Barking Mad!*

A university frisbee team has been told to change its nickname to avoid offending mental health patients, it was revealed today.

The nickname must have been awful…

What was it? ‘The Screaming Spastics’? ‘The Winning Window-Lickers’..?

Staffordshire University's Ultimate Frisbee Club uses the name Mental Discs on a logo, which is printed on its kit.

But the university's Students' Union, which sponsors the club, has told the team to re-brand to avoid complaints.

Eh…? What on earth is offensive about that? Even by the usual standards of SUs, that’s going a wee bit too far.

Fiona Wood, president of the Students' Union, said: "Mental is a derogatory word and we are pre-empting any complaints because there are a few people unhappy with it.

"The club itself is happy to change its name. We are helping them out with the re-branding."

Well, isn’t that nice of you!

Team captain Lee Priest, a 20-year-old English literature student, told The Sentinel newspaper: "Mental Discs has been printed on our t-shirts for the past six years so we were amazed when the union requested we change it.

"We've never had any complaints. We respect people's opinions if they think it could be offensive, but we don't think it is."

You know, it’s possible to ‘respect people’s opinions’ and still keep your team nickname, Mr Priest. You simply refer them to the immortal words of Stephen Fry…

*apologies to any nutters offended by this post title.