1) Port Noarlunga Cockle Divers
Having never been there (nor thought too much about the place), most Victorians aren’t wise to the scorn their state inspires across its western border. But South Australia’s “kick a Vic” mentality comes out in all sorts of ways, even subtle ones like football team names. In most states, Australian rules sides will happily borrow their identity – from mascot to colours to club song – from their big brothers in Melbourne. They are a bit more discerning in SA, and nowhere is that as strong as in Adelaide’s Southern Football League.
Fans of Noarlunga cheer on the Mighty Shoes. Up in Reynella, they bleed for the Wineflies. Over in Morphett Vale, they have the Emus – a surprisingly rare choice of mascot in this country, given its position on the coat of arms. The league was once home to the Crushers, the Mudlarks and, for a short time, the Macclesfield Blood and Tars.
The best name of all though comes from Port Noarlunga. Head through the dunes by the Onkaparinga River mouth on a Saturday afternoon and you might just hear the cries of “C’arn the Cockle Divers!” The team’s emblem features one of those old-fashioned diving helmets they used in the days before scuba was a thing. It’s been a while since they’ve come up with the goods though. Their last premiership was back in the late 90s.
As original as the Cockle Divers might sound, it’s not. Port Adelaide was using that mascot back in the 19th century, long before they became the Magpies and then the Power.
Bonus points: the current coach of the Cockle Divers is a bloke going by the name of Mr Manhood.
2) Parkes Spacemen
Unfortunately for this list, the tiny Central West town of Bogan Gate does not field a team in any competitions of note. Up the road in Parkes, though, they’ve got a cosmically themed team that’s worthy of inclusion. The town’s rugby league team goes by the name of the Spacemen.
The reason for their unusual nickname will be obvious to anyone who has seen The Dish. The classic Australian film showed the role this unassuming little town played in one of humanity’s greatest achievements – the moon landing. It’s all thanks to the local observatory.
The Spacemen are one of the power teams of the Group 11 competition at the moment, having made it to five of the past six grand finals. They won the title in 2013, but lost last year to a team from Dubbo once known as the Fish Eaters (or, look away now grammar police, the Fishie’s – their apostrophe).
The Spacemen’s neanderthal forebears can be found south of the border. Where else, I hear you say. In the town of Buchan, there’s an Aussie rules team known as the Cavemen. It’s a nod to the local underground tourist attraction, the Buchan Caves. Their rivals include the Swampies and the Ranges. Not Rangers. The Ranges.
3) Pumarali Thunder & Lightning
Aussie rules is played differently in the Top End, and particularly so on the Tiwi Islands. Its annual grand final is a cultural event as much as a football one, and it’s become a pilgrimage for Darwin residents (and even for some from down south too). There’s a distinct local flavour even in the team names too.
During the wet season, the Top End sky puts on a brilliant – and at times terrifying – sound and light show almost every night, as the heavens release their fury. It’s a name captured perfectly by the Pumarali Thunder & Lightning, a team from the Tiwis.
Over in Arnhem Land, there’s the Maningrida Lightning Strikes. They are far from the first teams to take on the such stormy names, but it’s the extra details in their names that give them something over, say, the Halls Head Lightning or the Melbourne Storm.
Another part of Top End life is captured in Muluwurri’s mascot, the Magpie Geese. The bird is a local delicacy. When someone is said to have “been on the magpie geese”, it’s a roundabout way of saying they’ve spent too long at the dining table over the off-season.
4) Young Cherrypickers
Food-related names were once a staple of the Aussie rules world. Retired names are rumoured to include the Apple Snatchers (out of northern Tasmania), the Toffee Apples (from Melbourne’s south-eastern suburbs) and the grimace-inducing Rice Eaters (based in the Victorian goldfields).
And in rugby league? There’s still the Young Cherrypickers. It might be a far more amusing name if it wasn’t for nearly every off-field scandal involving an NRL player ever.
The town of Young sits on the south west slopes of New South Wales, and is known as “the undisputed cherry capital of Australia”. Local agriculturalists may think their team’s name does the place proud. The rest of us are just left scratching our heads. Seriously: what were they thinking when they came up with this name? Even as a sporting term, it’s far from complimentary. Small golf clap, though, for Young’s masters side, who call themselves the Cherryatrics.
The town hosts the National Cherry Festival every December, where you can engage in a cherry pie eating championship and a pip spitting competition in the off-season. It is ball sports that set the town’s heart racing, and Cherrypickers of note include former Canberra Raiders Brett Mullins and Simon Woolford, and Melbourne Storm’s Jordan McLean.
A (dis)honourable mention goes to the Casino Cougars in the Northern Rivers League – a league which also hosts Ghosts, Seahorses, Axemen and some mythical Dirawongs.
5) Charles Sturt University Bushpigs
Usually, football teams save the insults for their opposition, and pick a mascot that might strike fear into the hearts of those they come up against. Exhibit A: the Vampiresof East Brighton. They are the most terrifying thing to come out of Melbourne’s beachside suburbs since post-surgery Warnie.
It’s a different story in the Farrer League of the NSW Riverina, where the boys from Charles Sturt University have taken on the Bushpigs as their moniker. If you’ve spent a minute in Australia, you won’t need the Urban Dictionary to tell you that a bush pig is not a nice thing to be called. Especially if you are a woman, though at the CSU Football & Netball Club, the women are known more affectionately as the Bushsows. True fact.
And just in case you thought this was some undergraduate prank, well, it’s not an isolated case of bush pig adoration. The rugby union club in Jindabyne is known as the same thing, and the old club of Brownlow medallist Adam Cooney was known as the Bushpigs during the 80s and 90s. Perhaps it’s no surprise they are in the Southern Football League.
The hills outside Melbourne also shelter the Yarra Glen River Pigs, while Dunsborough in Western Australia is home to a rugby union side known as the Dungbeetles.
6) Mountt Burr Mozzies
SA’s Mid South East League boasts one of the most Aussie teams in the country: the Mount Burr Mozzies. They play in green and gold, for a start. Their club song isn’t an adaption of some show tune, but a re-working of Along The Road To Gundagai. It features rhyming slang and ‘Strine, not to mention the meteorologically challenged lines: “We will play ‘em all together, in any kind of weather, under clear blue skies”.
But it’s for choosing a really, really, really annoying pest as a mascot that Mt Burr, we salute you. There are precisely zero nice things you can say about the mosquito. But that little blood sucker has lead Mt Burr to a league-record 19 flags. That includes triple three-peats.
Other invertebrate names of note: the Central Charlestown Butcher Boys from Newcastle; the Gladstone Mudcrabs, an Aussie rules team from the Queensland coast; and the Yabbies, which can be found all over the country. Inadvertently making the list all the way from Germany: Wormatia Worms.
