1) Carolina Dynamo

Carolina Dynamo

There is a fine line between homage and rip-off. Cover versions aren't always lesser children of their sires although, as anyone who's been subjected to one of the myriad winsome breathy acoustic monstrosities currently soundtracking most of the UK's TV advertising output could tell you, they certainly can be that and much, much worse. If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery then Carolina Dynamo really want Nottingham Forest to know just how much they love them.

You have to admire the brazenness of it but this is no random act of arboreal larceny. Dynamo were founded in 1993 by Neil Macpherson, a shareholder at the City Ground whose father was Forest chairman between 1980 and 1983. "Due to the interest of his family, the Dynamo's logo resembles Nottingham Forest's," reports the United Soccer Leagues website. For 'resembles', read 'uses-the-entirety-of'.

At least the Greensboro-based side have used one of the classics as their template. Farnborough FC, for example, on their reformation in 2007, seem to have found inspiration elsewhere …

2) Bohemians 1905

Bohemians 1905

Football loves an incongruous animal on a club crest. Some are more easily explained – the Hull City tiger, for example, came from the traditional club strip of black and amber, Sheffield Wednesday reside in the Sheffield suburb of Owlerton, hence the owl – than others – the roots of Norwich's canary are in 16th-century bird-breeding Dutch refugees known as the Strangers, Coventry City's elephant comes from the coat of arms of the city, which in turn is a mish-mash of medieval heraldry linked to the story of St George and the dragon (the elephant being the dragon's mortal enemy. Obviously.) So how on earth did a kangaroo hop on to the badge of a club from Prague?

Back in the 1927 the then Fifa-unaffiliated Australian Soccer Association struck on the bright idea of raising the profile of the sport down under by having a European side tour the country. Having been turned down by several national and club sides, the ASA finally reached Czechoslovakia on their list of potential guests.

Again the national side didn't want to know and Sparta Prague were no keener. AFK Vrsovice, though, did accept the invitation and agreed to change their name to Bohemians for the trip in order to allow home fans to get more of a geographical grip on the tourists (and, presumably, make them sound rather grander than an area of south-east Prague).

The tour was a roaring success and over four months the Czech side played 20 exhibition matches, winning 15 and scoring an impressive 94 goals in the process. As a parting gift they were presented with two live kangaroos, who were apparently taken under the wing of a player named Havlin and delivered safely to Prague Zoo.

And that was that – so enamoured were Vrsovice with their marsupial duo and Australia as a whole that they kept the name Bohemians on their return to Prague and the nickname of Klokani (Czech for Kangaroos) stuck.

3) Sampdoria

Sampdoria

Sampdoria fans are a lucky bunch. When they buy a replica shirt they become wearers of one of football's Great Kits (see also: mid-90s Borussia Dortmund, Cardiff City in the 70s and River Plate pretty much forever). But they're also in possession of one of the classic crests, as instantly recognisable as, say, PSG's Eiffel Tower or Liverpool's liver bird.

But unlike those two the key figure takes a bit of explaining. The dark profile isn't that of a werewolf or some furry-faced samurai, but that of a sailor, the lupo di mare or "wolf of the sea" –a fitting symbol for a club from Italy's largest port city. He's even got a name – Baciccia, a dialect title for John the Baptist, the local patron saint.

So far, so neat, but the old Baciccia hasn't entirely avoided controversy – in 2009 an anti-tobacco group tried, and failed, to put out his pipe. And after a brief sojourn on to the sleeve of the Samp shirt he's back in his rightful place this season.

4) Falkirk

Falkirk

Ah, the 1970s. A golden era for film: The Godfather, Taxi Driver, The Exorcist, Annie Hall, Jaws, Chinatown, Herbie Rides Again. A golden era for music: Rumours, Parallel Lines, Blood on the Tracks, The Wall, Exile on Main Street, Off The Wall, Bridge Over Troubled Water, Manilow Magic. And a golden era for the humble club crest.

While many classic designs are now long gone (Leeds United's iconic smiley, for example, Blackpool's tower and, perhaps best of all, Bury's spectacular V-shaped effort – you could do a Joy of Six: defunct crests with no trouble, but we're sticking to those still in use here), plenty were introduced that endure to this day: Derby County's stylised ram, Watford's red hart, Bolton's big block lettering.

While modern redesigns sacrifice soul on the alter of simplicity, Falkirk's is another fine example of the designers of the 1970s having nailed it. Steeple + a football = badge design brilliance.

5) Barnsley

Barnsley

Back in the 60, 70s and 80s clubs changed badges (and even kits) on an almost seasonal basis. Scrolls, wreaths, unidentified birds, mythical creatures, flowers and enough Latin to keep ancient Roman scholars conjugating for months appeared and disappeared with little comment from stadiums up and down Britain.

But back then the first XI wasn't playing in an identikit your-brand-here stadium next to a bypass on the outskirts of town, the owner wasn't a multi-billionaire with as much link to the local area as ET, and the game had not been globalised and advertised to within an inch of its life. The old links that allowed fans to identify with their clubs have been all-but eroded away and the few that remain are all the more precious as a result. It's why Cardiff's kit change from blue to red so alienated a large chunk of the fanbase, why any set of fans swapping a rickety old ground for a shiny new stadium do so with such heavy hearts and why those in Hull are fighting against their club's name change. It's why Everton fans were so furious about their club crest rebranding even though Prince Rupert's Tower has been through a fair few guises over the years.

Most often falling under the wheels of the modern football juggernaut is the traditional coat-of-arms crest. Barnsley's coat of arms, which has hopped on and off shirts at Oakwell fairly regularly, is the latest to join the exodus from the chests of the nation's players, with fans given four new designs to choose from. And while not wanting to be a spinning-jenny-smashing luddite about these things, it's worth pausing to give a nod to this dying breed.

6) Pumas UNAM

Pumas UNAM

The only entry on this list there for purely aesthetic reasons (although the story behind UNAM's feline nickname is an unusual one – in his motivational speeches for the university's American football team in the 1940s, coach Roberto 'Tapatio' Méndez would regularly compare his players to pumas and the handle stuck). I mean, just look at it. It's a puma with eyes of flint and a jaw of iron, which somehow contrives to look like the golden fist of some ancient Aztec demigod.

Yes, I've lost the run of myself there, but in my defence so have Mexico City's Pumas themselves. The club has gone a bit logo loco of late – the 2010-11 kits were a bit much and this season the motif seems to have eaten the shirt entirely. But still – if you're going to reduce your club badge to single stark image (and then love it so much that you let it swallow the entire kit whole), this is the way to do it.