Premier League fans in the UK, and in particular, Arsenal fans, will recognise the tall green dinosaur below as “Gunnersaurus,” the North London football club team mascot since 1994. He drives around in open cars, observes the minute of silence, and does all the things a soccer mascot does.
Gunnersaurus was created during the 93-94 season when the club ran a youth-oriented contest to design a new mascot. Eleven year old, Peter Lovell, got the thrill of his young life when he learned that he had won the contest. “Being 11 years old and designing a Premier League mascot gave me real self-affirmation,” Peter later said.
A giant green dinosaur, however, wasn’t always Arsenal’s mascot. In 1936, Arsenal’s team mascot was a Bullmastiff (then spelled “bull-mastiff”) named “Gunner,” whom you see in the photo below at Highbury, London.
We could find virtually no information on Gunnar, and we’ll keep trying to tease out the story behind him, but Gunnar was by no means the only Bullmastiff mascot for a football team – that is if you remember that in the UK, football is the name for the sport we call soccer.
“Real” football (grin) – the kind that’s played in the USA – had a 145 pound Bullmastiff mascot serving the Cleveland Browns. “Swagger” was first introduced by the team in 2014 and made regular appearances leading the team through the FirstEnergy Stadium tunnel before every home game. Owned by Fred and Debby McLaughlin, Swagger was made “Dawg Pound Captain in his final game with the Browns before retiring.
Sadly, Swagger passed away this past February after battling cancer. His was succeeded in his NFL duties by his son, SJ, in the middle of last season. The team welcomed SJ with the video below (a little corny in places), but it’s nice to see the breed get attention: