you're the Vixen's or you're the Power, the Sea
Eagles or the Force, or if you're in South Australia's
Southern Football League, you might be the Mighty no Longer Shoes.
It really makes you wonder where do these names come from? Hey,

(00:51):
welcome to the ballroom where we celebrate the winners, losers
and the weird stuff between. I'm Tony Armstrong and I'm
going to give you a look at some of the
surprising stories behind team names. Our national Ultimate Frisbee teams

(01:18):
are the Dingoes, Fire Tales, Barramundy's, Tai Pans and Wombats,
lacrosse players of Crocodiles, women's handballers and South Australian Cricketers
of red Backs. The AFL's Got a Whole Zoo, Lions, Swans, Magpies, Tigers, Bulldogs, Crows, Cats,
Eagles and Hawks. If you're competing on the international stage,

(01:40):
you'll want a nod to the existence of kangaroos, boomers, soccer, roos, hockey, roos,
ollie roos, footsoal ruse, the mighty rus play you guessed it,
ice hockey. I could go on, but the big question
is how do they decide? Why does the team become
the eel, to be honest, a pretty non threatening animal,

(02:03):
and not the raiders, which is much tougher, although I
did recently learn that eels can walk on land. So
let's start our investigation with Russell Crowe's beloved South Sydney
rabbit os. One story, according to Internet historians, is that

(02:23):
during the Great Depression, people turned to selling something Australia
had in abundance, rabbits. South Sydney was a working class
area and people who lived there court skinned and solved
the pest for meat. To attract buyers at the markets,
they would shout rabbit o, rabbit o. Advertising was simpler
in the nineteen twenties. I guess, as the tale goes,

(02:45):
no pun intended. The red stripes still on the team's
jersey are a nod to the fact that players would
arrive at the match smeared with the morning's rabbit blood.
That's a whole different story from the VFL team actually
called the Bloods. The South Melbourne Football club was simply
named for the red color of its guernsey. Its swans

(03:06):
moniker came later in nineteen thirty three, after a journalist
noticed the large proportion of worst Australian players on the team,
the black swan being the bird emblem of the state.
For those playing at home. On that happy note, let's
head to Victoria's Bellarine Peninsula, where the Geelong footy club
had been known by the very catchy Pivotonians, after the

(03:28):
city itself nicknamed the Pivot then the Seagulls. The white
hoops of its guernsey still represent those birds, but in
nineteen twenty three it was on a losing streak and
experienced Geelong fans have come to love and expect over
the decades. A local cartoonist choked that the club needed
a black cat to bring it some good luck. Geelong

(03:50):
managed to win their next game and turn their fortunes around.
There've been the Cats ever since. In nineteen ninety four,
the Australian women's soccer team qualified for its first ever
FIFA Women's World Cup. Just one problem. It didn't have
a proper nickname. The team was simply called the Female

(04:14):
Soccer Ruse. You know, like how we also definitely have
the male hockey Ruse. To rectify this, SBS and the
Australian Women's Soccer Association ran a pole where viewers could
vote on the new name from five options, the Blue Flyers,
war Atahs, Lora Keets Matilda's or wait for it, the

(04:38):
Soccer twos. Obviously, the name that came out on top
was inspired by the famous ballad, but by all accounts,
Matilda's wasn't immediately popular with the players. Many hated the
fact that it had come from a TV vote, with
some even refusing to use it at all. Thankfully, that

(04:58):
controversy pales in comparison with their on ground success these days.
Speaking of names that weren't immediately loved, when Paul Adelaide
joined the AFL, its existing nickname of the Magpies was
well and truly taken by Collingwood, with whom they would
also later clash over their prison bar. Guerantes, being a

(05:22):
portside club with a long tradition of local players and supporters,
heaps of name options presented themselves, papers floated ideas like
the Pirates, the Mariners and the Sharks. A public poll
was held and eventually it was revealed they would shun
all tangible options in favor of the far more abstract power.

(05:43):
At the time, the club's president said, we wanted it
to reflect our on field, hard hitting desire. Unfortunately, people
from Adelaide can't pronounce it properly, and the team quickly
became known as the Pair, like the fruit job done.
For the record, the Port Adelaide Magpie and the Collingwood

(06:06):
Magpie aren't even the same bird. Ports is named for
the piping shrike, the bird that appears on the South
Australian state flag, which, as it happens, is also not
a real bird. The more you know. So there you
have it, a mixed bag of name origin stories to

(06:27):
share over dinner. The Eels, by the way, were named
after the baromatical name for the Parramatta River, which means
place where the eels dwell. Before that, they were known
as the fruit pickers. Turns out eels is tougher after all.

(06:54):
I'm Tony Armstrong and you've been listening to the poolroom
an iHeart Production. See you next time for some more
brilliant sports stories.