With regard to tonight's game, I just heard Stockport referred to on the radio as 'The Hatters'. I've never heard that before, but having checked, it appears to be so.

I’ve always known Luton Town as “The Hatters” didn’t know there was another team with that name.

I knew they were called The Hatters in their history as it used to be in old magazines and books in the 80’s and 90’s when I used to absorb football information like a sponge, but figured it was one of those old nicknames no longer used these days, like the Reading FC’s The Biscuit Men, or Burnley FC’s The Royalites.

Good quiz question: which team are nicknamed the hatters - Stockport or Luton?

Seem to remember watching a documentary about the Industrial Revolution.
Think Stockport was the centre for manufacture of hats.

They were made from felt and part of the process of manufacture was to soak the felt in urine and arsenic I think. This eventually led to mental illness, phsycotic episodes etc.
Hence the term ‘Mad as a hatter’

Yes, they have a Hat Museum in Stockport.

Crikey!

The Hung Juror wrote: ↑

Wed Dec 07, 2022 8:02 am

Yes, they have a Hat Museum in Stockport.

old hat!

It was mercury not arsenic.As a result of this i have googled more as didnt know the whole story but here goes. The use of mercury was used to make flet from animal furs tougher by the use of mercury nitrate an oranges looking cheimcal giving the name carroting to the process. The steaming of the treated felt resulted in the hatters inhaling mercury which amongst other places accumulated in the brain. What I didnt know and a poster above pointed out -the animal fur was originally soaked in camel urine and later human urine. apparently one hatter used his own urine and seemed to produce a better felt than fellow workers but he was getting mercury injections for syphilis. Not sure of the validity of that bit but it is alleged that someone sussed the super felter had mercury in his urine and mercury was brought into the process.

Pasted part of an article below


HEALTH AND MEDICINE


How Urine, Syphilis, And Mercury Gave Rise To The Phrase "Mad As A Hatter"
author
RACHAEL FUNNELL
Social Editor and Staff Writer

clock
May 25, 2022 12:34 PM
mad hatter syndrome
The steaming step in mercury-infused felt hat making had some pretty undesirable side effects. Image credit: National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) from USA - fur hat maker, 1938. Public domain.

Alice in Wonderland’s Mad Hatter did a pretty good job of demonstrating the saying “mad as a hatter,” but where did this phrase come from? While its origins do center around hats, they are a little less delightful than an eccentric who throws lots of tea parties, instead involving urine, syphilis, and the element mercury.

“Mad as a hatter” is a colloquial English phrase thrown about lightheartedly to describe a person whose behavior is peculiar, but erethism – the neurological disorder also known as “mad hatter syndrome” – is no joke.

What is mad hatter syndrome?
The element mercury has many uses for humans, including gilding (S-Town listeners may remember this), purifying gold, and – you guessed it – hat making. However, as a potent neurotoxin, it also presents many hazards to those who work with it.

Inhalational mercury poisoning was first reported in medicine before Lewis Carrol penned "Hatta" in Through the Looking-Glass, but its connection to hat making wouldn't be established until sometime later. However, as doctors' understanding of mercury poisoning grew, they became more familiar with the tell-tale symptoms of the neurological disorder erethismus mercurialis, which would later become known as mad hatter disease or mad hatter syndrome. They include:

Headaches
Low self-confidence
Personality changes
Tremors
Delirium
While Carroll was well-read in matters of medicine, as detailed in a 1984 BMJ correspondence from TML Price titled “Did the Mad Hatter have mercury poisoning?”, it seems unlikely that he knew about the risk of mercury poisoning for hatters. Instead, the author suggests, it’s possible he may have had first-hand experience of a real-life worker with mad hatter syndrome.

“Erethism and hatters' shakes are surely in evidence when [Hatta] appears as a witness at the trial of the Knave of Hearts,” wrote Price. “He shakes so much that both his shoes fall off, and he certainly shows excessive timidity, diffidence, loss of confidence, and anxiety, to such an extent that he bites a piece out of his cup instead of the bread and butter.”

“With his extraordinary ability to observe and portray the oddities of human behavior and his interest in clinical matters I would expect him to describe with great accuracy the type of madness found in these unfortunate people, which he seems to me to have done.”

mad hatter syndrome
Mercury got into the air when hat makers steamed their felt creations. Image credit: By ? - Own work, Public Domain via Wikimedia commons
Why did hat makers get mad hatter syndrome?
Mercury was a key ingredient in the art of felt hat making as it could toughen animal fur fibers, allowing them to matt together more robustly for a firmer hat. Felt hat makers would use mercury nitrate – Hg(NO?)? – for the process, known as secretage or carroting, and it was used in this way for around a century.

It seems the felt hat making industry had a history of opting for unusual substances in their craft, as when the trend reached France, makers ditched camel urine – something that was commonplace among hatters elsewhere – in favor of their own ****. Hat Realm reports that among them, one wee-wielding hat maker appeared to churn out finer felt than his competitors, and it was later revealed he was taking a mercury compound to treat syphilis.

The discovery led to hatmakers cutting out the middleman (quite literally), forgoing wee in favor of mercury nitrate. This orange substance – which gave the process its name carroting – wasn’t too harmful until it was time to shape the hat’s felt using steam.

Hat makers steaming their mercury-nitrate-infused felt hats would then breathe in vapors of the compound, exposing them to mercury that accumulated across their careers. Early signs of the mad hatter syndrome they would later develop included losing teeth, trembling and mood swings, but could extend to hallucinations, delusions, and paranoia.

Danbury, a prolific hat making city in Connecticut in the 19th century, experienced so many cases that mercury-induced tremors became known as “the Danbury shakes,” reports History. As the damaging long-term effects of using mercury in this way became more apparent, carroting with mercury nitrate was eventually banned.

A rather somber tale, then, for Carroll’s endearing Hatta, but at least Alice was able to provide some memorable words of reassurance.

I thought Stockport were called "The Bottlers"


Been to the Hat Museum in Stockport ... not as interesting though as the Pencil Museum in Keswick where they have the worlds biggest pencil

In the mid-90s Stockport attempted to ditch the Hatters in favour of the Cobras, after they struck a deal with the vindaloo-quenching beer brand (brewed at Robinsons, if I recall correctly).

Bosscat wrote: ↑

Wed Dec 07, 2022 8:59 am

I thought Stockport were called "The Bottlers"


Been to the Hat Museum in Stockport ... not as interesting though as the Pencil Museum in Keswick where they have the worlds biggest pencil

Or indeed the Silk Museum in........ Macc

Stayingup wrote: ↑

Wed Dec 07, 2022 10:05 am

Or indeed the Silk Museum in........ Macc

The British Lawnmower Museum in Southport quite interesting too some famous peoples Lawnmowers on display
http://www.lawnmowerworld.co.uk/richAnd ... nation.php

I thought their nickname was 2 hats

Sausage wrote: ↑

Wed Dec 07, 2022 10:01 am

In the mid-90s Stockport attempted to ditch the Hatters in favour of the Cobras, after they struck a deal with the vindaloo-quenching beer brand (brewed at Robinsons, if I recall correctly).

Given how quickly they sank, they should have opted for a deal with the titanic brewery.

Do people remember when we were known as the Turfites? What a shocking one.

houseboy wrote: ↑

Wed Dec 07, 2022 10:27 am

Do people remember when we were known as the Turfites? What a shocking one.

I had a Claret and blue pvc/plasticky baseball type hat back in the early '70s with Burnley-The Turfites on.It was horrendous.

When I was a kid I seem to remember junior T-shirts etc with ‘Turfy’ on them, or it could have been Turfy the Turfite? A sort of mascot who I think was a bulldog?

The memory is vague on that one, but I definitely had some sort of memorabilia with him on.

Can anybody remember more clearly?

Claretforever wrote: ↑

Wed Dec 07, 2022 6:15 pm

When I was a kid I seem to remember junior T-shirts etc with ‘Turfy’ on them, or it could have been Turfy the Turfite? A sort of mascot who I think was a bulldog?

The memory is vague on that one, but I definitely had some sort of memorabilia with him on.

Can anybody remember more clearly?

Turfy Topper

Honestly

Bulldog or mouse?