The Addicks

I once read that Charlton Athletic's nickname is a corruption of the motto that used to appear on the club crest: Addique. The crest and motto were borrowed from the family that owned the land where The Valley now stands. This story is told in a "fan's–eye–view" article that was published in The Independent in 1998; this may be where I first came across it (I can't actually remember now).

The family in question, or so the story goes, were the Spencer–Percivals – whose best known member is the only British prime minister ever to have been assassinated. (He is buried in the family plot in St Luke's Church, opposite Charlton House, just 10 minutes' walk from The Valley.) The Percivals, we are led to believe, came over with William the Conqueror; their Norman–French motto literally means "sharp", in the sense of "ready for action". Hence the drawn sword that appears on the club crest. "Addique" was simply anglicised as "Addick".

I was well impressed by this story. It has more than a hint of history about it, and it seemed to make perfect sense.

I can find no other source on the Internet to corroborate it, however; and sadly, it appears that it's a spoof. (See the first comment, from 'Stig' – dated 25 July 2011.) Indeed keen quizzers, and students of history, will have noticed that Spencer Perceval spelt his surname with two e's and that Spencer was his given name, not part of his surname. (According to Wikipedia, it was used as a given name in his mother's family, whose surname was Compton.)

The second article linked above (the one with Stig's comment) mentions the Spencer–Percival family as the source of the club crest, but not the motto or nickname. For the latter, it favours the theory that "in pre–league days the players would treat the visiting team to a post–match meal of haddock and chips. The fishmonger who supplied them was Arthur Bryan, trading from a shop at 77 East Street and who held the catering concession during the club's first season at The Valley and by repute attended matches with a haddock nailed to a stick as an advertising stunt." Wikipedia concurs, citing The Complete History of Charlton Athletic, by Paul Clayton (2001).