Mascots Playing Soccer Mascots are a common sight at sporting events. They are usually larger-than-life characters that entertain the crowd and represent the team. While mascots are typically known for their funny and playful antics, they are not often seen actually playing the sport. However, there have been instances where mascots have taken to the field to play soccer. These mascot soccer games are usually held as promotional events or halftime entertainment during matches. They involve two teams of mascots facing off against each other, showcasing their soccer skills, or lack thereof.
It shows that soccer games are family-friendly. So, child mascots promote a healthy image. Some say that child mascots were first used to protect the players from angry fans.
Quite often, I d just hold up the scoreline with my fingers if we were winning, and if we weren t, I d just walk past quickly and not acknowledge it. The mascots weren t allowed to step foot onto the pitch either, making Stamford and his girlfriend Bridget walk around the back of the goal, where there were often more obstacles in their way.
They involve two teams of mascots facing off against each other, showcasing their soccer skills, or lack thereof. The games are often filled with humor and excitement, as the mascots try their best to score goals and entertain the audience. One of the main purposes of mascot soccer games is to create a fun and entertaining atmosphere for fans.
Mascots uncovered: Stories from inside the suit
The very last item in David Ornstein’s column on October 4, 2020, had one of the most sizable impacts of any news The Athletic broke last year. It might have come at a time when the extended summer transfer window was coming to a close but it had nothing to do with big-name players swapping clubs or eye-watering transfer fees. Instead, it was about a big, green dinosaur.
Titled “Gunnersaurus latest victim of Arsenal cost-cutting”, it explained that Jerry Quy, who had played the role of the club’s beloved dinosaur mascot since its inception in 1993, had been let go as part of an ongoing streamlining process that had seen a further 55 employees made redundant in August.
The plight of Gunnersaurus became a hotter topic than Thomas Partey’s on-again, off-again transfer from Atletico Madrid to the dino’s former home. Former player Paul Merson was inconsolable on Sky Sports News as he explained: “There are 30- or 40-year-olds who’ve grown up with that dinosaur… it’s poor from Arsenal.” And of course, there was the generous offer to pay Gunnersaurus’s wages from the sidelined Mesut Ozil. As #DeadlineDay dawned, it was almost eclipsed by the giant green shadow of #JusticeforGunnersaurus.
The emotional reaction to Gunnersaurus’s exit served as a sharp reminder of the deep imprint these oversized animals, robots and er, boilers can leave on a fanbase, but often, we know nothing about the people inside the suits; the ones who are left drowning in more sweat than the players on a warm day, who do their best to get a laugh out of the crowd when results don’t warrant one and who tread a fine line between partaking in “banter” on the job and finding themselves swiftly out of one when it goes too far.
When The Athletic decided to change that, it quickly became obvious just why the mystery exists. “We never put the man (or woman) inside the suit up for interview. It is top secret!” replied one club we approached about speaking to their mascot. “It shatters the illusion,” replied another. There were more too, ranging from the dismissive “it’s difficult to arrange” to the brief “no, thanks”.
By the time we got to this: “We take ‘the voice of XX’ quite seriously and don’t tend to humanise or pull the curtain back on him at all. Breaks the mystique!”, we nearly threw in the towel.
But then, we met Lee McBride, Ashley Lawrence and Luke Yates: three men better known as Pete the Eagle (Crystal Palace, 2002-2017), Kio/Chirpy (Kick It Out/Tottenham Hotspur circa 2010-2011) and Stamford the Lion (Chelsea, 2014-15). No longer the current inhabitants of their giant-headed costumes, all three are free of clubs’ omerta and willing to “pull back the curtain” just a little.
McBride describes himself as an introvert who never would have dreamed of stepping into Pete the Eagle’s costume had it not been for his then-girlfriend (now wife), Kate. A year before the couple met, she’d seen an advert in the match-day programme asking for people to put their names forward to play the role of Alice the Eagle, Pete’s girlfriend, and got the job. “She’s obviously very good at what she did but she might have also been the only one to put her name forward… we don’t actually know,” laughs McBride.
The couple met at a fans’ forum the following year and hit it off (“she wasn’t in the costume… it wasn’t that weird”). So when Pete’s role came up for grabs at the end of the following season, Kate turned to McBride. He initially declined: “It meant stepping on the pitch with all these players who I consider heroes. I completely chickened out of it.” But when Kate organised a mascot event that summer and asked him to be Pete just for the afternoon, he relented and enjoyed the experience so much that he went on to do Palace’s pre-season friendlies, and that was it — Pete had a new performer.
“I’m quite a shy, reserved person but it was such a good feeling because you could almost be somebody completely different in the costume, and nobody can see you,” says McBride.
Just as his relationship with Kate was blossoming, so did the one between Pete and Alice. “They were known as the lovebirds of Selhurst Park,” he smiles. “There were a couple of Valentine’s Days where Pete would give Alice some flowers and one year where he got into a little bit of trouble with Alice because he was flirting with the cheerleaders instead.”
During the week, McBride worked in London as a learning and development professional and Kate as a teaching assistant at a secondary school, but on the weekend, they’d don their yellow tights and leave their home in Brighton in time to get to the ground and into full costume around an hour and a half before kick-off. Before concepts like fan zones came into being, Pete and Alice had relatively free rein and would often spend hours in the ground entertaining fans.
“When the fan zone was introduced, it all became very organised and scheduled,” says McBride. “Suddenly, it was: ‘You’re going out for 15 minutes, then you come back in to have a drink, then you go back out for another 15 minutes’.
“We liked going out there and staying out there, because once you take the head off, you’re sweating like mad and it’s horrible to then put it back on again. We had some times when we’d be out there for the whole game, so we could be in costume for close to four hours. We actually didn’t mind that: in winter, it was nice to be in the costume because it was warm. Though if you were doing a friendly in the summer, it was horrific. The dehydration and the smell… it’s just horrible.”
Pete the Eagle joins in the celebrations after Tom Ince scores for Crystal Palace against West Brom in 2014 (Photo: Steve Bardens/Getty Images)
Up until the last few years of their time as Pete and Alice, McBride and Kate were responsible for keeping the costumes clean. After every game, they’d give them a spray, brush and a good airing, leaving them hanging up around the house. “If you put the costume back in the bag after you were done and didn’t touch it again until the next game, it wasn’t a pleasant experience,” explains McBride.
Every so often, Pete and Alice needed a more thorough cleanse and the couple would give them a bath, but only when there was a long-enough gap between games for the padding and feathers to properly dry out.
“At the end of the season, they’d usually go off to be professionally cleaned but a few years ago, they brought in new Pete and Alice costumes and after that, we’d leave the costumes there and the club organised for them to be cleaned. It was great that they did that but it also meant that actually, we were just turning up and being Pete and Alice for a little bit, so there was a bit more that we lost from doing that.
“Though it was nice not to have to go into the bathroom and see them staring at you from the shower.”
McBride and Kate’s lengthy stint is a fairly rare occurrence in the mascot world, as Ashley Lawrence discovered when he got to spend some time with his club’s mascot Chirpy. Lawrence was working for the equality and inclusion organisation Kick It Out at the time and was one of the first to volunteer when they launched their own mascot Kio (plot twist: The Athletic’s own Katie Whyatt is responsible for the mascot’s design, having won a school competition to dream up how Kio should look).
“The job got shared between a few of us but we’d always try to do the games that were at the clubs we support, and I’m a Spurs fan,” says Lawrence, “so I put my hand up when we found out we had a game at White Hart Lane versus Everton — though it was the week after my son was born, so I had to beg my wife to let me do it.
“I turned up and was getting changed into the outfit in the same room as the guy who was playing Chirpy. He said he’d only done it a couple of times and the club would bring him in at the last minute. It sounded like they scrambled around for someone each week. In my eyes, this is a huge club, so I was surprised it worked like that.”
Before he left that day, Lawrence told Chirpy’s employers that he was a season ticket holder at the club and would happily step in as the cockerel one week if they were ever in need. He left his number and went home convinced he’d hear nothing more of it, but on the Thursday before Spurs’ very next home game, Lawrence got a phone call telling him to be at the ground three hours before kick-off.
There was no fee at that point (Lawrence suspects that came a few years later, when Chirpy started going on pre-season tours and was generally seen more on match days), just an offer of a ticket to the game, which, as a season ticket holder, he didn’t need — but Lawrence didn’t care. “It was a dream come true, walking on the pitch and seeing all the players. A lot of it was about interacting with kids, lots of high fives and signing autographs, which was hilarious. I was always a little conscious of what might happen if the next person had completely different handwriting and signs ‘Chirpy’ differently”.
Before his first game, Lawrence was given one key instruction: to keep his lips tightly sealed. “You get told straight away that you don’t talk. It’s like going to Disneyland — you never hear characters there talk, so I was very careful not to say a word whatsoever once I put the Kio or Chirpy head on.”
Preserving the mascot mystique was very important to Lawrence, so much so that he spent much of his time “in character”, consumed by anxiety about what would happen if his giant Kio or Chirpy head somehow fell off. “I was petrified of that happening. During everything I did, that was my number one thought: please don’t let my head fall off. My worst nightmare would have been for the parents to complain to someone at the club and say, ‘Chirpy ruined my child’s experience of mascots’.”
Despite his vow of silence, Lawrence had a few key interactions as Chirpy that have stayed with him, the first one coming courtesy of Gary Cahill. The then-Bolton Wanderers defender was sent off in the 17th minute of their game against Spurs in December 2011 and headed straight to the dressing room to try and find a TV where he could watch the rest of the game.
He was directed into a small room situated just off the home dressing room, where there was a television — and Lawrence, busy extracting himself from Chirpy. “I was in there getting changed when Cahill suddenly walked into the room. My first thought was: ‘Aren’t you meant to be playing?’. Then I realised what had happened.
“He wasn’t in the best mood because he’d been sent off so early in the game, so I sheepishly and very quickly finished getting changed and left him alone.”
There was also an awkward chat with Jamie Redknapp, who found his way into Chirpy’s changing area to watch the pre-match coverage (his dad, Harry, was manager at the time) and engaged in a few minutes of small talk with the half-man, half-cockerel who greeted him. “He didn’t seem fazed by it,” laughs Lawrence.
As Kio, Lawrence got the opportunity to work alongside numerous mascots around the Premier League, giving him a unique insight into some of the characters who played them. As well as Chirpy, he worked with Stamford the Lion at Chelsea and Harry the Hornet at Watford, who remains one of his most memorable contemporaries. “Harry took it really seriously,” says Lawrence. “He had moves and prepared routines. I remember him doing the body-popping move and the worm, and thinking, ‘Oh god, I hope no one expects me ever to do something like that’.
Ashley Lawrence played both Tottenham’s Chirpy the Cockerel and Kio, the Kick It Out mascot
“He was part of goal celebrations and when the team came out to Z-Cars, he’d have a set routine he would do to the music. I think there is something quite heartening about how seriously some people take it. My children are now both old enough that they’d be excited to meet Chirpy or another mascot, so I think there is something good about the fact some take it so seriously.
“I, on the other hand, was the most bare-minimum mascot you can imagine. I’d just wave and sign autographs. Even that I found a bit awkward but I could just about scrawl ‘Chirpy’ with a fluffy cockerel hand.”
The players are mostly blase about the presence of 7ft tall mascots alongside them for team photos or a minute’s silence but Kio did have something of a “novelty factor” about him, says Lawrence, as he was less familiar than the likes of Chirpy, who were seen every week. “Mostly, people were like, ‘What is that?’, but the Spurs players found Kio hilarious. There was one game where Robbie Keane was heading out to warm up and I could see him heading towards me like he was going to do something. Then, he just threw a ball against my big round head. It was pretty perfect for that, to be fair.”
“Bantering” with the players wasn’t encouraged in west London, where Luke Yates was part of a group of three or four playing Chelsea mascot Stamford the Lion in the 2014-15 season. “We were never allowed to interact with the players or anything like that — they were very cautious about that,” he says. “It was really quite strict, which was a bit frustrating.”
The mascots weren’t allowed to step foot onto the pitch either, making Stamford and his girlfriend Bridget walk around the back of the goal, where there were often more obstacles in their way. “You spend most of the time looking at your feet and trying not to kick over the microphones at the side of the ground, which is why it was annoying we couldn’t walk on the pitch because then we could get involved with the half-time entertainment and probably interact with the crowd a bit better.”
Yates was working for the RAF as an air-to-air refuelling pilot (“it’s like a petrol station in the sky”) at the time he secured a weekend gig as Stamford. He would spend his weekdays on operations in Afghanistan or Iraq before heading home to west London and swapping his air force uniform for a lion costume at the weekend. “A few of the guys at work knew what I was doing,” he says. “Some thought I was a bit of a twat, others thought it was wicked.”
His entry into mascoting came as a result of a boozy weekend with his brother in Manchester. “One of my brother’s close friends who was there worked in advertising for Chelsea and part of his role was to organise the mascots for the game. He didn’t have anyone for the following weekend, so I said I’d love to do it.
“He thought I was joking at first but then I didn’t shut up about it all weekend. Eventually, he said I could do it and after my first time, he thought I was quite good. I ended up doing about 10-12 fixtures that season, and we didn’t lose a single one of them, which I’m quite proud of.”
One thing Yates never got to experience in his tenure was playing Bridget, whose role was usually filled by a male wearing a bodysuit to give her the requisite female characteristics. “Whoever was the smallest of the two people to pitch up would usually be Bridget,” says Yates. “So because I’m quite big, I was never not Stamford.”
Yates received a small fee for playing Stamford — “it wasn’t a lot; pocket money really but it covered your expenses and probably left you with around £30 after that” — and would be allowed to watch the second half of games from the stewards’ entrance on the rare occasion it wasn’t filled with people blocking the view.
(Photo: Catherine Ivill – AMA/Getty Images)
His abiding memory as Stamford is of one morning when his pre-match role was to play five-a-side with a group of kids who’d won a competition to play football with the mascots in a park just outside of Stamford Bridge. “I pitched up with a bit of a hangover and it was a really warm, autumnal morning. When we got there, we started playing football with these kids but it’s impossible to see anything from inside the outfit. You can’t see the ball, so you’re just walking around swinging a leg when the ball comes roughly near you.
“I soon had enough of it, so said, ‘I’ll go in goal, we’ll take penalties’. All the kids had a go, then the adults joined in and just started pelting the ball at me, which wasn’t much fun, so I made a swift exit out of there.”
Taking abuse can often be par for the course and Yates says it was something he heard “all the time walking past the away stand. Quite often, I’d just hold up the scoreline with my fingers if we were winning, and if we weren’t, I’d just walk past quickly and not acknowledge it. I never had anything thrown at me, I don’t think”.
At Selhurst Park, Pete and Alice became experts at defusing the vitriol from away fans. “I used to enjoy standing there and conducting them as if they were a chorus,” says McBride. “They’re shouting abuse at someone dressed in a fluffy costume — it’s quite ridiculous when you think about it.”
Although some mascots become renowned for winding up opposition fans, players or even mascots (Cyril the Swan and Harry the Hornet, we’re looking at you), McBride says his focus was always on the kids in the crowd and leaving them with smiles on their faces. Of course, that isn’t always easy, especially on those days when there is little to smile about.
One such day came on February 4, 2017, when Palace welcomed a bottom-of-the-table Sunderland side to Selhurst Park. “We’d done our bit early in the game, then went inside during the first half to have a drink and bite to eat before we went out for half-time. By that time, we were 2-0 down and the fans were already getting on the backs of the players. About five minutes before half-time, we put our heads back on and headed down, ready to go back out but as we were on our way, Palace conceded again, so we were 3-0 down.
“I thought, ‘For god’s sake, I don’t really want to go out there right now’. As a fan, you know that they don’t want to see Pete and Alice prancing around when they’re 3-0 down against a team that’s bottom of the table.”
Seconds before the half-time whistle blew, Palace conceded a fourth.
“We couldn’t do anything other than go out there, shrug our shoulders and show how disappointed and flat we were as well. It wasn’t the right time to dance around like everything was fine. We reflected what we felt was the mood of the fans and that came from being fans ourselves.”
But McBride couldn’t escape the club’s traditional half-time challenge where children from both sets of fans were welcomed onto the pitch to take part in a penalty shootout, with Pete taking his place in goal. “Usually, I’d let most of the goals in and I didn’t really care who won — unless we were playing Brighton, obviously. But this time, I knew there was no way I could let the Sunderland kid win.”
First to kick was the young Palace mascot, who proceeded to miss the goal completely. Then stepped up the Sunderland fan. It had been raining all afternoon and as Pete moved to stop the ball from rolling across the line he slipped, twisted his knee and grimaced as the ball drifted past him.
“The worst experience ever,” is how McBride describes it almost four years on. “I remember wincing in pain trying to get back around the stadium so we could get off before the start of the second half. It was miserable.”
(Photo: Nigel French – PA Images via Getty Images)
The highs outnumber the lows, though. McBride reels off his and Kate’s experiences of taking Pete and Alice to play-off finals at the Millennium Stadium in 2004 and Wembley in 2013, and the rituals that developed with certain players — the “lucky” high five with Andy Johnson and fist bump with Julian Speroni that became pre-match routines.
But the memories that are engraved in his heart as much as his head are those where the personal crosses over with the professional, such as when Pete and Alice made a surprise appearance at his and Kate’s red-and-blue-themed wedding in 2006, thanks to two friends of theirs who managed to get hold of the outfits without them knowing. Shortly after finishing their first dance, the couple were taken aback by the appearance of two large imposters on the dance floor. “We started dancing with them but you can see me on the wedding video going, ‘Who is it?!’.”
Then there was the game against Brighton & Hove Albion at Selhurst Park in December 2012. Palace won it 3-0 but for McBride, the result was secondary to the circumstances. “That was the last game Kate did before she gave birth to our daughter Grace the following month and the ground was absolutely rocking. Kate was almost eight months pregnant doing that game. Fortunately, the costumes we had at that time were quite big, so the bump wasn’t too visible…”
Kate wasn’t finished with Alice just yet, though. The couple continued in their club roles until their daughter reached the age of four. By that time, the job had changed markedly from when they first started. It was no longer a voluntary role, with the pair now being paid for their time. (“It wasn’t a massive amount but it was nice to have,” says McBride, “though we’d have happily carried on for no money.”) The emergence of the fan zone meant a more regimented schedule for match days.
“We’d have to drop Grace at her grandparents by 8am to get to Selhurst for a match-day staff briefing at 10.30. Then we’d get into costume from about 11.15-11.30, when fans started arriving for the fan zone. It was a long day and it became quite stressful in the end because you had to be there by a certain time, and there were certain things you had to do. For so many years, we’d been used to just going out there and doing whatever we wanted, really.”
In 2017, with their daughter about to start school and their full-time jobs restricting time with her during the week, the couple realised that weekends were precious. After 14 and a half years, the time had come to hang up their wings.
“It’s the fans I miss the most,” says McBride. “With the younger kids is where you get the most reaction but I also liked when you saw parents — especially dads — encouraging their kids to ‘go and give Pete a high five’, then you’d give the dad one and it’s made his day as well.
“Even at the events we did outside of matches, it was about the interactions we had with people. You can see it; it makes their day and in turn, that made our day as well. The kids who are a bit nervous or shy when they first see this big eagle and don’t really want to approach you and eventually, you win them over — it’s that feeling I miss more than anything, as opposed to the matches themselves.”
By the end of their run, McBride and Kate were far more removed from the stadium and match action than they had been for much of their tenure. During their last couple of seasons as Pete and Alice, they’d get changed in the fan zone outside of the stadium and it had become too busy to stand around the side of the pitch as the match was going on. “For the last 12-18 months, we didn’t see much football being played. Until I went back as a fan, I didn’t realise just how much I’d missed out on doing that bit.”
McBride’s first game after he stopped being Pete was Crystal Palace vs Bournemouth at Selhurst Park, with the home side looking in danger of relegation and in desperate need of a win. Heading into injury time, the game was level at 2-2 but Palace won a penalty. As Christian Benteke stepped up to take it, McBride held his breath, along with the thousands of Palace fans surrounding him. When the striker’s tentative shot was easily pushed away by Asmir Begovic in the Bournemouth goal, the groans echoed around the ground.
“I was frustrated as hell that day, like most fans, but coming away from the ground, I had a bit of a smile on my face because I was able to be part of a crowd; swearing and cursing at someone for missing a penalty in the last minute. I hadn’t been able to do that for almost 15 years.
“It was weird. I’d forgotten what the feeling was like because I never did that as a mascot where, of course, you’ve got those emotions but you’re not going to go on the pitch and start remonstrating with a player because he’s missed a penalty.”
McBride doesn’t know who plays Pete and Alice these days, and with COVID-19 still keeping fans away from grounds, who knows when we will see them, Gunnersaurus, Stamford or Chirpy back entertaining crowds again?
“I’d do it again in a heartbeat,” says Lawrence, who now works for Royal Mail. “It’s definitely one of the highlights of my career. As a football fan, it doesn’t get much better than that once you realise you’re not going to make it as a player.” Yates, who now flies commercially for Virgin, isn’t quite as enthused about the idea. “I’ve hung my boots up now. I did nick his (Stamford’s) shirt, though. I’ve got it framed in our living room. I was going to sign it myself but I thought that’d be a bit sad, so I didn’t bother.”
For McBride and his wife Kate, Pete and Alice will forever be a part of their family history, and seeing the emotional responses to the Gunnersaurus story last October only served to reinforce their belief that it’s often much the same way for the fans.
(Top photo: Getty Images; design: Sam Richardson)
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Sunglasses make me better than you
It allows them to see their beloved mascots in action and adds an element of lightheartedness to the event. The mascots themselves get to showcase their agility and athleticism, albeit in a comical way, and create memorable moments for the audience. While these mascot soccer games are not competitive in the traditional sense, they highlight the importance of teamwork and sportsmanship. The mascots work together to score goals and celebrate their successes in a playful manner. The games also provide an opportunity for the mascots to interact with the audience, whether it be through high-fives, dance routines, or comedic gestures. In conclusion, mascot soccer games provide a unique and entertaining experience for both fans and mascots alike. They offer a break from the seriousness of the game and allow for moments of joy and laughter. These games demonstrate the fun side of sports and serve as a reminder that even the most unlikely characters can participate in the game of soccer..
Reviews for "Game Changers: How Mascots Bring Entertainment to Soccer Matches"
1. John - 2/5 - I was really disappointed with "Mascots playing soccer". The concept sounded fun and exciting, but the execution fell flat. The mascots lacked any real skill or coordination on the field, making the game feel more like a chaotic mess than an entertaining sport. The humor also fell short - the jokes felt forced and predictable. Overall, I found the movie to be a wasted opportunity for a genuinely entertaining and unique sports film.
2. Sarah - 1/5 - "Mascots playing soccer" was a complete disaster. The characters were uninteresting and one-dimensional, and the plot was painfully predictable. The soccer matches themselves were poorly choreographed and lacked any real excitement. I was expecting a lighthearted and enjoyable sports movie, but instead, I was bored and counting down the minutes until it was over. Save yourself the disappointment and skip this one.
3. Alex - 2/5 - While "Mascots playing soccer" had a promising premise, the execution left much to be desired. The movie relied heavily on slapstick comedy and predictable gags that quickly wore thin. The characters weren't developed enough to make them likable or interesting, and the plot felt stale and formulaic. I was hoping for a fun and entertaining sports movie, but unfortunately, this one fell short.
4. Laura - 2/5 - "Mascots playing soccer" had a few funny moments, but overall, it failed to generate any real excitement or engagement. The soccer matches lacked intensity and failed to create any real tension or suspense. The movie also seemed to rely too heavily on cheap humor that felt outdated and unoriginal. I had higher expectations for this film, and I left feeling somewhat let down.
5. Michael - 1/5 - I found "Mascots playing soccer" to be a waste of time and money. The movie lacked any real substance or depth, and the jokes were flat and uninspired. The soccer scenes were poorly filmed, and it was difficult to follow the action on the field. Overall, I would not recommend this movie to anyone looking for a quality sports film.