Talk:1949–50 British Home Championship

Ireland teams

Hi Jackyd 101, The history of Irish football between the 1920s and 1950s is very confusing and you are not the first and will not be the last to get mixed up. I have done the same in the past but have researched the subject and have found some answers. Here is a timeline that might help you.

• 1882 to 1924: Ireland is represented by a single football team, Ireland national football team (IFA), selected by the Belfast based Irish Football Association.
• 1921: With the emergence of the Irish Free State, the Dublin based Football Association of Ireland is formed and it initially claimed jurisdiction over all of Ireland.
• 1923: The FAI applies to join FIFA but is admitted as a representative of the Free State only and drops its claims to be an all-Ireland body.
• 1924 to 1936: The FAI organises the Irish Free State national football team selecting players just from the Free State.
• 1924 to 1950: The IFA continues to select the Ireland national football team (IFA) selecting players from throughout the island and continues to refer to the team as Ireland.
• 1936 to 1950: The FAI also begins to call their team Ireland and in 1937 after the introduction of the Constitution of Ireland, and in particular Articles 2 and 3 which declared that the whole of Ireland formed one "national territory", the FAI also began to select players born in Northern Ireland.
• 1949-1950: Both Ireland teams enter the qualifying rounds of the 1950 World Cup. This was the first time the two teams had competed in the same competition. Four players - Tom Aherne, Reg Ryan, Davy Walsh and Con Martin - actually found themselves playing for two different national teams in the same competition. FIFA intervened and decreed that for future World Cups, the IFA team would compete as Northern Ireland, while the FAI team would be officially known as the Republic of Ireland.

Many books and statistical records, including the one you are using, have simply just back dated the names Northern Ireland and Republic of Ireland and have incorrectly applied them to the teams selected by the IFA and FAI. I can only guess that this is done to help the reader know which team the stats refer to without giving a full explanation. In reality these teams were both all-Ireland teams. As late as 1946 the IFA selected a team featuring seven players from the Republic of Ireland and between 1924 and 1950 at least 37 players turned out for both Ireland teams. This list [1] features 35 of them. The other two are Edwin Brooks and Kevin O'Flanagan. This bio of Tom Aherne [2] also shows that he played for the IFA XI against Wales in 1950. The Ryan is a good source for this issue. You would have though that FIFA would have anticipated this problem before the two teams played in the same competition but in reality they did’nt do anything until afterwards.

Regarding the 1914 British Home Championship, the original version contained some historical errors and a lot of waffle. I have no issue with the extra para you have added to the 1950 British Home Championship, but the table and list of results already clarifies the progress of the tournament. The text I have added just explains events beyond the scope of stats. Djln --Djln 15:56, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

Possible Case for Merger

Should these the articles 1950 FIFA World Cup qualification (UEFA - Group 1) and 1950 British Home Championship be merged ? Both articles are about the same set of games with the 1950 BHC doubling up as a 1950 World Cup group. I never nominated articles for merger before, so I’m not aware off procedure. Djln--Djln (talk) 19:03, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Agreed - they clearly cover the same ground. If the consensus agrees, I suggest that the articles are merged at 1950 British Home Championship, with the other page becoming a re-direct. --Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 19:07, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. Definitely the correct course of action. – PeeJay 19:14, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Also agreed with Daemonic Kangaroo that they should be merged to 1950 British Home Championship being the annual competition.♦Tangerines♦·Talk 19:19, 9 June 2008 (UTC)