BY ANDI THORNHILL

ONE OF MY PET PEEVES is the names some of our community sports teams adopt.

A couple weeks ago I went to watch the final of the Sunrise Sports Club Out-Of-Season Football Competition and the teams that clashed for the top prize were called Gaza and Gullyside.

Of course, there are no communities from St Peter bearing these names. I am not naive about such developments and I know the names were coined from the music put out by Jamaican dancehall artistes Vybz Cartel and Mavado.

While it is easy to follow-pattern, I think at times we need to sit down and research what's behind a name before we decide to use it.

To the best of my knowledge, Gaza is a place in the middle-east and a centre piece for the continuing conflict between the Palestinians and Israel.

It's a dangerous place to be and I doubt whether any of the players in the Sunrise final would want to be there!

There are other names which defy logic. Bush Hall Barcelona play in the New Orleans tournament. What is the cultural connection between a team from Bush Hall and the Spanish City of Barcelona? Wouldn't it have made more sense to identify with a gap in Bush Hall?

Even the popular Notre Dame fall into this category and to think Bayville have so much to be proud of, it defies reason why they need to have a link with the French.

I know some years ago, the then local football champions New South Wales came to terms with the fact that a team with its roots and origins in Carringtons Village and surrounding areas would have had more relevance in being called Weymouth Wales than to have an alliance with an Australian state, miles and miles away.

Others can learn from this and do what is right and be much more nationalistic and even realistic.

And while there is no tie to any particular country, you can find names like Gundum Wings, Run It Red and Guinness Wolfpack in the Cocky Browne out-of-season basketball tournament.

The ones I have used here are only examples of what obtains throughout the country and I have not set out to target any particular group or sport.

My general point is that we accept it as a norm to be copy cats and feel proud to be wearing banners and badges whether they represent negative connotations or not.

You may feel free to think I am making a much ado about nothing but I believe you should know what it is you are portraying in the eyes of the public. I don't think the teams are even aware that they are sending subliminal messages to their community through the use of the names they carry.

The youth in particular might be impressionable and so we have to be very careful of the images we create in their minds.

Honestly, I think the hardest time for me is around Independence when we are supposed to be identifying even stronger with our own heroes and national identity and we still find comfort in upholding foreign symbols.

Mind you, this concept is practised in areas other than sports but it would be natural to focus on this aspect because of my profession.

My final submission is that the father of independence mirror image speech should become a mandatory reference point even to those who are looking for names for sporting teams.

* Andi Thornhill is sports editor at the CBC. He can be reached at andithornhill@yahoo.com