No!!! Stop it, stop it now!!!! Bad idea.

This has been brought up before and quite rightly rejected. Consign it to the dustbin of bad ideas.

Bad idea. Bad.

Too many good players. The English do have a great (full) team now, with a lot of them not yet at their peak. To include players from the other teams, who would have to be dropped? And can you imagine the grief if one country didn't get any players included one year?

Okay, that first bit sounded quite bad Basically just meaning that the team would *probably* consist of mostly English players, but it came out all wrong.

You get what I mean - the Managers job would be a nightmare!

Leave it alone - if one nation loses, we can cheer the others on. I know I cheered my butt off for Ireland last weekend

no! wrong! stop! now!

I agree with Red. Wales has all but disappeared as an international standard team anyway. This would make it worse.

If there was a British national team, it would basically not include any Welsh or Scottish players. So come the major tournaments it would leave Welsh and Scottish fans with the feeling that no-one was representing them, and they would be left to supporting whichever teams were playing against the only representatives of Great Britain. So just like now then!

it might be a goiod i dea but it would never work because of the history and hatred between the nations. plus it would only be the england team plus Ryan giggs!! cos all england need is a proper left midfielder and he is god!!

In theory this would be a very good thing. Uniting people under a common banner and all that. However, with the current levels of national fervour in all the countries that reside under the label 'United Kingdom' it would be impossible to do because no-one would support it.

Excellent idea, but rather impractical

Now what we should do is have an Earth squad and play the Aliens when they come to visit

Not a good idea. On the contrary, Take down the Union Jack, it clashes with the sunset, and put it in the attic with the emperor's old clothes...

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by Maffrew
Now what we should do is have an Earth squad and play the Aliens when they come to visit

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No, that would still be divisive. What we should have is a Universe football team. All the fans would be united under a common banner so there'd be no violence. There'd be no football either, but some of us might say that was a good thing

Seriously, I've always wondered why there isn't a UK team, and why there are separate Welsh, Scottish and NI leagues. I think it probably reflects the lack of real unity in the United Kingdom. Even where we do have a UK team (ie the Olympics) the media persist in identifying participants by which country of the UK they hail from (and of course, they may be the UK's darlings when they win, but we'll send them straight back to being Scottish when they've taken banned Lemsip )

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by Jango (with credit to Billy Bragg)
Take down the Union Jack, it clashes with the sunset, and put it in the attic with the emperor's old clothes...

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Well, so does the George Cross...

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by White Hart
Seriously, I've always wondered why there isn't a UK team, and why there are separate Welsh, Scottish and NI leagues.

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One of the main reasons why this is so is that seperate leagues and federations mean lots of "important" positions for lots of people. So the bureaucrats in the various associations are never going to encourage such ideas, as one federation would mean only one voice in the European and Global federations, effectively many of them by promoting such an idea would be talking themselves out of jobs.

Historically, the only national teams were in the UK (first International match was England vs Scotland), and the reason we still have separate federations today is part tradition, part bureaucratic self-preservation. Please also note that we do not have an entry in the Olympics for a football team because of the existence of four independent federations.

As for the question, I'm not as violently opposed to a UK team (and you did mean Northern Ireland, didn't you Milky?) as some, but I don't see a problem with the current set-up, so why change it? Separate federations stop the largest populace (English) from excluding the rest, and it ensures the game is of interest to all regions of the country and works just fine.

Why fix something that isn't broke?

No No and NO!!!!!!!!!!! just cos some of them are getting nowhere, except ireland.
Besides its more special to get there by yourself. Look how far ireland got, and they are improving. Would they have got that sort of reception on their return if they were part of a british team, probably not, cos there would only be a couple of irish players in the team. Come on think about it, picking 23 players from 4 countries, it just wouldn't work.


(Edited by GothBoy 23/06/2002 20:34)

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by Samuel L. Jackson in Die Hard 3
Bad Idea! Bad Idea!

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That pretty much says it all I think. As said in posts above picking 23 players from a group of 4 'nations' would be impossible.

Yeah I agree Ethan, can see it now. Majority of the team: the English team and a few Irish and maybe a couple Scottish.

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by lizzieslayer
...and maybe a couple Scottish.

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That many??

How did Ireland get involved in this?

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by Whistler
(quotes)

That many??

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Some ickle boy is looking for a slapping next time I see him

And to clarify it ain't Ireland that are involved but Northern Ireland.