Tuesday 26 August 2008

Team UK

If it must be Team Anything.

A single British football team for London in 2012? I can't see why not. Regular readers will be aware of my distinct scepticism about the cultural importance of professional football, but amateurs and professionals alike need to face the fact that not only does the rest of the world find it completely incomprehensible that we get to enter four teams, but we are in any case increasingly unlikely to enter any of them in practice.

As soon as the Americans, and various hugely populous African and Asian countries, started to take international football seriously, then so much as future qualification for the World Cup (in particular) became impossible for England eventually, and for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland immediately. Indeed, even England cannot any longer guarantee qualification for the European Championship.

Which would be fine by me, if total British non-qualification meant total British non-televisation. But if for some reason you do not take this view, then "Team UK" (if you must) offers the only hope, whether at amateur or at professional level.

2 comments:

  1. "A single British football team for London in 2012? I can't see why not."

    Because the SFA, WFA and NIFA say no, that is why not.

    The Tartan Army says no.

    Alex Ferguson thinks it has a snowball's chance in hell of coming about.

    Even the Scottish editor of the Daily Telegraph Alan Cochrane is apoplectic at the idea-

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2008/08/25/do2506.xml

    (And he hates the Scottish Parliament and the SNP more than you do!)

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  2. Then look forward to never so much as qualifying for anything, never mind winning it, ever again.

    People will um and ah about this until it actually happens. But not a moment longer.

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