TOPIC: Olga the fox

Just been asked by an Everton fan as to why we have a stuffed fox in the centre circle before kick off. All I could say was it was something to do with A huntsman a long time ago.

Could anyone enlighten to me the reasons why we have olga,

And does anyone else think that it should be readily available information as to the long term history of olga is our mascot

Tradition started by George (Twinkletoes) Baxter, Carlisle daft, dressed in blue and white top hat and tails. The original mascot and skipped onto the pitch and placed his stuffed fox, Olga, on the centre spot. Remembered best for when a casual mongrel strolled on and slashed on the fox.

Old Twinkletoes remember those little mincey steps when he ran to the centre cir0cle..

It is due to the county's famous fox huntsman John Peel
"John Peel"
D'ye ken John Peel with his coat so
gay,
D'ye ken John Peel at the break of
day,
D'ye ken John Peel when he's far away,
With his hounds and his horn in the
morning.
For the sound of his horn brought me
from my bed
And the cry of his hounds which he
oft times led,
Peel's 'view hullo' would awaken the
dead
Or the fox from his lair in the
morning.
Yes I ken John Peel and Ruby too
Ranter and Ringwood and Bellman and
True,
From a find to a check, from a check
to a view
From a view to a death in the morning
Then here's to John Peel with my
heart and soul
Let's drink to his health, let's
finish the bowl,
We'll follow John Peel through fair
and through foul
If we want a good hunt in the morning.

Is there any particular reason Olga (the mascot) doesn't stay pitch-side during the match?

There would be ample photo ops and the like (celebrating goals / with the players) and interacting with the crowd at half-time. Is there some kind of FA rule, maybe to do with not distracting the players or riling opposition fans?

ExiledJock wrote:
The FA don't have a ruling about that. It would be good for it to happen, I do remember watching Watfords mascot celebrating with ighalo when he scored v Liverpool a couple month back

Might interest you:

www.theguardian.com/football/gallery/201...s-mascot-in-pictures

Was a video of it on youtube but seems to have been taken down.

ExiledJock wrote: No rule stopping the mascot staying pitch side but Olga is wearing a club shirt and there are rules around that. ie. they'd need to put a bib on.

(possibly register as player/include in match squad too*)

Do any of you North East types know if The (Newcastle) Journal still refer to CU as The Foxes in match reports. and yeah we do get column space over there!!
Everybody knows Leicester City are The Foxes, why??? who knows

seesaw50 wrote:
Probably because there are/were some famous hunts in the area. I know nothing about hunting but I think The Quorn was one of them.

Poopdeck wrote:

Cheers pal, I've heard different reports whether he was real or is a fabled story.

I bloody wish that we had some research available somewhere on this

Certainly real. He's buried in Caldbeck churchyard
Olga, of course, is an anagram of goal

Found this picture of Twinkletoes - just as I remember him.

3.bp.blogspot.com/-qvh5-HWCUAM/VGC9tnUNv...w9C4M/s1600/olga.png

That's yer man - bin man most days, Twinkletoes on match days. John Peel, regimental march of The Kings Own Royal Border Regiment - . before they were disbanded by John Nixon.

I suppose Olga could be mistaken for a player if he was standing on the sidelines with most referees and linesmen being partially sighted.

George Thompson, AKA "Twinkletoes". I think he was named Twinkletoes for the way he made his way to the centre circle to put "Olga the Fox" down. I believe he was arrested one year at Blackburn for sticking one on a charver who he thought had called him "Steptoe", it was in fact Twinkletoe he'd called him - Legend.

Sorry, meant to say Baxter, not Thompson.

The tune of "D'yer ken John Peel" was used for the 70s CUFC song "Lookin' Good, We're Carlisle United".

Good short article from Harry Pearson in 2010

www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2010/j...he-fox-harry-pearson

Poopdeck wrote:


Good old regimental march of the Kings Own Border too.

MerseysideBlue wrote:

Zenon wrote:
Haha!! Really good that!

Zenon wrote:
"If I was in charge at Brunton Park I wouldn't have Olga brought on to the pitch – as she is these days – by somebody in a Disney-fied, child-friendly fox costume, but by a shaven-headed albino in silken robes covered in runic symbols, who'd follow the placing of the dead beast in the centre circle by daubing a broken crucifix on the forehead of rambunctious defender and local cult hero Richard Keogh in fresh blood. I'm sure this would unnerve opponents even more than the All Blacks' Haka."

Claire, time to make your mark.

Bits and pieces re Olga

I think the original Olga appeared in the early 60s, I talked all too briefly with a lady whose family had provided it just a few weeks ago but unfortunately I was working and didn't get time to ask her the story.

Either the second or third one (there has been a few as they don't respond well to getting wet, came from the farm where I grew up. My dad found a beautiful dog fox lying dead in a field, we never found out what caused it's demise but another uncle, who was a director at Carlisle at the time, took it and had it stuffed to be an Olga, so at least one of the foxes was male.

Twinkletoes aka George Baxter died in 1981, there is a little plaque on the wall in reception (or was before this flood, hopefully was high enough to escape the water. As said he used to proudly carry the fox out to the centre circle before the games, sometimes after a few too many drinks but always with a great passion for Carlisle United.

Why it all started I don't know, but after Twinklestoes, the fox was in a cupboard for many years. Michael Knighton briefly revived it, then decidedd that the club should look forward and not back and Olga was again sent to the dark cupboard under the stairs.

She appeared again when John Courtenay arrived. He thought it a good idea to do something a little different and also was keen to promote the Cumbrian tradition. When the twinkltoes routine was explained to him, he was happy for it to start again but made it clear he was not personally wearing a ****in top had and prancing on to the pitch. For a while various folk carried Olga out but gradually it became the job of thre mascot to carry the mascot out.

Working down at pitchside for a match, there are two questions I am always asked by visiting photographers. The first is Where do we get a teamsheet.
The second is Why is a stuffed fox sitting on the centre circle? (Thats the polite version). Nearly every visiting photographer takes a photo, its something unique to CUFC. I too would like to know the full story of how it started.

I think you have summed it up Bumble, the director in question could have been George Sheffield. I have been a BP regular since the early sixties, I think George Baxter and the stuffed fox originally did a few FA cup away games, then he started to appear in the suit at home games, probably in one of his regular states of inebriation decided to skip onto the pitch and plonk Olga on the centre spot - and the rest is history as they say. I do like the new Olga but miss the cameo throwing shapes routine - methinks it's now a bloke!

I [censored] hate fox hunting but am fine with (mis)using the imagery. I'm surprised no-one has ever brought a hunting horn to a match. I'm sure you could work up some kind of 'war cry'/chant that would again be unique to the club. Would be good for away days to announce that CUFC were on opposition turf.

With you on the fox hunting Jock. Leicester do the wind instrument bit before every game but it aint a hunting horn and the tune is the Post Horn Gallop which is a clue to the instrument, so quite what a mail coach has to do with fox hunting is lost on me - still it's a bit different. I would have thought some of our young, clued up technophobes could do a sampling job on the Border Regiment march with a bit of rap and jazz-funk hoyed in - a challenge if ever there was one.

Remember the Chester match in 2000, down at the Deva stadium. It was obvious by then that we had got into a them or us scenario as to who was going to go through the trap door at the end of the season and Carlisle fans turned out in force. Will always remember the queue to get in snaking across the car park. It was obvious even then that either they were going to have to lock some of us out or the stand was going to be overfilled. They chose the latter option.

I drove down, picking up a friend in Kendal on the way. He brought a trumpet, freely admitting he hadn't played it since school but was going to give it a go. Whether it was going to be the Post Horn Gallop or the Last Post would depend on how the game panned out. We got there very early and were one of the first cars to park. We were a bit worried whether they would allow the trumpet in but as we got out of the car we saw the then Chester owner (an American called Smith I think, mad as a hatter), disappearing inside the building. We hammered on a door and he appeared and was more than happy for the trumpet to be allowed in.

Off we went for some scran and queued up to get behind the goal. It was such a squash that Roger has great difficulty lifting his arms up to play and I|'m sure the bloke in front got his ears cleaned out.

The first rendition of the post horn gallop came in the warm up at which point Steve Halliday and John Durnin fell in a crumpled heap doubled up with laughter but it was brilliant. Whenever things went a little bit flat a few bars of the trumpet got our bit of the crowd going again. It was a great result, down to 9 men and Scott Dobie scoring, the net bulging right in front of me.

I would be all for some one taking a trumpet to matches, much better than Portsmouth's bell.

Bumble wrote:
That's interesting Bumble. I attended my first matches in the 1982-83 season and I was sure i could remember an old chap in a blue and white suit and hat putting Olga on the centre circle in those early seasons and shaking hands with fans before the games. Was there a replacement Twinkletoes or have I retrospectively created a false memory from the legend?

heilkmoon wrote:
I'll check to see if the plaque is still there on Saturday. Sitting here I can clearly see the date in my minds eye as 1981, but that could easily be my mind playing tricks on me (I'm at the age one decade merges into the next, never mind the year!) I do remember that Olga was preserved in a glass case and the plaque at that time was stuck on the outside of the case. When Olga was liberated from the case in the John Courtenay era was when the little plaque was put on the wall.

Twinkletoes aka George Baxter worked on the council as a refuse collector, a few of the lads out the WRE would accompany him on the walk home after the game so as to offer a bit of protection as away fans would target old Twinks.
I always remember Millwall on a night game, a couple of them ran on the pitch and gave Olga a kicking before placing a stuffed lion on the centre spot. All in good fun, I think

Trumpets are not for football matches. End of discussion...

heilkmoon wrote:
This.
I had exactly the same thoughts when reading Bumble's post
I attended my first game in Dec 1983, and could have sworn that I had seen Twinkletoes running over the pitch in my early games as an 11 year old fan.
Again, I was wondering if I had just imagined it and created a false memory in my mind.
If the plaque does indeed say 1981, you would tend to think that this is correct and that I have just imagined seeing him.
However, it is not beyond the realms of possibility that Carlisle Utd have cocked this up aswell, and managed to get the date of Twinkletoes' death wrong.
They couldn't, could they??

I think it's far more likely my memory has got it wrong.

Bumble wrote:
I was always under the impression that it was 1991.

Well I'm convinced the first two numbers were a 1 and a 9 !

From the OS now.

www.carlisleunited.co.uk/news/article/th...-mascot-2938028.aspx

Really pleased the lady came forward wi6th the story. The original mascot is much older than I had heard previously, and also rather nice that the first one was actually alive at least for some of its reign as mascot.. I now know what to say when the next visiting photographer asks

Bumble wrote: I remember it well Bumble. I seem to recall 'The Great Escape' being part of Roger's limited repertoire too.

I remember that game,as finding the contents of all my pockets over a large area of the terracing,as I'd been jumping around that much.

Imagine if they kept a live fox as mascot today, the animal rescue/health&safety; brigade would have a field day. No chance it would be allowed.

I'll bring my pet fox down on Saturday then and see whether they have any objections.

Nice one, I'll bring a pack of hounds.

musher441 wrote:
Update: Definitely me being confused. Asked some one to check the plaque and he died in 1986.