A cycle of teams every season brings new faces and new personalities to Sundays Esport. Some players did their talking on the pitch, others routinely stirred the pot in the Discord server. These are some of the untold stories of our three+ year history, split into categories.
Around the Arenas
Bizarre Branding
Worthylads, a roster that participated in S3 & S4 Elite, had a name inspired by HiLo Worthy - as he was initially slated to join Worthylads before ultimately deciding on Team Rocket. Curiously, the name stuck despite HiLo's absence.
The Season 3 Elite Tier briefly contained the league's most unpronounceable team name - Sdferlkgujh, with an abbreviation of [THEY].
The Poops once inspired a three team "PoOrg" that participated simultaneously in Season 6, as they were joined by The Turds at Challenger Tier level, and Craps on Fire at Development Tier level. The Poops had no ties to the members of either of their fellow rosters prior to the season, but logos synonymous with the Poops brand were brought to life by former admin IggyIggz to make the odd unity happen.
Platoon. Has a RS logo ever induced more fear?
Clown Fiesta were an appropriately named, moderately successful Season 7 Master Tier team - in every game they played, they used Mercs and clown wig toppers that matched their colorful branding.
Another aptly named team, The Gizmos took part in S6 Foundation, and accounted for a majority of Gizmo car usage in RS history. Unfortunately it didn't do them any good, as the team went all season without collecting a point. As a result, stats dictate that your chances of winning an RS game if you use the Gizmo are a woeful 15%.
The Demo Doms were a team entirely created for their namesake - demoing Djdominic, long-time Hose Before Bros player. They defeated HBB 3-1 on the final matchday of Season 7 Elite Ruby to consign their brief rivals to bottom spot; and true to their word, Dom was demoed eight times in the match.
Season 8 saw Star Wars prequel memes infiltrate the Sundays community, as Ascension members Chucho and Cheri signed up as The High Ground and Underestimated Power respectively, mimicing the famous dialogue between Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker in Episode III. Underestimated Power won their Elite Scarlet head-to-head matchup 3-0.
By the Numbers
1 - The number of individual games that Penta Juniors lost en route to capturing the Season 9 league championship, in the most dominant season the competition has ever witnessed.
4 - The number of goals per game that Wyffindor's Virgabomb managed to score in an astounding S3 Foundation Tier campaign.
7 - The number of goals scored by Bawbags in Game 2 of a Season 8 Elite fixture against eventual champions Ferrari's First. BAWS lost the game 8-7, setting the unwanted RS record for most goals scored in a single game by a losing team.
8 - The RS record number of demos taken by TC's Pifcp in a single S10 Master Qualifiers game against Beardbois.
10 - The current RS record for goals in a single game by one player, joint-held by The Driving Trouser (in a S7 12-2 win vs Beansports) and T406 (in a S11 14-0 win vs Bavarian Kickers).
11 - The current RS record for saves in a single game by one player, joint-held by Azazel (in a S7 loss vs Hardly Athletic) and Gforcedev (in a S11 loss vs Old Farts Club).
23 - The record number of points accumulated by two RSX teams that missed their respective tier's playoffs; CODE4 in Elite Ruby, and Ascension Cupid in Challenger Cobalt.
24 - The unenviable losing streak that made Drop Table League the first team in RS history to go an entire season without collecting any points, in Season 2.
230 - The number of logged games played by PMKU's Quiver in the S6-11 Expansion Era, the most of any RS player.
711 - The number of Ballchasing replay files hosted by the Sundaybot for Season 7 of Rocket Sundays; the highest total of any season to date.
1641 - The current RS record for points in a single game by one player, held by Yapsinho, achieved in a S9 4-3 OT win vs Pro AM United.
9703 - The number of times an Octane has taken to the field for a Rocket Sundays game in the S6-11 Expansion Era, almost seven thousand games clear of the Fennec in 2nd place.
End of an Era
Season 1 | Rocket Sundays was founded in October 2018 by five teams that shared a PS4 group chat. The Discord server was only founded midway through Season 1 - until that point, scheduling discussion only took place within the PSN chat. Stat tracking in Rocket Sundays dates back to the league's very first season, and Clay's meticulously managed spreadsheet - it contained Power Rankings rated on a 1-100 scale, a feature that would one day inspire the Sundays Packs formula. |
Season 2 | Produced the first unbeaten side in RS history, as Savile's Army dropped just four games en route to a perfect 10-0 record and their second consecutive league championship. |
Season 3 | An expansion from 12 to 22 participating rosters, and was the first to utilize a divisional system, featuring Elite, Challenger, Development and Foundation Tiers. |
Season 4 | A permanent change to presentation - the first RS season to use Toornament to display league standings, as well as being the first to include logos attached to teams. Team Rocket swept Calculated 4-0 in the first edition of the now-traditional season ending Grand Finals. |
Season 5 | The first season of Rocket Sundays where rosters began to submit their own logos, replacing the stock logo that had been assigned to all teams the previous season. |
Season 6 | The beginning of the Expansion Era, as wholesale changes shaped the community that exists today. The Master Tier became the league's new premier tier as the competition grew from 24 to 52 teams. The SundayBot was introduced, with the first reported match being Twin Esports 3-2 Calculated in Elite Ruby. |
Peculiar People
 | Aarontair | As the league's founder and sole ever-present player across the competition's eleven seasons, Aarontair has played for an astonishing eight teams in that time - Lallanas in Pyjamas, Titanium, Default Dancers, AZA, Ninja Cupcakes, Team Yeasty, Barnyard Boys and Fighting Mongooses. |
 | Aartappel | Signup forms for Rocket Sundays allow players to submit relevant smurf/alt accounts - Ootje's Aartappel may have taken it a tad overboard when they included 17 alt accounts in their name in OOT's signup for Season 10! |
 | ActiveJY1 | Roster changes per season were capped as a result of the antics caused by S6 Challenger Azure side DRK Freestylers. Their captain, ActiveJY1, went through five different teammates in just seven completed matches. |
 | DarthStanny | BNH's DarthStanny earned his "GrandChampKiller" nickname after his team inflicted a 3-1 defeat on eventual champions Glasgow Storm in an unprecedented upset from the Season 5 Elite Tier. In honor of the event, 'GCK' is set to become a Rare Variant in the Sundays Packs Revival. |
 | Doomato | Doomato is the only player in RS history to win a tier whilst playing for the losing side, prompting a rule change preventing movement within a single tier. Doom was a No Ragurds player initially, but went on loan to Ireland's Call after one of their players went missing midseason. |
 | Elik | 4Fun's Elik took an unusual jump that hasn't been replicated since, as they went from S7 Development into S8 Elite. The team's original star player, Zonky, signed up with a separate roster in Season 7 and then returned for the following campaign. |
 | Gutbuster | SundayBot developer Gutbuster has completed seven full campaigns at Elite Tier level between Seasons 3 and 10 for Calculated/Old Men Yelling (the exception being a Master Tier appearance in S8) - the most seasons any RS player has played in one tier. |
 | Monsieur Bob | An Orionis Venaetores player for the duration of the team's existence in S6 and S7 Development, Monsieur Bob exclusively used the Proteus car in their RS games. |
 | NunoBrios | Captain of S7 Challenger Azure team NVT eSports, NunoBrios was the first (and to date, the highest seeded) Nintendo Switch player in RS history. |
 | Pong | Created by former Ping team captain Reido, Pong was a spinoff roster with new member Spoozy intended to combat the original team in S9 Development - but both rosters dropped out of RS before they even faced each other. |
 | Team Pie | S7 Foundation Tier participants Team Pie are the only known RS players to date to hail from Mexico. It's not recommended for an EU based league! |
 | Wayward Son | Captain of S3 Foundation strugglers Dino Bar & Grill, Wayward Son set a unique record unlikely to be matched - a 100% goal participation rate, either scoring or assisting on all 14 of the goals the team managed in the entire season. |
If you made it this far through the post, congratulations! You're now well-educated in random Rocket Sundays lore. There's a lot more to cover, so I might even turn this format into a series - if you have any tidbits from your RS experience that you'd want to see included in a second post, DM me with the details!
The East Anglian Derby S8 Challenger 🙃