North Ferriby FC

Sometimes a badge looks interesting, but then you read the team's history notes on the website, and it quickly turns unremarkable: "Fred Bloggs scored a hat-trick, we finished 4th in the Southern Premier Division in 1972 under manager Dicky McDickDick," and so on and so forth. And then, just occasionally, you stumble across a team like North Ferriby Football Club (@north_ferribyfc).

Their story explodes from the page. Most of what follows is taken from their own excellent website (hat tip to the club's historian). It is so inspiring that it deserves telling in short form for a Twitter audience. So let's #GetTheBadgeIn for The Villagers. North Ferriby, just upriver from Hull, has always been about making the most of what it’s got. Formed after the Great War, the club has thrived thanks to decades of hard work from its resourceful fan base. In 1954, they built a brick pavilion at Grange Lane Playing Fields using salvaged materials—a structure still standing today. Later, when concrete was scarce, they swept up concrete dust from a local supplier to finish renovations. Piece by piece, the club grew.

Players like Dean Windass have left their mark. Sold to Hull City, a sell-on clause saw Ferriby collect £60,000 when Aberdeen bought him in 1995. This windfall funded youth facilities, helping secure the club’s future. In 2015, the club hit national headlines. Playing as North Ferriby United, they won the FA Trophy Final at Wembley, coming from 2-0 down to beat Wrexham on penalties. They've been up and down since then, on one occasion securing three promotions in a row and reaching National League North, mixing it up with the big boys—which, for a village of less than 4,000 people, is pretty remarkable.

So that's the actual club, and I love the story of community engagement keeping this club alive and punching way above its weight. Visit their full history for a much more inspiring story, full of eccentric characters, than you can see in the synopsis above. But what of the badge that first drew me to look closer at the club? The chevron and the three heads of wild boar. Aside from triggering flashbacks to Asterix and Obelix books, these too tell a remarkable tale. It is the coat of arms of the Ferriby family, a local wealthy family that took its name from the settlement. It was originally settled by Vikings sailing down the Humber. They established two camps on either bank and ran a ferry service between the two—today they are North Ferriby and South Ferriby (obvious when you see it, huh? - also reminds of me of North and South Queensferry either side of the Firth of the Forth).

The village boasts some impressive history besides that. Going back even further, the oldest ever discovered sewn plank boats —outside of Egypt— in the entire world- were found at North Ferriby. They have been carbon-dated to 4,000 years ago. Yikes. After the Viking landings, the village became Christian, and a priory was established—belonging not just to any old order, but to the Knights Templar themselves. The Templars were famous for being the shock troops in the Crusades, for inventing a continent-wide banking system, and for maybe even protecting the secrets of the Ark of the Covenant... (has anyone checked Ferriby?).

So, there you have it. Three boers on the shirt, knights templars still gleaming... North Ferriby FC continue to probably be the most over achieving village team in English history.