Recurrently Generated Football League: Lefpent Nomads

Because it’s the international break and we’re bored, the writers of Cartilage Free Captain have been experimenting with machine learning and recurrent neural networks. The Recurrently Generated Football League is an outgrowth of that experimentation: a collection of generated fictional English football club names. The stadiums and SB Nation blogs are also recurrently generated. This is a fictional biography of a fictional football club generated by a computer. For science.

Lefpent Nomads have, true to their nickname, been a bit all over the place in their time in English football. Originally found in 1860 by members of Prince Consort Albert’s retinue, Lefpent Nomads were long seen as a German club playing in England. For decades after their creation, the club, still an amateur football club, consisted mostly of young men that were members of the offshoots of the British Royal Family and their Germanic Spouses. As an amateur side made up wealthy young boys who saw football as mostly a distraction, the club struggled and had little success in their early going. Nomads obtained their nickname, from playing at fourteen different grounds between the date of their founding and 1914. Originally known as Lefpent All-Boys, the Nomads name just seemed to stick and the “All-Boys” tag was officially dropped in 1916.

Tyson Whiting, designer

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Nickname(s): Nomads, The Blues

Motto: Not All Who Wander Are Lost

Shirt sponsor: Munich Re

Stadium: Bader Hapse Stadium

Manager: Claus Haushofer

SB Nation blog: Rude Blue

Unfortunately, due to the club’s long history of association with Germany and the Germanic background of many of its staff and supporters, Lefpent has been forced to disband twice. The first time, in 1917, shortly after the British Royal family adopted the name Windsor. Nomads attempted to “re-brand” as well, adopting the name Windsor United, but it was a poor attempt and the club disbanded mid-season. Lefpent re-formed in 1930, moving to the London borough of Richmond, where they remain today, and playing in the twenty-third different stadium in the club’s history. That reformation did not last long, however, as the return of strong anti-German sentiment and, obviously, World War II, caused the club to shutter its doors once more.

The club was started up again on six separate occasions following the second World War, but none lasted more than a couple of seasons and the club languished in the lower tiers of English football as little more than a Sunday League side until 1969, when a group of German expatriates began their association with the club. The German group, headed by Hans Konig, followed a business model similar to that of the newly formed Bundesliga. The club was run as a not-for-profit, which unfortunately limited the competitiveness of the team. Konig’s son, Ulrich, took over the club in the early 1990’s and took the club public in the early 2000’s. Now, in keeping with modern Bundesliga rules, the club operates on a 50+1 rule, making it one of the only fan-owned clubs in the Football League.

The modern Lefpent Nomads have been considerably less nomadic than their predecessors. Nomads play their home matches at the 26,000 seat Bader Hapse Stadium, built in 1987. Nomads have been a bit up and down in the past couple decades, plying their trade more often than not in the Championship. They’ve won only one major honor, a League cup in 1989, since their reformation. Most recently, they enjoyed a four season stay in the top flight before being relegated. Last season they walked the Championship, with the league’s staunchest defense, allowing only 19 goals in the 46 match season.

Tyson Whiting, designer