Now, why would Sam Hardy think it was appropriate that Sunderland had adopted a black cat as a mascot? It is possible that he considered black cats to be good luck charms. As black cats are often considered to be lucky on sailing ships it is possible that, in Sunderland, a seafaring town, such beliefs were widely held. However, some people consider black cats to be portents of doom, including, seemingly, Mr. J. Dunn, late of Sunderland. In light of the Taylor cartoon, it seems likely that Sam Hardy thought a black cat was an appropriate mascot for Sunderland as it was already recognised as a symbol of the club. Although the article states that the cat just strolled into the players’ dressing room at Roker Park, heralding an upturn in results, some consideration has to be given to the possibility that it was a deliberate plant.

There is no prescribed method for assigning nicknames. They are usually logical or at the very least traceable, but often that logic is oblique or obscure and they are based on tenuous links. In this respect, football clubs’ nicknames are the same as those given to people. Crystal Palace are known as the Eagles due to the deliberate adoption of an Eagle as a symbol of the club, inspired by Benfica, during a 1970s rebrand. Brighton are called the Seagulls due to a humorous response by their fans to their rival Palace fans chanting “Eagles! Eagles!”. Sometimes these links are based in the history and industry of the town. Wycombe Wanderers are known as the Chairboys due to the club being formed by people involved in the local furniture manufacturing industry. Luton Town are known as the Hatters because making straw hats was one of the dominant local industries. Other times, nicknames have associations with place or iconography. Leicester City are known as the Foxes because the animal has become a recognised emblem of the county of Leicestershire. Likewise, Reading are known as ‘The Royals’ simply because they are based in the Royal County of Berkshire.

The origins of some clubs’ nicknames are even more obscure than Sunderland’s. Dunfermline Athletic are known as the Pars, but the club can only present different theories as to why. One theory is that during a poor run of form, wags started calling them the Paralytics, a pun on Athletic, due to their poor performances, and this was shortened to ‘Pars’. A second theory is that when Rosyth Naval Base was opened in the early part of the 20th century, sailors from the south of England that were stationed there went to watch Dunfermline play and unfurled a banner reading ‘Plymouth Argyle (Rosyth) Supporters’. Alternatively, when Dunfermline gained league status they were not on a par with the other teams and were hence called ‘The Pars’. It is also suggested that the club’s black and white colours make them look like a young Atlantic Salmon, which is known as a Parr.

In 1865, Charles Dickens reported that youngsters in the St. Sidwell’s parish of Exeter were known as ‘Grecians’. This name was long standing; an administrative document dated to 1669 refers to ‘Grecians of the Parish of St. Sidwell’s’. The reason for this name is obscure but it has been suggested that because St. Sidwell’s lies outside the old city walls of Exeter, its residents saw themselves as being akin to the Ancient Greeks besieging the city of Troy. Alternatively, it is possible that the name ‘Grecians’ is a corruption of Caerwysg, the Welsh name for Exeter (meaning a fort on the river Exe), which is similar to the Cornish Karesk. The citizens would have been known as Caer Iscuns, which may have mutated to ‘Grecians’. Either way, when Exeter City were formed in 1901, from a merger between Exeter United and St Sidwell’s Football Club, the name ‘Grecians’ stuck due to the club’s origins in that parish.

In comparison, a football club deriving its nickname from local folklore and a nearby landmark, as appears to the case with Sunderland, is quite straightforward. It is not without precedent. Lincoln City are known as ‘The Imps’ after the Lincoln Imp, a carving on the north side of Lincoln Cathedral’s Angel Choir, built between 1250 and 1280. According to legend, two imps were sent by the devil to cause chaos in the cathedral. They broke furniture, tripped up the clergy, and generally caused mayhem. An angel was sent to stop them but they climbed a pillar and threw stones at him. The angel turned one imp to stone but the other escaped and is said to circle the cathedral on windy days. Other than it being a well-recognised local symbol, there is no direct link between the imp and the football club; no imps have ever played professionally for Lincoln City and the masons who built the Angel Choir would have been long dead when the football club was founded in 1884.

Although now more commonly known as ‘The Baggies’, West Brom are sometimes referred to as ‘The Throstles’, a Black Country word for thrush, due to a local folk tale. According to ‘The WBA Chronicle’ website, the throstle nickname is associated with the donkeys that used to graze on the town’s common lands. The distinctive braying of the donkeys was humorously likened to the singing of the common thrush and the name ‘Throstles’ eventually became used to refer to the people of the town. In turn, the name was applied to the football club and its fans.

Chesterfield, or ‘The Spireites’, get their nickname from the famous twisted spire of St. Mary’s Parish Church. According to legend, a blacksmith in nearby Bolsover was asked to create shoes for the Devil’s cloven hooves. He made a mistake and the Devil leapt over the spire in pain, knocking it out of shape. A more logical explanation suggests that the lean is due to a lack of skilled craftsmen following the Black Death, the use of unseasoned timber, or insufficient cross-bracing. Chesterfield fans used to sing “Sky is blue, clouds are white, God must be a Spireite”.

It can be seen that many football clubs have nicknames which are not derived from direct links but rather loose associations. This evidence rather negates the assertion that, because there is no direct association between Sunderland AFC and the Black Cat Gun Battery, the latter cannot be the source of the club’s nickname. Certainly, a nickname derived from a local landmark and well-known local legend is much less contrived than examples such as Manchester United’s ‘Red Devils’. This was reportedly a name applied to Salford Rugby Club during a tour to France undertaken in the 1930s which Matt Busby thought sounded good and adopted for his own team.

It is interesting to note that the ‘Black Cats’ nickname is rarely mentioned in official histories of the club. It is not mentioned in Arthur Appleton’s 1960 book ‘Hotbed of Soccer’, an oft quoted source on the history of north-east football. No mention is made of Black Cats in the Sunderland Centenary Book (also by Appleton), and the only reference to it in Bill Simmons and Bob Graham’s The History of ‘Sunderland AFC 1879-1986’ is the reproduction of the 1905 cartoon of F. W. Taylor and the black cat on the book’s back cover. The head of a black cat was depicted on matchday programmes in the 1920s and 30s and a club crest introduced in the late 1960s featured a black cat sitting atop a football (much like in the cartoon of F. W. Taylor) on a red and white shield adorned with elements from the town’s coat of arms. This crest never appeared on the players’ shirts - a simple red and white shield and monogrammed shirts were used in the 1960s and 70s - but was sometimes present on matchday programmes and club stationery. It was replaced in 1972 with what Sunderland fans refer to as ‘the ship badge’, which eventually appeared on the club’s shirts towards the end of that decade. Nonetheless, before 2000, the black cat appears to have been more enthusiastically adopted as a mascot by the fans, with its consistent use by fans groups and the presence of toy and inflatable cats (as well as Billy Morris’ live one at the 1937 Cup Final) at important games, than as an official emblem of the club, which is perhaps why its origins have become obscure.