This has already been referred to, briefly, on the Corry Evans thread: http://uk.news.yahoo.com/gb-football-team-set-olympics-152619846.html Thoughts on the possible squad?
Great Britain & Northern Ireland (= one of our colonies) [Yep - I know it's '& Northern Ireland', but it's always included. It's why we sent squaddies there to fight the Taigs.]
Yeah, but Northern Ireland isn't part of Britain. It's part of the UK, yes, but we compete as Britain in the Olympics. Surely, then, NI shouldn't be included. It's false advertising!
You're right, O Norseman! It's officially 'The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland' * It's the Alzheimers, you know....
Lets face it most of the players will be from England! we might have Gareth Bale and a crazy Scots coach but mostly English players as the rest of the Scots, Welsh and Northern Irish are ****!
as far as i am concerned watching athletics is almost but not quite as interesting as watching tectonic plates on the off chance of a bit of movement so i dnot claim to be an expert. this disagrees with you about competing as Britain http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Britain_at_the_Olympics and mary peters might disagree as well.
**** me! Off we go again......So we're normally 'The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland'. Except when we're talking sport, whereupon 'Team GB' includes Northern Ireland. What a load of doggy doodoo!
Because it's lazy journalism reporting it as Team GB leading to it becoming the official 'nickname' due to the general ignorance of the population in not knowing the difference (those factors may need rearranging in that sentence for it to make sense). The athletics team championships at the weekend we were competing as Great Britain and Northern Ireland as we've done in most things. The issue you've got with the squad is you can rule out anyone that's involved in the senior squads that qualify for the Euros next summer because they'll be instructed to have a proper break. You can probably rule out any PL first teamers, and maybe Championship as well because of the timing of the tournament. Even worse in the case of the SPL which starts in July. Bale for example might express his interest now, but when it gets to next summer and he realises he'll be missing Spurs qualifiers for the Champions League and the opening games of the PL season do you think he'll be as keen or that Harry will let him be one of the 3 overage players? Clubs in Spain weren't happy with the Argentina squad last time and their season starts later than ours does.
The England cricket team plays under the name of The England and Wales Cricket Board, so hence why the Welsh can play for England.
I don't get why everyone goes on about this, and yet no one bats an eyelid when France (football) use players from Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Morocco, Egypt, Niger, Chad, Sudan, Nigeria, Angola, Botswana, Kenya, Tanzania, Somalia, Togo, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Senegal, Cameroon, Sao Tome and Principe, Comoros, Seychelles, Madagascar, Mauritius, Mauritania, Republic of Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic, South Africa, Lesotho, Swaziland, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Zambia, The Gambia, Sierra Leone, Burkina Faso, Rwanda, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Namibia, Liberia or Cape Verde...
