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9 hours ago, number37 said:

I started typing this in the NUFC kits thread, then maybe thought it could be football trivia and so it's here instead. 

 

A few weeks ago I stumbled upon something I found to be quite interesting as an aficionado of both heraldry and club badges. We’ve all been there, late at night, face down deep in a Wikipedia wormhole, one thing leads to another and before you know it you’re downloading megabytes of illicitly-sourced images that are difficult to explain in the cold light of day. As a single man with fibre optic broadband, my story is no different, so here is what I found after downloading issue 229 of The Heraldry Society’s publication – The Coat of Arms. Please don’t judge me.

 

In the 1970s, the FA and Football League were concerned by the legalities of clubs (and other related businesses) selling merchandise that had club crests on them because clubs often used badges that were either based on city/town/region coats of arms or in fact were the coats of arms themselves and so they weren’t owned by the clubs but rather the city council, etc. The Football League got in touch with the College of Arms (the fine folk who administer coats of arms) for some advice and if a solution could be found regarding ownership. The FA and College weren’t too keen on granting coats of arms to the clubs themselves for the logical but rather cold reason that coats of arms are meant to be prestigious, you don’t grant them to just anyone, and the nature of football means a Division One club (at that time) could easily suffer misfortune and then spiral down the leagues or even out of business, and that isn’t all too prestigious.

 

So the solution was for the College to grant the Football League 92 badges (a lesser version of a coat of arms), one for each member club, and then the Football League itself would hand those out to the clubs. The very important distinction here is that it would be the Football League, not the clubs, who would legally own the badges. The Football League got in touch with the clubs and it was the intention that the process would begin with the Division One teams, then Division Two and so on, with each club responding with an idea of what they would like. If the club had nothing in mind then the College would come up with something – again, this is a key, important legal element. Only 25 clubs responded and so the plan to prioritise by division was abandoned and clubs were dealt with as they responded.

 

Rodney Dennys himself was tasked with designing the badges, he was the man who was Herald at the College, which is a very senior and historical position and I think it reflects how seriously this was taken. As a result of only 25 clubs across the four divisions replying to the request, there is quite a wide range of teams. If you’ve even read this far (and thank you for doing so), you’re probably asking why you should still pretend to care, well, Newcastle United were one of the 25. (Spoiler!) 

 

I mentioned earlier that if a club had no real preference or existing idea as to what their badge should be then it would be up to Mr Dennys to get creative, although still subject to Football League and club final approval. Of course, although quite surprisingly, Newcastle United did not have a preference and so the badge created by Rodney Dennys at the College of Arms to be granted to the Football League for Newcastle United was entirely an original creation of Rodney Dennys himself. By going back a wee bit further to the legal element, this badge remained and actually remains the legal property of the Football League and not the club, even if the club drew the badge itself and simply passed it to the College to be given the once-over (which it didn’t), it still belongs to the Football League.

 

So what? I hear none of you say. Well, way back in the dark days of the Ashley era, some wonderful people created the Magpie Shirt, which contained a magpie image on one side of the chest and the castle shield from the city’s coat of arms on the other but later editions (the one I have as I sadly missed out on the original) only feature the shield in the centre because our fine club got involved and prevented the use of the magpie – citing trademark and other legal issues. This is what I found quite interesting. While I don’t (or can’t because I’m not a legal expert) dispute where the club is/was coming from, I thought it was interesting that the use of the magpie in such a way was never really an idea of the club but even if it was then the ownership is with the Football League, not Newcastle United. Maybe it was just another example in a long line of examples of our previous owner being a bit of a dick? Who knows and perhaps we shall never know.

 

As a special bonus, a thank you for reading, here are the 25 badges that were granted between 1975 and 1979 to the clubs that cared. Some are still kind of in use to this very day, some never saw the light of day but no other clubs ever signed up. Sadly, this process officially ended in 1993, despite appearing to be on hold, when Rodney Dennys passed away, the Football League had paid for all 92 clubs to have a badge but the rest of the money was returned on Dennys’ passing.

 

See how many of these you can guess, some are straightforward but there are some obscure ones to mix it up.

 

plate4.png.2d7cbb11f56929bc560147f13c896405.png

 

  Reveal hidden contents

(a) Blackburn Rovers; (b) Chelsea; (c) Manchester United; (d) Hull City; (e) West Bromwich Albion; (f) Leicester City; (g) Bury; (h) Birmingham City; (i) Exeter City; (j) Cardiff City; (k) Huddersfield United; (l) Lincoln City

 

plate5.png.49a446d8ab4e624ba390cc547f0886b6.png

 

  Reveal hidden contents

(a) Carlisle United; (b) Manchester City; (c) Liverpool; (d) Stockport County; (e) Blackpool; (f) Doncaster Rovers; (g) Newcastle United; (h) Sheffield United; (i) Millwall; (j) Leyton Orient; (k) Oldham Athletic; (l) Northampton Town

 

single.png.f4855bb716cf3a43b46a1e7cebe07802.png

 

  Reveal hidden contents

Aldershot

 

:milner:

 

I just wanted to say I appreciated this post in an actual post as I assume this wormhole and post took a while, it was interesting. 

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2 hours ago, leffe186 said:

Was so confident that 2k was Sheffield Wednesday.

 

Edit: didn’t realize there’d be a page of pish before this post. The badges on the previous page.

 

 

 


Yeah I was sure that was Wednesday too 

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2 minutes ago, Hovagod said:

Martin Tyler in a bit of bother. Misspoke on Radio 4 and called Hilsborough a ‘hooligan event’. Worth a clarifying statement. 

He needs to be put out to pasture, his commentary is awful these days he's 76 ffs 

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Guest HTT II

"You've got to remember that football was in a bit of a crisis at that time. We weren't that long after Hillsborough, and other hooligan-related issues as well. It was very much a difficult time for the game generally."
 

Context is everything, I’m pretty sure he means we had the Hillsborough disaster and other issues, like hooliganism…

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1 minute ago, HTT II said:

"You've got to remember that football was in a bit of a crisis at that time. We weren't that long after Hillsborough, and other hooligan-related issues as well. It was very much a difficult time for the game generally."
 

Context is everything, I’m pretty sure he means we had the Hillsborough disaster and other issues, like hooliganism…


He’s clearly not lumping the two together.

 

People just want to be offended 

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Guest HTT II
3 minutes ago, LV said:


He’s clearly not lumping the two together.

 

People just want to be offended 

Exactly and he’s spoken eloquently on Hillsborough in the past during many LFC games towards, on or just after the anniversary. 

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Guest HTT II
2 hours ago, Hovagod said:

Martin Tyler in a bit of bother. Misspoke on Radio 4 and called Hilsborough a ‘hooligan event’. Worth a clarifying statement. 

I hope he doesn’t dignify this nonsense with a response. 

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1 hour ago, HTT II said:

"You've got to remember that football was in a bit of a crisis at that time. We weren't that long after Hillsborough, and other hooligan-related issues as well. It was very much a difficult time for the game generally."
 

Context is everything, I’m pretty sure he means we had the Hillsborough disaster and other issues, like hooliganism…

I'd say the police were in a bit of a crisis at the time, which had it's impact on the average football fan's ability to enjoy the match in safety. In truth the country was in crisis which effected the average person's ability to enjoy life.

Of course, I'm sure he wasn't asked in a way that would inspire such an answer. But yeah. 

However, whilst I'm not too concerned about it, it does hint at the bigger picture of media representatives sticking to a narrative.

Meh. Nowt will change.

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42 minutes ago, leffe186 said:

Nice little table:

 

fv9u2be3iuf91.jpg

 

I'm sure we were bottom of this last year so that's nice.

 

Are Chelsea fans taking the piss? 

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Just now, Village Idiot said:

Surprised to see Chelsea fans being so pessimistic. They landed on their feet on the Abramovich issue and the new owners are splashing the cash.

There signings are so scattergun though, there doesn't seem to be any sort of plan, it's like the owners are playing football manager, they're just targeting random players for obscene money. Cucurella for instance, I highly doubt they we're after him until City turned there nose up at Brighton's ridiculous valuation, but its almost like Chelsea went "City where in for him he must be good, pay whatever they want to get him".

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The Ringer is now writing about Newcastle: Newcastle United’s Saudi Ownership Prompts Debate Across Premier League

 

Article is okay...it's not great by any stretch of the imagination. I think it comes from being a fan, but it glosses over a lot of how fans feel like the club is back and their own again.

 

Also this section is trash: "The version of Newcastle that I was watching represented the very last embers of the club before it became a Saudi state project. When it was still … a club. Years from now, will anyone in Newcastle miss these days, when their club was elementally flawed and the fans still filled St. James’ Park? When Newcastle were a regular team, one that reflected the indignities of life in a metaphorical way and left its fans largely despondent and bereft in all sorts of arguably healthy ways?"

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1 hour ago, Village Idiot said:

Surprised to see Chelsea fans being so pessimistic. They landed on their feet on the Abramovich issue and the new owners are splashing the cash.

 

Took a peek at their forum this week and they seemed to hate every attacking player outside of Mount. Also questioning Tuchel's approach and if it's his fault their offensive players have failed to deliver. Wasn't expecting even Havertz to get so much shite.

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