Bolton Leyther

I'm in favour of the nicknames which develop naturally, but I hate the majority of the more recent contrived ones.

I think we might be a touch oversensitive with this kind of thing at times.

They are amongst casual sports enthusiasts, though. "The Three Lions" is football, "The Lions" is the Great Britain and Ireland rugby union feam. This thread is about branding and identity. From a marketing prerspective it's important to have something that's distinct (it's why we now have Wigan Warriors and Leeds Rhinos rather than simply Wigan and Leeds). Do a Google Search for "The Lions" and "Lions Tour" and check the first results.

They associate it with the British and Irish Lions rugby union team. If we have to have an identity, we should have something uniquely ours.

A third of the adult population isn’t a very small minority, though. And that’s just those who are comfortable expressing their “discomfort” publicly; there will be a good number again who are shyly bigoted. People are still today disowned by their families for coming out. The notion that the problems concerning homophobic attitudes in society are now done and dusted is nonsense.

“Three Lions” and “The Lions” are not one and the same, as I’d hoped would’ve been obvious.

The trouble with the Lions branding is that it will always be Rugby Union’s. I’d rather we improved on the St. George’s Cross design, or if not, then at least have something that’s unique to us.

Provided you've registered with Ticketmaster using the same email address as the on you registered with OurLeague, you just need to log out and then back in. Once you've done that it should automatically recognise you.

Double D is right. Take, for ecample, the Six Nations. Plenty of people who have no real interest in the sport attend those matches. The reason they sell well is because they're competitive fixtures between the home nations in a sport with a big imprint in the country's consciousness. It's a similar situation to how the English take such a keen interest in the Ashes - the tournaments become vehicles through which the long-standing emnity and rivalry between particular nations can be expressed.

That took you longer than I expected.

Greece's No.9 looks like a player.

Swinton Lions represent Swinton. They don't play in Swinton and haven't for a long time, but Swinton is obviously central to their identity as a rugby league club. Because of the economics of professional sport nowadays, that might necessarily, if fact certainly will, mean they can't ever be one of the biggest clubs. But there's no disgrace in that. Not every sports club has to have ambitions to be the biggest and best, and if retaining the Swinton name, for good or ill, is of critical importance to the club's supporter base then that's their decision to make and has to be respected. Sports clubs should exist for the benefit of their supporters, and it would be a sad state of affairs if the supporters' wishes aren't first and foremost in any strategic planning. The opportunity to establish a rugby league club in Manchester, something which we desperately need to do, was Manchester Rangers. The people involved there did many good things and the club's potential should've been supported and nurtured by the powers that be. In there's any short-sightedness in this whole chain of events it's not from the Swinton Lions supporters, it's from the RFL and their failure to embrace Manchester Rangers to the fullest extent.

I think they'll sign a few top quality players. In fact, I think they'll do much better than people are expecting.

That doesn't make me feel any better.

How fantastic it is for the sport that we don't have two of the usual suspects in the grand final for once. It's just a shame I keep remembering that Paul Rowley's involved with them.