When I was young in the 1960's, watching all the football scores coming through on the BBC teleprinter etc late on a lazy Saturday afternoon, I loved hearing some of the more unusual, imaginative and innovative club names that used to come up. Given how slow the announcer went with reading the scores out you had plenty of time to let your mind wander about such things.

Nowadays some of my favourite team names are : Accrington Stanley; Leyton Orient; Plymouth Argyle; Queen of the South; Raith Rovers and ( the best of the lot! ) Clachnacuddin.

I am not a supporter of any of these teams by the way - apart from ( being an Invernessian ) having a very soft spot for Clachnacuddin.

I could name many more but will leave it to others if they are interested.

Corinthian Casuals

Caledonian Braves

Bonnyrigg Rose

A couple more:

Civil Service Strollers

The Spartans

As a child, my Subutteo set came with a booklet of football teams which included overseas ones - Tampa Bay Rowdies and Kickers Offenbach were amongst the ones that caught my attention.

Some of the old names also give you an idea of how the game was played in the old, old days - Wanderers, Rovers, Rangers, Casuals, Strollers. Wouldn't be able to play like that nowadays!

The various Athletics must have thought they had an advantage.

Sheffield Wednesday

Forres Mechanics

Inverurie Loco Works

Third Lanark

On 2/8/2026 at 8:22 AM, Yngwie said:

As a child, my Subutteo set came with a booklet of football teams which included overseas ones - Tampa Bay Rowdies and Kickers Offenbach were amongst the ones that caught my attention.

Given we had temperatures of -30 this weekend then I have to add Toronto Blizzard to that!

They were an NASL team that started life as Toronto Metros in 71 then became the Blizzard in 1979 until the league folded in 1984. They are seen as the (tenuous) origin of TFC that followed in 2007. Looking at the former players list on Wikipedia they had Jimmy Bone, Drew Busby, Peter Lorimer, Jimmy Nicholl, as well as - and I kid you not - Roberto Bettega & Eusebio (in 1976).

The USL is also home to a few belters of names ... Tampa Bay Rowdies as previously mentioned are still on the go but my favourite in that league has to have been the Rochester Raging Rhinos, later renamed Rochester Rhinos - perhaps they calmed down - who ceased operations last year ... Other classics include: Boston Bolts, Charleston Battery, El Paso Locomotive (where Nick Ross ended up), Long Island Roughriders, New England Mutiny, Portland Bangers & the Portland Cherry Bombs. Full list here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_Soccer_League_clubs

Thankfully in (most) of Canada the names are sensible ... In the CPL there is "Forge FC" from Hamilton which is/was nicknamed 'Steeltown' so the name of the club makes sense. That's about as exotic as it gets unless you count Atletico Ottawa or Halifax Wanderers. Drop down into the semi-pro leagues and you get a few interesting names including Edmonton Scottish who apparently were founded by Scots immigrants in 1909 but again, most are traditional names with either some prefix or FC or SC tagged on the end.

I guess you could add LA Galaxy, Colorado Rapids, Chicago Fire FC, New England Revolution, Portland Timbers, Philadelphia Union, San Jose Earthquakes and Columbus Crew to the list. Some of the names make sense based on where they are or their club origin, but surprisingly, 23 of 30 MLS teams have 'normal names' either with FC / SC in the name or prefixes like Inter, Real etc. New York Red Bulls rebranded this year to match the RB teams in Europe so are now Red Bull New York.

Crewe Alexandra and Port Vale are another 2 strange ones. Port Vale don't even have anything in the name to indicate where they are from. Apparently the club was formed at a meeting in a house in the Stoke area and the club was named after the name of the house.

And then there is Kaizer Chiefs, named after a band 😀

Down this way there was a great tradition of coal mining and the clubs seemed to choose names of colourful flowers as a reaction to the players working their shifts in a dark hole.

Ormiston Primrose

Loanhead Mayflower

Easthouses Lily

Dundonald Bluebell

Hill of Beath Hawthorn

Rose - Bonnyrigg and Linlithgow

Obviously a few prickly Thistles and a couple of Stars, and over in the West there’s Glenbuck Cherrypickers, Lugar Boswell Thistle, Auchinleck Talbot, Irvine Meadow, Kilbirnie Ladeside, Kirkintilloch Rob Roy, Craigmark Burntonians, Shotts Bon Accord, Ardrossan Winton Rovers.

In the amateurs, Rothesay Brandanes. And don’t forget Hamilton Academical in our own division…

Edited February 10Feb 10 by The Mantis

Burntisland Shipyard

Could maybe include Solihull Moors. Like us, they are merged club between Solihull Borough and Moor Green. Much the same way as MIlton Keynes Dons [I mean MK is bad enough without adding the Dons] although they were not a merged but a club formed as part of the controversial move from Wimbledon [Dons]

Gala Fairydean and Vale of Leithen. London’s hipster club Dulwich Hamlet.

As a child I always remember looking at old records and noting the first ever winners of the (English) FA cup were simply "The Wanderers". No nonsense and definitve.

I was intrigued as a youngster by the now defunct Third Lanark and always wondered what became of First and Second Lanark.

Just 20 minutes up the road from me was the home of Rushden and Diamonds which came about as a merger of Rushden Town and Irthlingborough Diamonds. They got themselves into the Football League and even got promoted but suffered a couple of relegations and dropped out of the league before then getting wound up around 15 years ago.

The most successful club in Wales' domestic league is The New Saints but this is a new name which came about (I guess) when their sponsor finished as they had been previously known as Total Network Solutions - both obviously being TNS.

I know nothing about Marine other than they are from Liverpool but it's an odd name. Maybe an area of the city?

My final offering is the Highland League team Banks O'Dee which I suppose literally describes their location but it always strikes me as a bit funny.