Does anyone actually attach themselves to a club nickname (Giants, Wolves, Rhinos)?

I've been wondering this for a while, as I hear the generation gap clearly between the fogies who call the teams Fartown/Wire/Leeds/Northern and the kiddies who say Bulls/Giants/Wolves/Rhinos.

Some team names are ridiculously awful, cheesy and naff. Also, the logos put the game to shame often. League of Ireland teams look better. Is it time we reviewed the look of clubs.

Rhinos has stuck very well in Leeds and I think the majority of people, no matter what generation, refer to us as the Rhinos. Funnily enough I refer to Warrington as Wire though and I'm only 27. Wigan should be Wigan and I can't recall ever saying I'm off to watch The Rhinos vs the Warriors. A bit like Cas too. Bradford like Leeds though I refer Yo them more often than not as the Bulls. They are 2 of the good ones.

I'd like to see merchandise sales today compared to say late 80's. I would guess cheesy names sell! The fans don't seem to have any probs with them either given most songs these days include the nickname.

Loiners!

Every billboard, newspaper, radio ad, tv report refers to us as the Rhinos too. Think it works so well because it separates us from Leeds Utd who are referee to as Leeds in all the above.

You'll be sat on a bus or walking down the street and you'll hear people asking the other if they saw the Rhinos game the other night ect. As you say too, merchandise will be high these days with the club shop and the "rhinos shop" in the city centre selling everything from scales to dressing gowns to replica jerseys. I'm too young to know if merchandise was bog in the 80s though as I was just a wee lad

some fans up north call us a "waste of time".............but we generally just call ourselves London or Quins RL.

In Halifax some people still wear blue sox.

Infectious that name was. Well done Nigel Wood

I'm an Airlie Bird and always will be.

I have to say though Hull FC have done loads of merchandise around what the supporters of Hull associate with the club.

Airlie Birds, Old Faithful and the irregular hoops, plus the club crest of the mid 80s and the current crest. Not forgetting of course the FC part as well which does confuse the hell out of people who don't follow RL. We were FC long before there was a football club in Hull.

Sharks lasted far longer than it should have, though I do still have some of the merchandise from those long dark days.

I have supported the game since the 70s and still refer to certain clubs by old names, such as Wire, Chremics,Trinity. But equally find that Bulls and Rhinos have stuck very well.

I would imagine that merchandise today is far bigger selling as there is massive emphasis on it now unlike before. Replica kits for one didn't really come into the fore until the late 70's / 80s. So it would be pointless comparing.

I think soccer in this country has a high exemplary way of each club (symbolically) presenting itself with dignity. By symbolically, i mean - it's nickname, and its crest. The majority of soccer teams do convey their sense of history, and lineage with the preservation of such things, and i think it's something we have badly taken for granted and abused in RL in this country since the inception of Super League. Or at least, something we undervalued, and gave away cheaply - and i think, although these threads would suggest it's half for and against, that people respond, and cherish the symbolic, which is attached to their community, sense of place, and continued (but evolved) identity, rather than the prospect of a complete symbolic derailment and detachment of what went before.

But then, people sing on 'come on you, bulls', so maybe i'm half way up my own rhino on this matter. However, would a rose still smell as sweet under another name? I'd argue, no. Same principal, and although people might suggest "oh, but we've always be dreadnoughts, or the glass-blowers, or lioners [ireally[/i..." Believe me, when something is not continually enforced, or reaffirmed as apart of an identity, then people have a funny way of dying, thus society forgets, and that's called antiquity. C'est la vie - so, if it matters.

wrong thread

This topic generally does the rounds on the Trinity forum. A recent poll illustrated that 75-80% of posters referred to the club as Trinity. Personally speaking, Wildcats is a prime example of a horrible, ill thought out unnecessary addition to an already iconic name.

Unfortunately it’s been kept for over 10 years now so we have a generation of fans referring to the club as Wakey Wildcats. The clubs website is the worst offender. From the recent match report there is not one mention of the word Trinity.

Chemics! Interesting point as some stick a lot more than others, whether that's marketing or just the way it is, is another question though. Widnes however are doing more & more merchandise based on the town, town crest etc and not so much pushing 'the Vikings' thing.

Keighley are just about to reach 20 years of being known as the Cougars.

I don't know any fan who doesn't refer to them as just Cougars.

that's because you are,most of the time.....................