# My soccer team appears to have picked up a nickname (and it sucks) **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Tags:** football-soccer-fifa\ **Created:** [August 4, 2025, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-soccer-team-appears-to-have-picked-up-a-nickname-and-it-sucks/1021700 "2025-08-04T18:20:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![SanVito](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sanvito/32/2805_2.png) [@SanVito](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SanVito)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2025, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-soccer-team-appears-to-have-picked-up-a-nickname-and-it-sucks/1021700/41 "2025-08-08T12:58:48Z")
> [@iamatractorboy](#): > > Nitpick (sorry): Birmingham are just ‘Blues’. Nitpick 2. I think you mean ‘The bluenoses’. SanVito. A Villain. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2025, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-soccer-team-appears-to-have-picked-up-a-nickname-and-it-sucks/1021700/42 "2025-08-08T16:41:13Z")
> [@SanVito](#): > > Nitpick 2. I think you mean ‘The bluenoses’. My understanding – and I may be wrong, being an American – is that “bluenoses” is a nickname for the team’s fans, not the team itself. ---
**Author:** ![iamatractorboy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iamatractorboy/32/21261_2.png) [@iamatractorboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamatractorboy)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2025, 6:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-soccer-team-appears-to-have-picked-up-a-nickname-and-it-sucks/1021700/43 "2025-08-09T06:45:27Z")
The Birmingham fans I’ve known referred to them just as Blues but maybe they were odd! ---
**Author:** ![iamatractorboy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iamatractorboy/32/21261_2.png) [@iamatractorboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamatractorboy)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2025, 6:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-soccer-team-appears-to-have-picked-up-a-nickname-and-it-sucks/1021700/44 "2025-08-09T06:46:14Z")
Yeh that sounds right to me ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2025, 7:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-soccer-team-appears-to-have-picked-up-a-nickname-and-it-sucks/1021700/45 "2025-08-09T07:58:09Z")
Yankees and Lou Pinella as well ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2025, 12:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-soccer-team-appears-to-have-picked-up-a-nickname-and-it-sucks/1021700/46 "2025-08-09T12:25:17Z")
> [@kenobi\_65](#): > > My understanding – and I may be wrong, being an American – is that “bluenoses” is a nickname for the team’s fans, not the team itself. Sort of like how the Green Bay Packers have cheeseheads, but the team themselves are not cheeseheads. ---
**Author:** ![mnemosyne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c4cdca/32.png) [@mnemosyne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mnemosyne)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2025, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-soccer-team-appears-to-have-picked-up-a-nickname-and-it-sucks/1021700/47 "2025-08-11T02:44:06Z")
Looking forward a nickname for “St Louis SC” made my brain immediately go with “The Slicks”. ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2025, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-soccer-team-appears-to-have-picked-up-a-nickname-and-it-sucks/1021700/48 "2025-08-11T19:31:44Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Sort of like how the Green Bay Packers have cheeseheads, but the team themselves are not cheeseheads. Or Seahawks fans are “the 12s” but not the team (which is the point; the fans are the “extra player” in a home game). ---
**Author:** ![Frodo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/frodo/32/302_2.png) [@Frodo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frodo)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2025, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-soccer-team-appears-to-have-picked-up-a-nickname-and-it-sucks/1021700/49 "2025-08-11T19:37:03Z")
I wonder if Boca Juniors fans were first to use “the 12th player” nickname or the Seahawks? (I had no idea about the Seahawks), according to Wiki, the Boca fans nickname was assigned about 1925. ---
**Author:** ![OldGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/3bc359/32.png) [@OldGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OldGuy)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2025, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-soccer-team-appears-to-have-picked-up-a-nickname-and-it-sucks/1021700/50 "2025-08-11T19:46:12Z")
According to Wiki: The first recorded use of the term “twelfth man” was a magazine published by the [University of Minnesota](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Minnesota "University of Minnesota") in September 1900, that referred to "the mysterious influence of the twelfth man. ---
**Author:** ![SunUp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ea5d25/32.png) [@SunUp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SunUp)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2025, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-soccer-team-appears-to-have-picked-up-a-nickname-and-it-sucks/1021700/51 "2025-08-11T19:48:34Z")
I had first heard the notion in association with Texas A & M, a role that goes back to 1922. So that’s two instances from U.S. college football before Boca Juniors. ---
**Author:** ![Frodo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/frodo/32/302_2.png) [@Frodo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frodo)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2025, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-soccer-team-appears-to-have-picked-up-a-nickname-and-it-sucks/1021700/52 "2025-08-11T19:52:23Z")
Excellent, as a River Plate fan now I have ammunition to tell them their fan name is plagiarized, and from Handegg fans to boot! 😈 ---
**Author:** ![Mk\_VII](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Mk\_VII](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mk_VII)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2025, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-soccer-team-appears-to-have-picked-up-a-nickname-and-it-sucks/1021700/53 "2025-08-11T20:04:11Z")
Tottenham Hotspur FC are ‘The Yids’ or ‘Yiddos’ from the (probably inaccurate) perception by other clubs that their supporters are all Jewish. THFC fans have attempted to appropriate the name as a means of diffusing it, with limited success. ---
**Author:** ![ricepad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b38774/32.png) [@ricepad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ricepad)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2025, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-soccer-team-appears-to-have-picked-up-a-nickname-and-it-sucks/1021700/54 "2025-08-11T20:35:52Z")
As a die-hard Arsenal fan, I can’t bring myself to call Spurs by that name. It just hits wrong, IMO. Thus, I tend to call them simply, “that lot”. ---
**Author:** ![Mighty\_Mouse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mighty_mouse/32/7776_2.png) [@Mighty\_Mouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mighty_Mouse)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2025, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-soccer-team-appears-to-have-picked-up-a-nickname-and-it-sucks/1021700/55 "2025-08-11T20:53:50Z")
As a life long Arsenal fan, and having grown up in Pakistan, I can testify that there is some set of opposition fans for whom that is not just a neutral nickname, and I wish Spurs would stop trying to normalize it. ---
**Author:** ![Frodo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/frodo/32/302_2.png) [@Frodo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frodo)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2025, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-soccer-team-appears-to-have-picked-up-a-nickname-and-it-sucks/1021700/56 "2025-08-11T20:54:36Z")
Die hard fans of Racing de Avellaneda do not utter the word “Rojo” (red) because it’s the color of their hated rivals Independiente, using old fashioned words like “Colorado” instead. Boca Junior fans do not say that they have “Piel de Gallina” (goosebumps but literally “Chicken Skin”) because River Plate has the “Gallinas” nickname, saying instead “Piel de Pollo” (Pollo = infant male chicken) ---
**Author:** ![mnemosyne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c4cdca/32.png) [@mnemosyne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mnemosyne)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2025, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-soccer-team-appears-to-have-picked-up-a-nickname-and-it-sucks/1021700/57 "2025-09-23T03:19:08Z")
The CFL plays with 12 players on the field, instead of the NFL’s 11. The Saskatchewan Roughriders fanbase is very passionate and involved and calls itself The Thirteenth Man (also Rider Nation). This led to a particularly fun little moment (if you’re an Alouettes fan) where, in the dying seconds of the championship game in 2009, the Alouettes had to kick a field goal to win. Of course, the kicker missed….but there was a flag on the field. Saskatchewan had too many men - 13 - and took a penalty. New down, new kick, it’s through…and the Alouettes win the Grey Cup, 28-27. Thanks, Thirteenth Man! (The two teams played each other again the following year; Als also won) ---
**Author:** ![hogarth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hogarth/32/1773_2.png) [@hogarth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hogarth)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2025, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-soccer-team-appears-to-have-picked-up-a-nickname-and-it-sucks/1021700/58 "2025-09-30T13:41:18Z")
> [@hajario](#): > > Yankees and Lou Pinella as well And the BC Lions with Lui Passaglia. ---
**Author:** ![Thing.Fish](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thing.fish/32/9168_2.png) [@Thing.Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing.Fish)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2025, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-soccer-team-appears-to-have-picked-up-a-nickname-and-it-sucks/1021700/59 "2025-10-24T15:08:03Z")
> [@ricepad](#): > > As a die-hard Arsenal fan, I can’t bring myself to call Spurs by that name. It just hits wrong, IMO. Thus, I tend to call them simply, “that lot”. Quite right. It’s just like the n-word; some of us think it’s OK for us to call _each other_ by that name, but we all agree it’s definitely not OK for _you_ to use it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-soccer-team-appears-to-have-picked-up-a-nickname-and-it-sucks/1021700.md?page=2)