WI: United British Isles football team

What if the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland never had independent football teams and instead had a combined one? Imagine if the early England-Scotland games were instead UK-France ones. How much would this theoretically trivial matter actually contribute to British Isles based national identity?
 

Brunaburh

Gone Fishin'
A British Isles team after 1921 is unlikely, after 1949, near impossible. The Republic of Ireland would never take part in a combined team, supposing FIFA developed the same as OTL.

If we don't look too much at the how, and say that a combined Great Britain team evolved from a touring squad of all the home nations, and the home nations championship faded from importance. Well, one difference would be the UK team would have won more than one world cup between 1950 and 1986. At that point a combined UK team would have been the best in the World by some distance. Even later, players like Southall, Strachan, McAllister, Speed, Giggs, Ramsey and, of course, Bale would have considerably strengthened the UK squad. The Republic of Ireland would also be much stronger, as many more English, Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish OTL internationals who were eligible to play for them would be nowhere near selection for a GB team.

I suspect it would have strengthened UK identity to the extent that Scotland would never have had an independence vote TTL. Paradoxically, it may have led Irish Protestants to feel more Irish, as many of them may have opted to play for the Republic in order to play international football.
 
Internationals would take a lot longer to get off the ground as the home nations playing each other was very much the spur to the idea of national football teams
 
A politically united British Isles is certainly feasible post-1900, especially if Home Rule comes early enough. A unified sports team structure would certainly help to cement such a Union in the public eye, even if the Irish had some form of devolution. Nationality identity is formed through collective common experiences, so a united British Isles football team would create common victories, defeats, and rivalries (probably most in opposition to France) which all of the four nations could share.

It's amazing to think about how such a relatively small thing could actually have altered the political course of British history.
 
It could’ve contributed definelty as said previously. By having a United Kingdom team before Irish independence could help and even help keep irland in the union with some other butterflies eg no ww1 or waster rising. It may even have led to calls for one national league which would definitely help cement national unity through shared national experiences.
 

Brunaburh

Gone Fishin'
It could’ve contributed definelty as said previously. By having a United Kingdom team before Irish independence could help and even help keep irland in the union with some other butterflies eg no ww1 or waster rising. It may even have led to calls for one national league which would definitely help cement national unity through shared national experiences.

I doubt very much football was a significant factor at the time. In Ireland, the nationalist-minded played Gaelic Games, rugby was played by middle-class people of all types and cricket was played more by protestants, though still retained some of its Catholic following in the North-West and Dublin. Football was the game of working class Dublin and Belfast, important beyond their numbers, but marginal in Irish society.

A UK football team in 1900 will not even butterfly away the Easter Rising as it happened OTL 1 time in 10,000, and if it does it will be purely due to organisational factors. And I'm a butterfly extremist.
 
I doubt very much football was a significant factor at the time. In Ireland, the nationalist-minded played Gaelic Games, rugby was played by middle-class people of all types and cricket was played more by protestants, though still retained some of its Catholic following in the North-West and Dublin. Football was the game of working class Dublin and Belfast, important beyond their numbers, but marginal in Irish society.
I agree at the time football wasn’t a significant factor but as time goes on I believe it will increase. If by the 50s a joint UK team has won the World Cup with Irish players in then it will increase national unity and decrease calls for independence in the same way a joint UK team would decrease Scottish nationalism.

If Britain avoids ww1 which could happen in a world with a joint team (not because of it). Then HR happens which is a different kettle of fish but if the the ER happens Britain doesn’t have to respond as harshly meaning Irish nationalism doesn’t get a boost.
 

Brunaburh

Gone Fishin'
I agree at the time football wasn’t a significant factor but as time goes on I believe it will increase. If by the 50s a joint UK team has won the World Cup with Irish players in then it will increase national unity and decrease calls for independence in the same way a joint UK team would decrease Scottish nationalism.

If Britain avoids ww1 which could happen in a world with a joint team (not because of it). Then HR happens which is a different kettle of fish but if the the ER happens Britain doesn’t have to respond as harshly meaning Irish nationalism doesn’t get a boost.

The problem is that you need another POD that avoids the southern 3/4 of Ireland becoming independent for this to happen, and the football thing would be a footnote if that happened. Ireland was independent in 1921, and went about setting up its own FA quickly. The North actually inherited the Irish FA and two separate Ireland teams competed for a while. I can't personally see how Irish players playing in a GB team would really change anything there.

It's also worth remembering that sport was less important to national identity when we had regular bloody wars, and we couldn't watch it on TV.
 
The problem is that you need another POD that avoids the southern 3/4 of Ireland becoming independent for this to happen, and the football thing would be a footnote if that happened. Ireland was independent in 1921, and went about setting up its own FA quickly. The North actually inherited the Irish FA and two separate Ireland teams competed for a while. I can't personally see how Irish players playing in a GB team would really change anything there.

I don’t think you need a POD before WW1 to avoid Irish Independence. As time goes on a joint team will increase the sense of patriotism and loyalty felt to the team. If Irish players help the UK the win a World Cup then they will feel a increase patriotism and meaning they want to stay in the UK due to shared sense of identity. Also as this is in pre-1900 I’ll assume a POD then is more than significant to stop Irish independence.
 

Brunaburh

Gone Fishin'
Given that there is a united British and Irish football team (albeit not association football), why not?

Well, you need to get England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland to unite to play opponents prior to 1914, and have it as a tradition. England's first tour outside of the British Isles was in 1908, to Bohemia, Austria and Hungary, that was the only pre-war tour of any British team outside the isles AFAIK. There was already an established British & Irish rugby union team touring Australasia in the late 1880's.

There simply wasn't anybody good enough for a British team to play against pre-war, given the head start Britain had. Even in the '20's and 30's the figure of the "Mister", a British coach working abroad was familiar across the World, given Britain's technical advantage.
 
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