Man United among clubs in debt to four-legged friends
It would make sense that the world game and man’s best friend would go hand in paw but there are more interactions between football and dogs than you might reasonably think.
Not that anyone who has ever played football in the park would doubt it.
Dogs invading football pitches is such a trope that it has become a meme but the football’s dealings with four-legged friends go deep.
Huddersfielld Town are The Terriers, of course, while Barnsley, known as the Tykes, have long sold merchandise featuring their bulldog mascot, Toby Tyke.
Swansea City are called the Jacks, which many believe to be because of the heroism of Swansea Jack, a black retriever that saved up to 27 people from the city’s River Tawe in the 1930s.
Mexican side Xolos Tijuana can go one better. Their club badge actually features a hairless Xoloitzcuintle dog.
Those are the obvious connections but there are many more.
Lionel Messi’s dog Hulk, a huge Dogue de Bordeaux , was made to look as silly as Bayern Munich defender Jerome Boateng when the two went head to head in the Argentine star’s back garden.
In a 2018 video posted to social media by his wife Antonella, Messi schooled the pup with a football and the footage went viral. The five-time Ballon d’Or winner stopped Hulk winning a “Ballon Dog” by leaving him as helpless as any defender.
Other dogs have fared better in football.
Pickles became famous around the world for finding the missing Joules Rimet Trophy ahead of the 1966 FIFA World Cup in England. After the trophy went missing from “Sport with Stamps” Stanley Gibbons Stampex rare stamp exhibition at Methodist Central Hall in Westminster that March it was found by the black and white collie later the same month in South London.
The dog would become an instant celebrity. He was named the Dog of the Year and won a year’s supply of dog food, also appearing regularly on national television.
Pickles died a year later after an accident but his legend lives on at England’s National Football Museum in Manchester where his collar is a permanent exhibit. While the real Pickles starred in a film, The Spy with a Cold Nose, he was also the subject of Pickles: The Dog Who Won The World Cup, a 2006 television show.
Saving the World Cup is one thing but some dogs have had an even bigger impact on football, if you can believe it.
Chelsea Football Club might never have been were it not for the bite of a dog.
Back in 1904, in the early years of the club, the Edwardian businessman Gus Mears was out walking in West London with his friend Edward Parker. Mears had soured on the idea of pursuing a football team but he was won around when Parker was the victim of a bite from his dog.
Parker’s stoic reaction to blood being drawn seemed to convince Mears that he was a man to be trusted and he pressed on with building Stamford Bridge. While he originally asked Fulham to take the ground, after they refused Mears forged ahead with his new club, Chelsea.
Lost dog
Manchester United have a similar story, albeit one that is perhaps even less widely known.
Back in the early days of league football, the cash-strapped Newton Heath LYR captain Harry Stafford resorted to bringing his dog into Manchester City center to help the fortunes of his ailing football club.
The dog was lost during those efforts but an advert advertising the discovery of a lost St Bernard was subsequently spotted in the Manchester Brewery, whose owner took it home.
As it would happen, the brewery’s owner’s daughter had fallen for Major and her father wanted to buy the dog back for her birthday. Davies “tried to strike a bargain” and would not take no for an answer and eventually convinced Stafford to sell him the dog or risk losing his beloved football team.
As Elsie Davies told BBC Nationwide in the 1970s, Elsie was approaching 12 at the time and Stafford was not keen to lose his dog.
“Harry Stafford said, ‘I would not sell that dog for anything in the world. He saved my life at sea. There was a man drowning and I rushed in to save him and the man got very obstreperous and I had to knock him out, hold him with one arm and whistle my dog from the shore.”
“I got hold of his collar and he brought us both in. Otherwise I would have been drowned with the man so I think the world of that dog.”
Davies instead bought the football team and then offered Stafford an ultimatum: give up the dog or the football club.
Stafford relented as Davies promised to keep him on as captain. A deal was struck and the dog was there for Elsie’s birthday. Stafford would become a director of Davies’ club and the team got a new ground.
The team changed their name from Newton Heath to Manchester United and the rest was history.
Hollywood hounds
Dogs have popped up plenty of times in football folklore since, in slightly less fanciful terms.
The 1994 World Cup in the United States featured the mascot Striker, the World Cup Pup.
The dog, which featured heavily on merchandise, was designed by the Warner Brothers Studio.
Hollywood has had more say on football – and its time with dogs – since.
First there was the 1999 film Soccer Dog, which was followed by another film, Soccer Dog: European Cup in 2004. Both went straight to video in the US.
Then came the rather more profile movie Air Bud: World Pup, the third film in the sporting dog series, featuring a golden retriever helping the United States Women’s team to the World Cup with penalty shootout saves in the final against Norway.
While Hollywood might not have caught on, football shows plenty of signs that every dog has its day.
A dog wearing a Liverpool shirt plays with a football prior to the Premier League match between Liverpool and Leicester City at Anfield on October 5, 2019 in Liverpool, England. Photo: VCG
