Tigers: what's in a nickname need not be in a name

I'm right behind Hull City supporters in their fight against the proposed name change of their club to Hull Tigers.

Yuk.

Current Hull City owner Assem Allam has applied to the FA to change the club's name from next season. I have to confess I didn't know a club had to apply to the FA for a name change - I thought that would be a club decision. However, if applying to the FA helps stop this nonsense, then the application process is obviously a good thing. It seems that an FA council has "absolute discretion" over the name change decision.

Hull have been City since their formation in 1904, the nickname "Tigers" seemingly coming from a Hull Daily Mail reporter the following year.

Hull City supporters have formed a "City Till I Die" campaign, and they hope the FA will deny the name change application. It seems that the FA will consult Hull City supporters on the name change. If they do, then it's dead in the water. Allam has allegedly said that opponents "can die as soon as they want". That's helpful and encompassing, isn't it? He reckons the renaming will help with the branding of the club. Not where it matters - in Hull - it won't.

Football could learn a lot from other sports (use of technology, timing of play, treating injuries while the game goes on, among others), but silly suffixes to names is certainly not one of them.