In November of 1973, the Oatway family of London welcomed a baby boy.
The Oatways were big fans of Queens Park Rangers Football Club, so they decided to name the baby “Anthony Philip David Terry Frank Donald Stanley Gerry Gordon Stephen James” after QPR’s entire first team squad.
I wasn’t able to find any QPR players from 1973 named Stephen or James, but I did find players with the other names:
| Name | Player(s) |
| Anthony Philip David Terry Frank Donald Stanley Gerry Gordon Stephen James | Tony Hazell Phil Parkes Dave Clement or Dave Thomas Terry Venables or Terry Mancini Frank McLintock Don Givens Stan Bowles Gerry Francis Gordon Jago (manager) ? ? |
Ironically, the baby was never known by any of those 11 given names. He simply went by “Charlie.” As he later explained,
Charlie is just a nickname. An aunt told my parents they couldn’t name me after the QPR team because I’d look a right Charlie — and the name just stuck.
Charlie Oatway — unlike the other people I know of who were named after soccer teams (Liverpool F.C., Leeds United F.C., Burnley F.C.) — grew up to become a professional footballer. He played on various teams during the 1990s and 2000s, though, unfortunately, he never played for Queens Park Rangers.
Sources:
- Charlie Oatway – Wikipedia
- Charlie Oatway named after 1973-74 squad – QPR Report Message Board
- Queens Park Rangers – Historical Squads
- “Quotes; Lewis/Ranieri.” BBC Sport 26 April 2004.
Image: Adapted from Portugal 2-3 Denmark, Football by José Goulão under CC BY-SA 2.0.
