The X & Y Cup

[tubeguru]

Following on from a thread on Facebook earlier regarding football teams containing two placenames in their names, I trawled through the top seven tiers of the English football pyramid structure and came up with the following teams which might contest the X & Y cup for teams with two UK placenames in their club name:

Brighton & Hove Albion
Gravesend & Northfleet
Rushden & Higham Utd
Windsor & Eton
Tooting & Mitcham Utd
Epsom & Ewell
Chessington & Hook Utd
Harwich & Parkeston
Norton & Stockton Ancients
Pitstone & Ivinghoe
Peacehaven & Telscombe
Midhurst & Easebourne
Laverstock & Ford
Blackfield & Langley
Hythe & Dibden
Totton & Eling
Ickwell & Old Warden
Westella and Willerby
Peasmarch & Iden
Glemsford & Cavendish Utd
Milton & Fulston Utd
Larkfield & New Hythe Wanderers
Narborough & Littlethorpe
Dunton & Broughton Rangers
West Didsbury & Chorlton
Warborough & Shillingford
Ardington & Lockinge
Wootton & Dry Sandford
Broughton & North Newington
Castor & Ailsworth
Woodcote & Stoke Row
Frilsham & Yattendon
Wokingham & Emmbrook 'A' (and 'B')
Norcross & Warbreck

The following were also found, but would be ineligible on technicalities:

Rushden & Diamonds (no such place as "Diamonds")
Wideopen & District (is Wideopen a place?)
Staplehurst & Monarchs Utd (same thing as Rushden & Diamonds)
Stewarts & Lloyds Corby (Another tenuous inclusion)
O & G Utd (if we knew what O and G stood for we might be in a better position)

On top of the above, the following were all named or suggested by other people, and I believe none of them reside in the top seven tiers of English football which means there must be dozens more of these buggers if you look for them:

Hayes & Yeading
Hampton & Richmond
Walton & Hersham
Tooting & Mitcham
Wingate & Finchley

And finally, honourable mentions for the clubs I found which have silly names and which are ineligible for the cup but who might contest the "Silly Name Cup":

Church of Christ the King
British School of Motoring
Brighton Accident & Emergency
Orb 360
Real Hydraquip (as in Madrid?)
Chagos Island (I bet their away fixtures don't get many)
Maidenblower Village
Q Ball
Rock-A-Nore
Gas Recreation
Mountnessing Boca
Faces
Runwell Hospital (geddit?)
Guru Nanak
O.P.K
Roma (from the er, Liverpool County Premier League)
Red Rum
Farmers
FC Team (a lot of thought went into this one I presume)
Galatasaray UK
St. John's Arsenal Deaf
Societa Sportiva Peterborough Italian Organisation
Primitive Methodists

Can anyone else think of any other teams that could take part in this competition?

[Starkey7]

Sport London e Benfica and The 61 FC are also contenders for the stupid name competition.

Hayes and Yeading are in the Conference South - tier six!!!

[tubeguru]

I must have missed them then.

[Soup Dragon]

On top of the above, the following were all named or suggested by other people, and I believe none of them reside in the top seven tiers of English football which means there must be dozens more of these buggers if you look for them:

Hayes & Yeading (tier 6)
Hampton & Richmond (tier 6)
Walton & Hersham (tier 8.)
Tooting & Mitcham (tier 7)
Wingate & Finchley (tier 8.)

Three of these teams can be included as they are in tiers 6 or 7, you've also missed Dagenham & Redbridge (tier 4) from the list. So how are you going to draw the prelimenary round, I guess it's the teams in the lower tiers first?

[tubeguru]

I had D&R in the list originally but I think I removed them by mistake in the editing.

Well first thing you need is an even number of teams that is either 4, 16, 32, 64 etc. How many do we have?

[Soup Dragon]

38 at the moment, so we need to eliminate 6 teams, so the prelim round needs 12 teams drawn... assuming there are no more teams to be found? You can then decide each round on some random factor such as distance between each town within the merged pair i.e. Brighton to Hove is 3.2km and Gravesend & Northfleet is 3.1km (according to AA routeplanner), or the year the club was formed (or when the two teams mergerd), or the average home attendance, or whatever else you decide. Are you sure all of these are real teams? Some of them sound more like firms of solicitors.

[editorsfoot]

Gravesend and Northfleet are now Ebbsfleet

[Soup Dragon]

The following were also found, but would be ineligible on technicalities:

Rushden & Diamonds (no such place as "Diamonds")

The "Diamonds" part of the name comes from Irthlingborough Diamonds, when they merged with Rushden Town in 1992, so on this basis should they be included?

[tubeguru]

Are you sure all of these are real teams? Some of them sound more like firms of solicitors.

They are all teams that are listed as currently playing in their respective leagues (except Gravesend and Northfleet who, apparently, are now Ebbsfleet and are thus ejected).

[perkyperky]

Warborough and Shillingford FC can be ejected; certainly not in top 7 tiers.

[perkyperky]

Oh, and Woodcote and Stoke Row also not in top seven.

[perkyperky]

Oops! Ignore post re Woodcote and Stoke Row; they are in, but play in Reading League rather then Oxfordshire, even though both villages are in Oxon.

[tubeguru]

OK, there's some confusion here.

When I said "top seven tiers" I didn't actually mean the top seven tiers. See the following Wikipedia page:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_fo ... gue_system

According to that page I used the top NINE tiers, the last listed league being the Essex Senior Football League. All of the above listed clubs are in one of the leagues in those tope nine tiers, so stop trying to find the ones that aren't!

[suddenly realises something]

Hmmm, having looked down that list, it appears that some of the leagues I looked at are outside the top nine tiers, meaning that the original list I used was misleading and the clubs listed were certainly all not from the top seven tiers. So, I'm going to specify that ALL teams with two placenames in their club name from ALL 24 TIERS can be included!

I shall go through them all again, so just hold fire for now folks.

[tubeguru]

OK, having done some research I think I have finally worked out the "official" tier system used in English football. Therefore I will compile my list from that, and list each club down along with the league they play in this season, and the tier in which that league resides.

Give me a sec ...

[Starkey7]