County cricket

Crisps, slogans, gibberish: get to know all the new teams for The Hundred

Posted by
2 minute read

They’ve told us some things about The Hundred teams!

Specifically, they’ve told us which crisps are sponsoring each team and then they’ve also made up a bunch of stuff about each team’s ‘identity’ which we’ll all have to work very hard to commit to memory because it is not based on empirical evidence and therefore not actually at all memorable.

Birmingham Phoenix are…

  • The ones sponsored by Butterkist
  • The ones who say “different is good”
  • The ones who say stupid things that sound like a modern advertising slogan

London Spirit are…

  • The ones sponsored by Tyrrells
  • “An iconic team for an iconic city” (‘Iconic’ is the most overused word in sport)
  • Not a drink

Manchester Originals are…

  • The ones sponsored by McCoys.
  • “Laughing in the face of limits” (So possibly delirious from medication)
  • “Raising the bar forever higher” (But presumably very slowly because otherwise you eventually reach a point where height is meaningless and the bar’s just floating around in space)
  • New

Super Northern Chargers are…

  • The ones sponsored by Popchips
  • “Powered by positivity” (Absolutely sickening. You are all banned from supporting this team. Where’s the team powered by negativity, hey? Where’s that team? Why can’t we have a team we can really get behind?)
  • Loathed by this website

Oval Invincibles are…

  • The ones (hilariously) sponsored by KP
  • Not actually oval
  • Not actually invincible
  • “Vibrant, expressive, and free to play their own way”

Southern Brave are…

  • The ones sponsored by Pombear (best sponsor)
  • The ones appealing to the youngest audience
  • “Endlessly curious, with an insatiable appetite for adventure”

Trent Rockets are…

  • The ones sponsored by Skips
  • Supposedly holding “the biggest party in the country” (which sounds just horrible)
  • Claiming that everyone’s invited to said party, “so long as you don’t mind having the most fun” (We absolutely mind)

Welsh Fire are…

  • The ones sponsored by Hula Hoops
  • “Burning bright with intense passion and relentless energy, their hunger will prove the haters wrong”
  • Too hungry? Not hungry enough? Hard to say. If you hate them, please let us know how hungry you think they are so that we can deduce how they’re going to prove you wrong

Similar deliveries:

No related posts.

34 comments

  1. Another kick in the teeth for Leics fans.

    Couldn’t possibly support a team sponsored by a crisp company that isn’t Walkers.

  2. ‘If you hate them, please let us know how hungry you think they are so that we can deduce how they’re going to prove you wrong.’

    Somerset and Gloucestershire fans, the floor is yours.

    1. So there isn’t a team based in Bristol? Colour me surprised. And/or colour me in fuscia and lime green stripes, call me the Metropolitan Megamagics and give me a slogan like ‘fitter, happier, more productive’.

  3. I like crisps as much as the next guy but WHY CRISPS?

    Although I misread Pombears as Pornbears at first glance. So maybe I’ll support them.

      2. It warms the cockles of my heart to see so many Stewart Lee fans in one place.

        Limited overs cricket has let itself go.

  4. I thought this was a gag involving the most convincing internet fakery since Ceci stopped posting them. But then I googled and found it elsewhere on the internet, so it must be true. They really are each sponsored by a different brand of crisps.

  6. I read it as Oral Invincibles and that gave rise to several interesting possibilities. Have they never failed an oral exam? Can nobody defeat them in oratory? And other such.

  7. Now we’ve all seen this, was the “Please will you explain why you feel such pure visceral hatred for The Hundred” thread really necessary? 🙂

    Not only does this all look rather daft at the moment, it’s going to look even weirder in 20 years’ time and we get some sort of Roaring Twenties nostalgia, then discover that junk food advertising for sports team was still legal. Bit like that funny feeling when you’re reliving the 1990s on youtube and get a wee bit queasy about the Benson and Hedges Cup or the Embassy World Snooker Championship…

  8. The Super Northern Chargers? That’s a tacky IPL style double positive which feels even more weird than the rest of the post-apocalyptic corpora-sportainment on show here.

    1. I was wondering whether Leeds really counted as Super Northern – I’d have thought that would mean Durham, or Scotland or something.

      Turns out it’s Northern Superchargers.

  9. All these snack brands are owned by just one company – KP snacks, part of some European Intersnack Group (really!), and headquartered in Slough. I know of only one Office in Slough.

  10. I am encouraged by the clarity and simplicity of it all.

    In particular, there will be no dispute or ambiguity about the name of the interval between innings for The Hundred matches.

    It will be a snack interval.

    Remember all the debates we had when the day/night pink ball stuff was trialled about the naming of lunch, tea, dinner…and then the north/south divide about how such meals should be named in the first place.

    All solved with a snack interval.

    BTW, I did, last week, go to an event which caused extreme meal-naming confusion for a repast that took place for several hours of the afternoon:

    http://ianlouisharris.com/2019/09/27/a-shrieval-day-michael-mainellis-admission-and-breakfast-as-aldermanic-sheriff-of-the-city-of-london-27-september-2019/

    If you like old-style clothing, pomp, ceremony and sheep, you’ve found your link.

  12. Aldermaston Apocalypse are …

    • The ones with only four batsmen
    • The ones whose team photograph is just shadowy outlines on a wall
    • The ones who’ll burn everything to a crisp*
    • The ones “powered by visceral hatred”

    I trust I’ve made my feelings clear?

    * “The Apocalypse are on FIRE!” etc.

      1. I like that Ged, but how about I raise you Space Raiders? All the good astrologers agree that the real apocalypse will come from the stars.

        In fact as a top-tier sponsorship deal these would even have worked as actual team names.

        Manchester Monster Munchers vs Southern Space Raiders.

  14. Wikipedia tells me that the eight coaches are Katich, Warne, Moody, Lehmann, Andrew McDonald, Jayawardane, Kristen, and Fleming. That’s five Australian coaches out of eight.

  15. So Surrey have pinched Kent’s motto for their name, eh?

    Legend has it that, while marching from the 1066 battle site at Hastings, William marched on to London on his way to the (then) capital Winchester. While passing through Kent, the local people picked up branches and marched at William’s men. Scared, William and his army took flight and took a different route to London. As the people of Kent felt that they had chased William away, they adopted “Invicta” as a county motto.

    Let’s hope it lasts longer for Surrey than the 70 days or so it lasted for Kent.

  16. I am not a fan of this competition, but if Manchester draft one or more of Afridi, Shakib and Rashid Khan I’m probably going to end up going to a game….

  19. He’d play for the franchise sponsored by Lay’s crisps, I suppose.

    David Warner and Steve Smith would play for the one sponsored by Cheetos.

    There’s so much potential in this idea, I’m getting over-excited…sponsored by Frazzles.

      2. Thanks Ged, that’s really cheered me up.

        I much preferred it when I knew nothing about this competition. Now I’m starting to get a little bit sad.

  20. Late to the party here. Just one thought from it. I’m sure the cricket aspect will be quite enjoyable/of a good standard. My question is, does all this marketing guff (which I, and I guess most of this website’s readers don’t much care for. It doesn’t seem to make any actual sense, like it was written by someone who isn’t a native English speaker) appeal to women and children and make it easier for them to “get”?! Easier?!

Comments are closed.