Top Ten: Comedy Football Sponsors

The other year, Italian telecommunications company Wind exercised their option to renew their sponsorship deal with AS Roma. The deal was first signed in 2007 for the 2007/08 season, and will now last until the end of the 2009/10 season. Therefore, one might legitimately assert that the Serie A side have been experiencing bouts of Wind. Perhaps Gaviscon will be next to adorn the famous Roman red? 

Er…here are some more cheap laughs:

1. Mister Lady (FC Nurnberg) – Basically a German equivalent of Top Shop, Mister Lady continues the nation’s fine cabaret tradition as well as evoking memories of more than one League of Gentlemen sketch.

2. Pooh Jeans (AC Milan) – Attracting sponsors as a Serie A side, it seems, is fraught with peril. If you should end up with Wind, you can still count yourself very lucky that you didn’t Pooh your Jeans, as Milan did in the early 1980’s.

3. Northern Rock (Newcastle United) – We fed the permutations for this one into Did You Smash It?’s automatic gag generator, the Quipmaster 3000, and it exploded. Oh well. Soldier on we must.

4. Skint Records (Brighton and Hove Albion) – Skint was the home of celebrity Brighton fan Norman Cook aka Fatboy Slim, which is a little ironic given the substantial personal fortune that the Housemartin-cum-superstar-DJ must have amassed. It is entirely suitable, however, as a sponsor for a football club which has had more financial troubles than…well, a very financially-troubled football club. (This is where the Quipmaster used to come in handy. Curse you Newcastle!)

5. Danka (Everton) – This fax machine supplier’s name is similar to the German word for ‘thank you’. And, if Scouse rhyming slang existed, it would also mean ‘Jamie Carragher’.
 

 Shirt...humorous

6. INA Assitalia (Roma) – Our first repeat offenders. Before they got Wind, Roma used to take it INA Assitalia. By which, of course, we mean that they had the name of one of Italy’s major insurers emblazoned on their jerseys.

7. Nobo (Brighton and Hove Albion) – Our second repeat offenders. It’s a disgusting kit. With ‘Nobo’ printed on it. And ‘Nobo’ is an anagram of ‘Bono’. What’s not to hate? What’s more, the club once had a sign at their ground which read “Nobo supports Brighton”. You can probably guess which two letters of the alphabet were strategically daubed onto it, perhaps by a cheeky Crystal Palace fan…
 
8. Wet Wet Wet (Clydebank) – When the horrendous Scottish pop group pumped money into their hometown club, they unwittingly became the first shirt sponsor to successfully double up as a weather forecast. (We've managed to get the Quipmaster 3000 back up and running. No thanks to Newcastle United and their boundless hilarity.)

9. TY (Portsmouth) – The logo of a cuddly toys manufacturers inside a heart is not most football fans’ idea of suitable representation for their team. But there is also the other side of the spectrum to consider…

10. Black Death Vodka (Scarborough) - …and here it is. This kit was banned in 1990, probably to the backdrop of some flustered mother shrieking “won’t someone please think of the children?”. You might even say that they dropped it like a shot. (The Quipmaster 3000 is not for general sale and should be kept out of the sun, the reach of children, and any Newcastle United-related news story from the last five years.)