Female Western Springs players say the logo presents a strong phallic appearance. Photo / Photosport / Western Springs AFC
Female Western Springs players say the logo presents a strong phallic appearance. Photo / Photosport / Western Springs AFC
The man who designed the Western Springs Football Club logo more than 30 years ago is “surprised” to hear players today believe it has phallic parallels.
Jim Jacobs entered a logo design competition at the club together with his son Jared, who was a youth member of Western Springs inthe late 1980s.
“I suspect if that’s the argument they want and that’s the way they see it, I can’t push back against that because it’s always open to interpretation.”
Western Springs Association Football Club's logo. Photo / WSAFC
Female players last month said the logo – which features a swan above two large footballs – presented a strong phallic appearance,and the likeness is “a well-known story around the club”.
“It’s a joke – this is a boys club,” one player told the Herald. “We have little girls running around the club with [that] on their shirts.”
When Jacobs heard the news – almost 35 years on from when he designed the logo – he said he and his son were both “really surprised”.
The pair had entered a drawing competition initiated when Point Chevalier and Grey Lynn football clubs amalgamated to form Western Springs AFC in 1989. Jim and Jared, who worked on the design together, won a $50 cash prize, which Jacobs said was “big money back then”.
The winning design went on to be plastered across the new club and its apparel.
Western Springs 14th Grade boys in 1991. Jim Jacobs (back row, left) was manager for a Western Springs junior side. His son Jared is second from left in the middle row. Photo / Supplied
Jacobs saidthere was just a sole comment that came close to what female players had raised today. At a committee meeting to decide which logo to use, a player said: “I want to go for the budgie with the big balls.”
However, Jacobs admitted that comment hardly raised an eyebrow because, after all, “there weren’t women’s teams back then”.
After that sign-off, the club went on to brand the new logo on all apparel, gear, signage and facilities.
Jacobs, who was a resident of Point Chevalier, a member and coach of the football club and junior committee at the time, explained how he came up with the design.
“The swan part came from the lake of Western Springs because it was one of the big black swans that used to be down there,” he said. “That was one of the main things people knew about Western Springs.
“The two testicles they seem to be concerned about were actually the colours of both Grey Lynn Club and Point Chev Club [both green and white].”
Jacobs said his original drawing was inspired by a top English club.
“If you know the Tottenham Hotspur emblem of the cockerel standing on the ball, my original drawing was the black swans standing on both balls.”
Tottenham Hotspur logo
Jacobs said the logo was “modified a little” once it had been submitted, and “the balls became more prominent”.
At the time, Jacobs was honoured he and his son won the competition and played a part in the launch of the new club.
“We were excited to have the opportunity to put forward a logo design. To have it win, and be able to identify with it and the club for the next 30-plus years has been great,” Jacobs said.
“My grandson, daughter, son and myself all still have jackets with the logo.”
Jacobs said he’s “disappointed” the logo is now being changed under contentious circumstances.
“If I was to be involved I would retain the basic design and remove an offending ‘testicle’; the two balls are historical and not relevant to anyone today.”
Western Springs Football Club has been approached for comment.
