Why “The Lambs”?

[upthemaggies]

The Meadows was originally a large area of wetland/floodplain which extended from the River Leen to the River Trent. This area was drained and gradually developed for a variety of uses, incorporating terraced housing, public houses, factories, warehouses and public buildings such as libraries and swimming baths. The terraced housing was constructed mainly for those that worked on the railways and in the factories.

At the time the Magpies were called the Lambs the Meadows area would definitely not have been classed as slums.

In 1901, Victoria Embankment, a 1¼ mile long masterpiece of Victorian flood defence engineering with a promenade and carriage-way, opened, along with the New Meadows recreation ground.

In 1920, Jesse Boot purchased the remainder of the land within the Embankment adjacent to the Trent and then bequeathed it to the citizens of Nottingham in perpetuity for recreational use and memorial. This included the memorial gardens, playing fields and war memorial.

I'm going to guess that by the time Notts moved to the Castle Ground in the Meadows, "Lambs" had lost a lot of its' potency in much the same way "Teds" eventually became associated with Showaddywaddy and Butlins holiday entertainers akin to Freddie Starr/Russ Abbotts' Madhouse some 40 years after a Ted had been a type of person to genuinely fear. Something your grandfather might have been involved with back in the day and a term elderly people - unable to keep up with the increasing pace of change - used to describe the young who, by now, had very different disciplines, interests and ways of organising themselves. Nicknaming a football club "Lambs" was the final dilution of the name before it disappeared, along with the slums which had once housed them.