Introduction

Continental Europeans will have become aware through football matches, if through nothing else, that Great Britain is a multinational state.’1 That was how, some years ago, a German historian began a study of the Scottish Wars of Independence. We, too, find that the world of sport offers a good way of introducing the complexities and anomalies of the relationship between the United Kingdom as a unitary state on the one hand, and England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland on the other. For instance, with association football, every sovereign state has its own ‘national team’, except for the United Kingdom, which has four: a source of much irritation elsewhere. Until recently, most Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish footballers of international status belonged to English clubs; but, nowadays, new European rulings mean that such players count as foreigners in England. With rugby union, too, the four ‘Home Nations’ are separate, each on a par with France in the Five Nations’ Championshipbut, in rugby, Ireland comprises both Northern Ireland and the separately sovereign Republic of Ireland. Rugby league, in contrast, has a Great Britain side-which invariably plays its home internationals in England. With cricket, on the other hand, the UK equals England; if Scotland, Wales and Ireland produce high-quality players, they go on to represent England (as an Australianborn cricketer did recently, by virtue of his Northern Irish grandmother). With other sports, such as athletics or swimming, there are English, Scottish, Irish and Welsh teams for internal UK competitions, but one United Kingdom team for international competitions. In sport, the concept of the UK is a veritable enigma.