This story broke a couple of years ago, but I've only just stumbled across it now...so apologies if you've already seen it...
Imagine a football squad made up of the likes of Henry, Kaka, Ronaldo, Ronaldinho, Carragher, Cafu, Essien, Gerrard, Terry, Messi, Rooney, Van Nistelrooy, Casillas...You might think it's Real Madrid on another spending spree, but no, this team plays its football in the lowest division of the Coronation League in Birmingham. It's not Manchester City is Lynam Athletic, named after everyones favourite sports broadcaster, Des Lynam...
Lynam Athletic were losers...they finished dead last in the South Birmingham Sunday League last year and they'd had enough. They were going to be winners. So they transferred leagues - evidently a lot easier for a Sunday League team than for Celtic & Rangers who'd like to do the same - and decided they needed a new identity. So, one by one, they changed their names by deed poll. If you're not familiar with the term, that means they have legally taken on these new names. They need new passports, new driving licences, new bank accounts - everything!
Imagine a football squad made up of the likes of Henry, Kaka, Ronaldo, Ronaldinho, Carragher, Cafu, Essien, Gerrard, Terry, Messi, Rooney, Van Nistelrooy, Casillas...You might think it's Real Madrid on another spending spree, but no, this team plays its football in the lowest division of the Coronation League in Birmingham. It's not Manchester City is Lynam Athletic, named after everyones favourite sports broadcaster, Des Lynam...
Lynam Athletic were losers...they finished dead last in the South Birmingham Sunday League last year and they'd had enough. They were going to be winners. So they transferred leagues - evidently a lot easier for a Sunday League team than for Celtic & Rangers who'd like to do the same - and decided they needed a new identity. So, one by one, they changed their names by deed poll. If you're not familiar with the term, that means they have legally taken on these new names. They need new passports, new driving licences, new bank accounts - everything!
So Darren Yeomans became Thierry Henry, Kevin Alban became Cristiano Ronaldo, Majid Ali became Ronaldinho. Out went Jon Barber, Paul Blears, Dan Branch, Darryl Brown, Marc Clifton, Connor Edgcumbe, Ian Flatt, Chris Gray, Pete Hall, Nick Hall, Neil Kimpton, Andrew Mullan, Jon Robins and Ben White. In came Jamie Carragher, Dani Alves, Cafu, Michael Essien, Ruud van Nistelrooy, Steven Gerrard, John Terry, Lionel Messi, Kaka, Iker Casillas, Fabio Cannavaro, Hernán Crespo, Petr Cech and Wayne Rooney. A team of world-beaters if ever there was.
They chose their names according to the position they play, and all players had to have played in the Champions League to qualify...Paul Blears plays right back and the only right-backs he could think of were Dani Alves and Gary Neville ... He chose Dani Alves saying "who wants to be Gary Neville?"
Class! If only we'd done this at Westbury Wanderers a few years back!!
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