NICKNAMES. In so many ways they paint a picture of you in fewer words, but more descriptively than you might ever want to know.

Take, for example, the nicknames of Islanders who are happy to live with the names they’ve been given outside the workplace but who would bridle unrestrainedly if you called someone by their nickname in a working environment.
‘Chalkie’ White comes to mind. But so, too, do a dozen or more nicknames in as many sports ranging from ‘Tubby’, to ‘Irish’ to ‘Killer’ to ‘Four-eyes’ . . . and the list just goes on and on.

One of my favourites, which has been passed down from father to son, is ‘Cubie’. Why? Because the late Earnie Kenwright, a prop forward with Jersey RFC’s 1st XV, was as tall as he was wide. His son, Ross, has now assumed that name though he is a fit and mobile prop forward. He had no choice.

For nicknames sum you up in one word or, at the most, in two. If you’re lucky, your nickname is a shortened form of your surname, so just as ‘Banners’ is a shortened form of (Matt) Banahan, so my own name became ‘Lakey’ which in turn was the name my daughter was given when she played touch rugby for Beaulieu.

Nicknames are given, in any sport, to people to such an effect that they sum up the personality of that person in such a way that you immediately know who they’re talking about.
So here, in no particular order, are a list of some of nicknames from the sports I’ve covered in Jersey over the last 30 years: ‘Growler,’ ‘Masher’, Beast’, ‘Rocky’, ‘Scottie’, ‘Slowhand’ and ‘Fumble’.

I could probably write a list of other nicknames, running into double figures. But the reason why I mention these names, in any shape or form, is because on Sunday afternoon, at Les Quennevais, I watched the Jersey 1st softball team regain the inter-insular trophy, during which time the Guernsey team were shouting, loudly, for their pitcher and one of their batsmen, to hit the ball out of the ground.

‘Come on Chunky!’ was one of the cries to the pitcher. And ‘Chunky’, Ean Sarahs, did the best he could, at times in difficult circumstances. So did ‘Masher’, Gary Machon, when called upon to bat. But the point I’m trying to make is that nicknames linger; long after you’ve given up the sport.

At some stage in my lifetime there’ll be another ‘Cubie’ at the rugby club and another ‘Chalkie’ White. Nick-names are brilliant, because they say so much in the space of a single word. I’ve always enjoyed being a ‘Lakey’. But I’ve also known nicknames that haven’t been so kind which is why there are two nicknames I’ve always had doubts about.

One was ‘Chopper’ (Harris), the other was ‘Fill yer Boots’ . . . and to this day I can’t remember ‘Fill yer Boots’ surname. And if I met him on the streets I don’t think I’d ask him, or even want to know, what his nickname implied. Some nicknames are best left unsaid.