You remember going to your first football game as a kid and having a grown man dressed up in dog costume offering you sweets, right?

When you put it like that it sounds really weird, mainly because it is really weird but it’s one of football’s biggest traditions – the match-day mascot! Back in the 1800s when mascots were first introduced to sport, real animals were used to try and strike fear into the opponents.

We’ve moved on a little since those times.

Now, we have some great mascots, Port Vale’s Boomer comes to mind, a black and white dog that is a total legend. We also have some shit ones too, so shit that I felt compelled to compile a list of the five worst ones that I know of.

So, here goes…

Southend United – Sammy the Shrimp

This one is so shit, that they’ve created two versions of it and both of them are equally as terrible as the other. My biggest issue with it is that it’s constantly smiling, which is unrealistic for anyone that lives near or in Southend.

Burton Albion – Billy Brewer

He looks like an initial draft of Dennis the Menace, the draft that nearly got the entire idea of the magazine completely shelved. And also, it’s weird to me that a mascot, designed for children, is a brewer… and not only that, but a brewer of Carling. If you’re going to introduce your kids to alcohol that early, at least get them in to something that doesn’t taste like the piss of a well-hydrated man.

And in a bid to not be sexist, Burton also have Bettie Brewer on hand too… because girls also love beer.

Bradford City – City Gent

Now, this one is no longer actually a thing but this is my article and I’ll include whatever I like.

The ‘lovely’ people of Bradford decided that they just couldn’t be arsed to design a mascot, so they employed a man to stick on the shirt and walk around the ground. Genius?

His name was Lenny Berry, nicknamed the City Gent, and he was sacked back in 2013 for becoming too thin. And if that doesn’t sound bad enough, he lost all of his weight due to diabetes and after refusing to wear a fat suit he was sacked. I’ll repeat that, they sacked a diabetic man for losing weight and refusing to wear a fat suit.

Fleetwood Town – Captain Cod

I just, I just don’t know anymore and I’m struggling to care.

Just because you’re near the coast doesn’t mean you have to dive straight into option A – and even if you do, don’t call it Captain-fucking-Cod.

I’m too outraged to say anymore about this one.

West Brom – Boiler Man

FINALLY, a good-shit one.

Yes it’s awful, terrible and bad but it’s also brilliant and maybe my favourite? I don’t know yet.

In 2018 West Brom unveiled their new mascot… a boiler. With legs. (Obviously.)

He(she?) walks around the ground on match days and even appears in some of their social media content. Now it is part of a sponsorship deal with Hull-based boiler company Ideal Boilers, so it is bad in a way that it’s commercialising one of the purest – and until now – untouched parts of the sport but because of the ridiculousness of it, I’ll let it slide.

And I can’t help thinking that this idea was some wanky interns little gag around a table of execs, something that he thought would just ‘be a laugh’. Well, now look at what you’ve done, you twat. You’ve created a monster. I can’t wait for Tampax to sponsor Crewe. It’d work well to be fair, that’s a team full of c*nts.

Well done, you’re now slightly more in-the-know about bad football mascots and I’m sure that over the course of 19/20 season there will be more unveiled and when that happens you best believe that we’ll be right back with an updated list.

Until then though, I have one parting message. Fleetwood Town: Sort. It. Out.

James Ryan

Twitter:@JHR_1995