Going back to our hotel in Arras, France at the end of day circumambulating (I hardly ever get to use that word in everyday conversation!) a couple of the nearby squares, I noticed an unexpected addition to the large diamond that marked the Hotel Diamant, our "headquarters" during our time there:
See the white rectangle with the black shield shape on it there?
I have to assume that someone, probably someone fairly tall, had jumped up pretty high to place that sticker there, or they had borrowed a chair from a nearby café to stand on to do it.
In any event, looking closer to see what arms had been placed there, I was very much surprised to discover that it was from England!
It is the arms (well, okay, arms-like logo) of the Maidstone United Football Club of Maidstone, Kent, UK.
If I had to blazon the logo (which is also found at the top of the team's website at http://www.maidstoneunited.co.uk/), I'd make it: Sable a fess wavy between three footballs* or on a chief sable a lion passant also or, the whole surmounted by the letters M U F C in gold on a black background.
Whatever the arguments that may be made as to how well - or not - the design follows good heraldic practice, it was most certainly not something that I would have expected to see in northeastern France.
* Over here in a America we would call these "soccer balls," since American "footballs" aren't round, but more like a pointed oval. Indeed, some have suggested that we in the U.S. should change the name of the sport to better align some of these differences with reality:
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