F.C. (Insert Clever Team Name Here)

By: Sean | November 4th, 2008

“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.”
Romeo and Juliet (II, ii, 1-2), Shakespeare

“What’s in a team name? That which you call F.C. Blah Blah Blah or
By any other name will still lose to my club and it will be sweet.”
Weekend Warrior (VII, xi, 3-4), Seanspeare

At some point in your recreational soccer career, you will likely be asked to give your squad a name. If you play for any length of time, you will invariably inherit the managerial roll for some new collection of players and your first task as “The Gaffer” will be to christen the new squad. Granted, if your recreational team is sponsored by a local business and you take their name in exchange for free shirts, this decision is already made for you. Good luck to you, Harrigan Brownell Johnson Mathers Associates Insurance Underwriters, LLC! We’ll see you on the pitch!

For the rest of us, however, finding the delicate balance between having a team name that projects competitive awesomeness without being too serious or being ironic without being too flippant can be a tricky endeavor. For my first foray into managing an indoor soccer team, I took the easy way out…I put it up for a vote. The masses can’t possibly be wrong, can they? The winning selection, Zidane’s Bastard Children, was ultimately shot down by the facility where we played because that moniker wasn’t in keeping with the family friendly atmosphere…but going by “ZBC” was totally allowed. I think I added “AFC” in front because, to my way of thinking, every team name should include some derivative of “Football Club” and thus was born “AFC ZBC.”

I seem to recall we lost an awful lot.

Season Two required a new team name because, again to my way of thinking, any session where we performed poorly was solely the fault of the team name–not any of the players that might comprise it. As such, our indoor squad reinvented itself more times within a year than Madonna has over the course of her entire career. Another session we were the “Melissa Gilbert Fan Club”, or “MGFC”. (See? There’s that “FC” again.) Why Melissa Gilbert? Someone on the squad was impressed with her taboo-busting performance in “Nip/Tuck” and I needed something to write on the application, so it stuck. About that time it dawned on me that perhaps our squad’s fortunes were more dependent upon finding a regular goalkeeper and not just dredging pop culture for a team name. However, when the guy I had recruited to mind the sticks no-showed on the first match of the season and then subsequently gave me a bogus excuse as to why he wasn’t going to play for us, we borrowed his initials (B.L.) and added Ass Monkey (A.M.) to get “FC BLAM!” Whenever we scored, the goal celebration of choice was to face the bench and scream “BLAM!” in honor of our absentee goalkeeper.

We still lost quite a bit, unfortunately.

The lesson that I learned from this wasn’t just to make sure you had a reliable goalkeeper lined up before the season, it was also to ensure that you had a decent recreational team name. Something that exudes your competitive spirit and footballing savvy without being too weird. A name like “Marauders FC” sounds tough but legit; a name like “Wild Berserkers FC” is a tad hardcore and smacks of a World of Warcraft clan…not that there’s anything wrong with that. What are some ingredients for a good squad name? I would argue that the inclusion of “FC” is always appropriate and demonstrates you know your pedigree. References to other professional clubs (i.e. “United”, “Juniors”, or “Dynamo”) or even the random date lends some credibility to your team…unless your random date is ‘69, in which case, you are either heading up an under-40 club or…umm, never mind. Place-specific references also work nicely, so be sure to give your neighborhood a mention. Initials (as in PSV Eindhoven, for example) also create a sense of legitimacy and can allow you to surreptitiously sneak in randy references or thinly veiled personal insults without your league censoring you. Finally, a mascot or historical figure–especially when matched with a color–can give a team immediate focus and identity. Important note: Just be sure to know when too much is enough. Imagine looking at your schedule and noticing you are playing the “Greater B-Town CRS ‘69 (hee hee!) Junior Blue Bombers United FC 0-30 Second Division” team. I’m pretty sure that doesn’t even fit on a jersey.

How about you, Weekend Warriors? Do you play for a recreational team with an awesome team name? I’d love to hear about it if you do…and apologies to any readers playing for a “Wild Berserkers FC” squad. I’m sure you are very good.