This:

Nowt wrong with that imo.

Dear boy,
Where do I start?

Dunno

Yep a good one is Rovers.

So is there actually any connection with Widnes and Vikings?

The history of Vikings in Britain is not my best subject... I do know York, the Isle of Man, Northumbria and the North East coast of Scotland were Viking strongholds.

But Widnes?

Germaic people, such as the Vikings and the Saxons, would use names which describe the topography of the region explored as a tool of navigation. Widnes was a Viking town and the name Widnes literally means “Wide Nose.” This describes the promontory which juts out of the Mersey. Some Viking encampments can still be found on the salt marshes nearby.

The promontory can be seen here to the left:


Does this answer your question?

Here’s the Danelaw boundary, which clearly shows the areas of Viking settlement:

Thanks mate I didnt know that.


I'll be honest.. I thought Widnes was a lot further inland than that



Interesting how some British towns got their names.

Sorry mate but you talk a load of tosh. I see you're from St. Helens. How exactly does a man dressed as a dog with a huge cartoony head fit in with this "adult environment"? And have you ever heard of the Bulls, whose appeal to thousands of kids is what started the original and much copied Bullmania, with its face painters, bouncy castles, Bullman and Bullboy etc etc. and packed the ground with legions of kids?

RL is not an adult environment but absolutely a family sport, as a cursory look around any ground will tell anyone without a blindfold.

Oh, and it may be "common sense to aim for a demographic who have full incomes"



but at Bradford we prefer to appeal to even those mucky unwaged you would eschew, by offering discounts of varying sorts. Shockingly, other clubs seem to want them in too! not only that, but pensioners! You never know, even these poor undesirables might share a hot dog between them

That was my situation when i was a kid, leading to my brother to follow suit. I was first member to get into RL from a football supporting family. Mum eventual got into it, but my Dad never did and never will.

I don't see how folk can say Rhinos and Bulls work better than Wildcats. The fans might have chants associated with the nicknames, but they're God-awful chants and don't really indicate success as such. Wasn't the Bulls chant manufactured by the club, rather than created organically by the crowd? They're just horrible.

The main issue I have with these names is their lack of reference to the club, to history, to culture and to local wildlife. How many Rhinos have ever wandered through Beeston?? Wakefield has a rich history with its castle and reputed to be the birth place of Robin Hood, why do we have to name ourselves after a feline from Canada? These names might work in Oz and the US, but folk don't really take to them here. Here we don't suppport sporting brands in the same way, we support our local sporting community.

Having said that they can occassionally work well. Dewsbury Rams is my favourite modern name; you've got a modernised name, you've got something to market and it has an historic connection to the local area.

Don't apologise. If you disagree, fair enough.

I'm not discounting or suggesting RL is not inclusive to all ages, genders, races, etc... It is. But the point ed upon nickname gimmicks, and other assorted "-mania" which is overwhelming ed upon children is the connection i'm disputing. All this has to do with personal experience, of course, which I secede affords me limited insight, but as far as I'm aware children turned-up to RL matches prior to 1996, WHEN rugby league was an "adult" environment, and less visually, aesthetically rooted towards pre-teenage sensibilities.

Bullmania, of course, was an interesting phenomena certainly within British sport, but its unsustainability is perhaps more telling than its hayday.

In fact, if I remember rightly Trin' were nicknamed Dreadnaughts, not because of their fearlessness on the field, but because the team were mostly pit workers during WWII. They were christened that because if you're prepared to climb into a big black hole in the ground to dig while you leave your family at home where they might be bombed and you could potentially be trapped underground after a bomb strikes there must be very, very little that spooks you.

That to me is far more inspiring than a walking, furry pillow that wonders about by itself not really liking anything or anyone around it and has a face that looks like someones just farted!