Magpies - Maggies - Pies

[Fan of Big Tone]

How many on here are old enough to remember when we used to call Notts "the Maggies"? People used to say "are you going down to see the Maggies tonight?", I wonder when it changed to "The Pies", I can't remember suddenly one day starting saying "Come on you Pies", it must have been a gradual thing I suppose. I don't think we said "Come on you Maggies", it was more "Up the Maggies" and before that "Up the Magpies". I suppose "Come on You Maggies" or "Come on you Magpies" is a bit long winded hence shortened to Pies.

A common chant in the days of wooden rattles was 2-4-6-8 who do we appreciate C_O_U_N_T_Y, COUNTY! 

Anyone else remember those days?

[Chris]

It tends to follow other clubs, it's like this 'All Notts Aren't We'. A lot of our chants come from other clubs, but that's football in general. My grandfather used various terms to talk about Notts, but he did call us Maggies.

[DangerousSausage]

It's been "pies" since I've been going @Fan of Big Tone. I always thought it was just convenient, as the "come on you xxx" chant only works with one syllable. I looked up the origin of the word and it's an interesting rabbit hole.

Apparently the word "pie" has been used for the black and white birds since medieval times and predates "magpie" by several centuries (the "mag" prefix is said to come from Margaret - "maggie pie"). The baked product might be named after it too, as magpies pick up lots of random objects, and baked pies contain lots of random things. So "pie" is actually an earlier form of the word "magpie". There you go, impress/bore your friends at the pub with that one

More reading: https://www.etymonline.com/word/pie

[Fan of Big Tone]

Thanks @DangerousSausage that’s really interesting, it’s strange how these words come about.