The (World Cup) Friday List of Little or No Consequence #167

Lots of silly balls
The 15 Players Appearing At The 2010 World Cup With The Most Syllables In Their Names

1. Antonio Rukavina (Serbia)
2. Quincy Owusu-Abeyie (Ghana)
3. Yoshikatsu Kawaguchi (Japan)
4. Marcus Tulio Tanaka (Japan)
5. Guy Roland Ndy Assembe (Cameroon)
6. Fabio Quagliarella (Italy)
7. Antonio Di Natale (Italy)
8. Julio Cesar Caceres (Paraguay)
9. Julio Cesar de Leon (Honduras)
10. Reneilwe Letsholonyane (South Africa)
11. Mauricio Victorino (Uruguay)
12. Maximilliano Pereira (Uruguay) *
13. Egidio Arevalo Rios (Uruguay) *
14. Maximilliano Rodriguez (Argentina) *
15. Sokrates Papastathopoulos (Greece) *

(All players shown have eight syllables in their name except those marked with an asterisk who have nine. And before you ask, the above names are 'popular names' - that is to say middle names were not considered unless it forms a part of a player's 'popular name'.)

The Friday List of Little or No Consequence #153

CurioUSly named
14 Defunct American Soccer Teams With Interesting Or Amusing Names

1. Bethlehem Hungarian
2. Bricklayers and Masons FC
3. Chattanooga Express
4. El Paso/Juarez Gamecocks
5. Hawaii Tsunami
6. Holley Carburetor FC
7. Indiana Flooring
8. New Brunswick Hungarian Americans
9. Ohio Xoggz
10. Permian Basin Shooting Stars
11. Philadelphia Ukrainians
12. San Diego Top Guns
13. San Jose Frogs
14. Syracuse Salty Dogs

The Friday List of Little or No Consequence #141

Née bother...
15 Footballers' Names As They'd Appear If They Took Their Wives' Surnames Rather Than The Other Way Around

1. Ashley Tweedy (Chelsea)
2. Carlos Mansillo (Man City)
3. Didier Diakite (Chelsea)
4. Fernando Liste (Liverpool)
5. Jamie Hart (Liverpool)
6. Jlloyd Pritchard (Bolton)
7. Joe Zucker (Chelsea)
8. Mikel Bernal (Everton)
9. Robbie Palmer (Tottenham)
10. Robin Elbali (Arsenal)
11. Roque Tavarelli (Man City)
12. Ryan Cooke (Man United)
13. Shay Cunningham (Man City)
14. Steven Curran (Liverpool)
15. Wayne McLoughlin (Man United)

The Friday List of Little or No Consequence #138

Vowel please, Carol...
The 15 Clubs Of The Premier League And Football League With The Highest Vowel-To-Consonant Ratios In Their Name

1. Torquay United (46.2%)
2. Leeds United (45.5%)
3. Bournemouth (45.5%)
4. Liverpool (44.4%)
5. Peterborough United (44.4%)
6. Morecambe (44.4%)
7. Hartlepool United (43.8%)
8. Arsenal (42.9%)
9. Chelsea (42.9%)
10.Everton (42.9%)
11. Reading (42.9%)
12. Carlisle United (42.9%)
13. Southend United (42.9%)
14. Crewe Alexandra (42.9%)
15. Hereford United (42.9%)

The Friday List of Little or No Consequence #110

Rampant Commercialism
19 Football Clubs Whose Names Incorporate Those Of Companies And Other Organisations

1. Airbus UK - Wales
2. Air India - India
3. Bayer 04 Leverkusen - Germany
4. Cable & Wireless Pointe Michel - Dominica
5. Camell Laird - England
6. Carl Zeiss Jena - Germany
7. Ethiopian Electric Power Corporation FC - Ethiopia
8. Honda FC - Japan
9. Jeonbuk Hyundai Motors - South Korea
10. Lada Togliatti - Russia
11. Petrojet - Egypt
12. Red Bull New York - USA
13. Red Bull Salzburg - Austria
14. Skoda Xanthi - Greece
15. Supersport United FC - South Africa
16. Suwon Samsung Bluewings - South Korea
17. TDK - Japan
18. Thai Airways-Ban Bueng FC - Thailand
19. Vauxhall Motors - England

The Friday List of Little or No Consequence #95

Names and places
22 Football Players Whose Names Feature Towns, Cities, Countries, Etc.

1. Dean Ashton (West Ham)
2. Ryan Babel (Liverpool)
3. Gareth Barry (Aston Villa)
4. Deon Burton (Charlton Athletic)
5. Lewis Buxton (Sheffield Wednesday)
6. Clark Carlisle (Burnley)
7. Michael Carrick (Manchester United)
8. James Chester (Manchester United)
9. Jamie Clapham (Notts County)
10. Jack Cork (Watford)
11. Matt Derbyshire (Blackburn)
12. Ryan France (Hull City)
13. Simon Hackney (Carlisle United)
14. Stephen Ireland (Manchester City)
15. Kevin Kilbane (Wigan)
16. Neil Kilkenny (Leeds United)
17. Lewis Montrose (Wigan)
18. Kris Renton (Norwich City)
19. Roque Santa Cruz (Blackburn)
20. Jason Scotland (Swansea City)
21. Antonio Valencia (Wigan)
22. Dwight Yorke (Sunderland)

And at this point we'd like to wholeheartedly thank Simon Harriyott for coming up with the idea for this Friday List along with most of the names on it. If you'd like to suggest a few of your own, feel free to do so by leaving us a comment.

Alternatively, why not send us your ideas for future Friday Lists we could tackle? It's very easy - just drop us an email to info [at] spaotp [dot] com and we'll do our best to convert your ideas into reality!

The Friday List of Little or No Consequence #89

Two for the price of one
31 Footballers Past And Present Whose Names Are Made Up Of Two First Names

1. Charlie Adam (Rangers midfielder)
2. Gareth Barry
3. Steve Bruce
4. Tommy Craig (former Newcastle and Aston Villa midfielder)
5. Dixie Dean
6. Mark Dennis
7. Paul Elliott
8. Trevor Francis
9. Charlie George
10. Steven Gerrard
11. Craig Gordon (Sunderland goalkeeper)
12. John Gregory
13. Dickie Guy (former Wimbledon goalkeeper)
14. Nick Henry (former Oldham midfielder)
15. Tim Howard
16. Rodney Jack (former Torquay and Crewe striker)
17. David James
18. Cameron Jerome (Birmingham striker)
19. Paddy Kenny
20. Sammy Lee
21. Alvin Martin
22. Gary Neville
23. Charlie Nicholas
24. Michael Owen
25. Bryan Roy
26. Trevor Steven
27. Paul Stewart
28. Graham Stuart
29. John Terry
30. Jerome Thomas (Portsmouth winger)
31. Robin Van Persie

...plus there's bonus points for getting the only player whose name contains that of a French man and an English woman - Tore André Flo...

SPAOTP would like to give a big 'thank you' to Russell Napier and @harriyott for providing us with so many of this week's list items. If you can think of any others, leave us a comment and tell us!

The Friday List of Little or No Consequence #2

The Name Game
16 Football Clubs With Amusing and Peculiar Names From Around the World

1. Joe Public FC (Trinidad and Tobago)
2. Take Care Tigers (Guam)
3. Full Monty (Anguilla)
4. FC KooTeePee (Finland)
5. Missiles FC (Gabon)
6. Ethiopian Coffee (Ethiopia)
7. Prime Minister's Office FC (Laos)
8. Finance and Revenue (Myanmar)
9. Wongosport (Gabon)
10. School Boys (Lesotho)
11. Mighty Blackpool (Sierra Leone)
12. East End Connections (British Virgin Islands)
13. Eleven Men In Flight (Swaziland)
14. & 15. Shooting Stars (Nigeria & Zimbabwe)
16. Silver Shattas (Guyana)

World Cup Names

If you watched last night's lacklustre encounter between Holland and Argentina (or indeed any other match of similarly weak entertainment value), you'll know what it's like to feel a bit short-changed, televisually. The World Cup is, after all, supposed to be a spectacle - a footballing festival, if you will. So what's a man supposed to do when the World Cup fails to live up to expectations?

The answer lies in a simple but rewarding game you can play from the comfort of your own armchair. All you have to do is 'translate' your name so that it fits one of the teams playing at the World Cup. Let's say, for instance, I decided to buy an England shirt and wanted my name printed on the back. Well I'd quite possibly have 'Chris' emblazened across my shoulders for all to see, but if it were a German shirt? Well my name would have to be 'Chrisowski', of course. An Italian shirt? 'Chrissi', one would presume...

And it doesn't stop there. I've worked out what my World Cup name would be for various other countries, too:

Angola - Chrisanga
Argentina - Chrispo
Brazil - Cristoforo
Croatia - Chrisovic
France - Chrissé
Holland - Van Christens
Japan - Chrisizawa
Poland - Chriskowiak
Saudi Arabia - Al-Chrisani
South Korea - Cris Ok-Lee
Spain - Christo
Sweden - Christensson
Ukraine - Christov

It's good fun, once you get into the swing of things! Why not have a go yourself and tell us what your World Cup name would be?

Player Name of the Tournament Award 2006

... goes to Ghana's number 19 - Pimpong.

Many congratulations to him from the 'Some People are on the Pitch' team.