Fun With British Soccer Team Names

Watching "Welcome to Wrexham" has taken me even deeper down the sporting rabbit hole of the English soccer pyramid. The team, famously purchased in 2021 by Rob McElhenny and Ryan Reynolds, plays in the National League, the fifth tier of the football league system. It's famously known as the hardest league from which to earn promotion, as only one automatic advancement and one playoff ticket go to the 24 teams that comprise the division.

That's interesting and all, but that's not why we're here. Nope, we're gathered today because of Dorking Wanderers.

The Surrey side came to my attention as I perused the National League table recently. They're 20th in the table, perilously close to relegation. Wrexham topped them, 3-1, over the weekend. But that's not why we care. I mean, Dorking Wanderers!

Turns out, the story behind the name is kinda boring. Dorking is a market town about 20 miles south of London. And Wanderers is a relatively common suffix for English teams, generally referring to the origin story of a club that called several places home before settling on their final destination. So while Dorking is an amusing name, it'd probably get you punched in Sussex if you told them that. 

There are a total of 22 suffixes in use in English football, according to the folks at Football Stadiums. Many are self-explanatory to the point of lame - think Town, City, County, United. Rangers and Rovers are like Wanderers, given to clubs that took a minute to settle. Albion seems to be derived from the ancient name of Britain, somehow a reference to the White Cliffs of Dover. 

And then we've got the one-offs. Some fall back into that boringly simple category, like Forest, Vale, and Villa. Other, though, offer the color we're looking for in our weird sporting history. Take Plymouth Argyle, which takes its name from its historical association with a Scottish army regiment. Or Kidderminster Harriers, which survives from the club's founding as an athletic club. Leyton Orient is a curious moniker - seems the club was connected with the Orient Shipping Company back in 1886. 

The most famous unique name would likely be Tottenham Hotspur, so-called because Sir Harry Hotspur (from Shakespeare's Henry IV) owned the land the club came to occupy way back in the 14th century. 

But my favorite English club name sounds like it could also belong to a Nigerian prince. Accrington Stanley currently sit 20th in League One, just one place and two points above the relegation zone. They did make a valiant run in the FA Cup, falling to Leeds in the round of 16. The club's name came to be when Accrington FC (which was one of the 12 founding members of the Football League in 1888) folded and was subsumed by Stanley Villa FC. The Lancashire side play at Wham Stadium. I choose to believe that's somehow affiliated with the band.

So we'll close appropriately. If you're interested in esoteric English soccer stuff: