What's the point of that then? #94

Today was one of those days where I look in the paper and react with a level of disgust far outweighing the importance of the subject matter. The subject in question was the Clydesdale Bank 40, where Surrey beat Lancashire. So far so good, only it wasn't Surrey, and it wasn't Lancashire, it was the "Surrey Lions" and "Lancashire Lightening".

Now look. There's already a place for bat-and-ball teams with stupid names, and it's called Major League Baseball. Unless Leicestershire Foxes actually put out a team of 11 bushy-tailed dog-like mammals, why not simply call them Leicestershire?

And it's not as if the MLB's names really mean that much anyway. For those who don't know, even the all-conquering world-famous New York Yankees started out as the Baltimore Orioles, while the team that is now known as the Baltimore Orioles started out as the Milwaukee Brewers. The current Milwaukee Brewers started off as the Seattle Pirates, both the Texas Rangers and the Minnesota Twins have formerly been known as the Washington Senators, and so on, not to mention the Dodgers, the Braves and the Giants, all of whom started in New York and now all play on the complete opposite side of the country in California. Even some of those who've kept their original names should clearly have changed them anyway, such as Florida Marlins, Philadelphia Phillies, Tampa Bay Rays, Arizona Diamondbacks and San Diego Padres.

Finally, has no-one noticed that the most popular sport in this country is football, and that with a few exceptions football clubs tend to just be named after where they're from? I'm pretty sure no-one in the FA has said to themselves "Hmm, I wonder how we can get more people interested. Maybe we should change the names of the clubs to stuff like the Liverpool Scallies, the Chelsea Pensioners or the Portsmouth Sailor Boys..." No, in football you've got the team name, possibly something to differentiate your team from a neighbour, and unofficial nicknames, and never the twain shall meet.

So I ask again, what the bloody hell is the point?

I wonder what idiotic name they'd give Stafford? We've got all sorts of history to base it on. My suggestions based on this and which industries we have would be Stafford Knot-outs, Stafford Cobblers, Stafford Transformers, and perhaps given our large public sector workforce the Stafford Sir Humphreys...