Clubs we spell wrong

[tee rex]

Royal "we". Mea culpa. Though I'm clearly not alone in this - the newly crowned Europa League winners. That double "r" is often overlooked, as in yesterday, all over the place.

Allowing some leeway for diacritics and changes of language (it's not Koln but then it's not Cologne either), what other clubs are routinely misspelled*? Some have a convenient abbreviation (PSV), and of course many full names are not used even by their own supporters, so we don't need to drown in pedantry. Looking more for the Middlesboroughs of world football.

(*misspelt, mispelled, um ... )

[ursus arctos]

Anglophones seem to struggle with Fenerbah?e (with or without the cedilla on the c)

[Felicity, I guess so]

Missing cedillas mean lots of 'Barca' around, including a trendy tapas bar in covid-variant hotspot Tynemouth

[Felicity, I guess so]

Clachnacuddin. Not misspelt, just wanted to say it, and if you don't like it you can get tae Fochabers

[CY_Boaby]

I'm pretty sure Auchtermuchty Bellevue AFC encounter all sorts of weird spellings.

[blameless]

Clachnacuddin. Not misspelt, just wanted to say it, and if you don't like it you can get tae Fochabers

I've never heard anyone from Sneck pronounce the "nacuddin" bit. It's simply "Clach".

[lambers]

Panathinaikos. And yes, I did just look that up.

[Nesta]

Bold thread to start on this forum.

[tee rex]

Panathinaikos. And yes, I did just look that up.

That's a good one. I would have gone for "PanathAnaikos" and a quick search suggests many do. Fooled by the schwa.

[Guy Profumo]

Does Bayern Munich, not Bavaria and not Muenchen* count in this context?

* Can't write M?nchen here, IIRC?

[tee rex]

Does Bayern Munich, not Bavaria and not Muenchen* count in this context?

Not for me. I mean, "FC Arsenal London" might be used in some non-English language publications, but it's different usage, not the spelling.

[lambers]

That's a good one. I would have gone for "PanathAnaikos" and a quick search suggests many do. Fooled by the schwa.

That was my initial search! I could also imagine that letter being an "e" too, considering they are the Pan-Athens club.

[Ray de Galles]

At that risk of setting off some kind of QI style klaxon :



Thought they are generally referred to by the far simpler CPD Llanfairpwll.

[Belhaven]

FC K?benhavn as FC Copenhagen
IFK G?teborg as IFK Gothenburg

Although in both cases the locals are hellbent on using the English version of the cities' names as often as possible, so you can hardly blame foreigners.

Judging from their homepage. it seems that Feijenoord have done away with the Dutch spelling and become Feyenoord also at home.

[Nesta]

I think saying Koln instead of Cologne is a fairly recent thing for anglophones, 20 years ago a WSC interview with Tony Woodcock uses Cologne: https://www.wsc.co.uk/the-archive/32...cologne-ranger

I'm sure 'Cologne' were one of the German teams in the first Sensible Soccer as well.

[Nesta]

[deleted- wrong end of stick]

[3 Colours Red]

Athletico Madrid still crops up from time to time.

[tee rex]

I guess the point about Villarreal is that it doesn't have a different name in English (AFAIK). So it's spelled correctly or not, unlike say Rapid Wien/Vienna.

[ad hoc]

I've seen a few spellings of Steaua, with the 4 vowels in a row proving tricky for people.

I also see Marseille have an s added on the end too, but I'm not sure if that counts as Marseilles as a spelling for the city seems to be a weird English thing, so perhaps it's no different from the other English spellings of cities around the continent.

[Nesta]

Pronunciation is more of a problem with Steaua, there's one big old bear trap you want to avoid

[Guy Profumo]

We don't do it for "Lyon", though, do we when abbreviating Olympique Lyonnaise (sic)?

[Sporting]

I guess the point about Villarreal is that it doesn't have a different name in English (AFAIK).

The club name is different to the town name: "Villarreal (Spanish: Villarreal [ˌbiʎareˈal]), officially called Vila-real"

[Jah Womble]

A lot of misspellings occur here because this forum won't support any kind of accent or hook, tail, etc.

I still encounter 'Tottenham Hotspurs' among farther-flung outliers of the fan base.

[Sporting]

Reason being "Spurs".

[EIM]

Fluminense. I thought it was Fluminese for AGES.