Sport and Alternate History. Part 5: Mergers

[David Flin]

Comment here on this article about Teams That Never Were by @Pete U .

 

[RyanF]

Thames Valley Royals sounds like the controversial amateur baseball team that's the focus of an episode of Inspector Morse in a TL where ITV are desperate to sell the program to the US market.

 

[Thande]

Thames Valley Royals sounds like the controversial amateur baseball team that's the focus of an episode of Inspector Morse in a TL where ITV are desperate to sell the program to the US market.

My immediate thought was Buck Bokai of the London Kings from TNG/DS9.

 

[RyanF]

My immediate thought was Buck Bokai of the London Kings from TNG/DS9.

Likewise, but no way would the writers of Star Trek use Thames Valley.

 

[Pete U]

I didn't really dig into the Thames Valley Royals because that was major news at the time, so it popped straight into my head when I was thinking about the article. The same for the Hearts/Hibs proposal.

I do think that if the Royals had gone through, we may well have seen others, the 1980s were not a happy time for football (especially in England)

 

[RyanF]

I do think that if the Royals had gone through, we may well have seen others, the 1980s were not a happy time for football (especially in England)

On the other hand, might be enough controversy that no one dare try it again like MK Dons and franchise football. Leaving the Thames Valley Royale w/ Cheese this weird oddity.

As to the Edinburgh merger, there are still fans so opposed to the merger of Inverness Thistle and Caledonian in 1994 that they refuse to recognise the new team. Imagine that, on a bigger scale, with a tinge of Sectarianism, and with an explicit purpose of challenging the dominance of the Old Firm year after year.

 

[Pete U]

On the other hand, might be enough controversy that no one dare try it again like MK Dons and franchise football. Leaving the Thames Valley Royale w/ Cheese this weird oddity.

As to the Edinburgh merger, there are still fans so opposed to the merger of Inverness Thistle and Caledonian in 1994 that they refuse to recognise the new team. Imagine that, on a bigger scale, with a tinge of Sectarianism, and with an explicit purpose of challenging the dominance of the Old Firm year after year.

As a Jambo (lived in Bruntsfield when I was a lad), Mercer's plan was never going to fly.

My observation/opinion is that mergers in the UK can happen at a lower level (outside of the league structure), although there will always be holdouts (ICT is a case in point). But the track record is not great - ICT stand out as a success story.

There's probably more to explore in a world where mergers do happen, although I think you are right - the backlash around Thames Valley would have been similar to that for MK.

 

[MachiavelliJr]

As a Jambo (lived in Bruntsfield when I was a lad), Mercer's plan was never going to fly.

My observation/opinion is that mergers in the UK can happen at a lower level (outside of the league structure), although there will always be holdouts (ICT is a case in point). But the track record is not great - ICT stand out as a success story.

There's probably more to explore in a world where mergers do happen, although I think you are right - the backlash around Thames Valley would have been similar to that for MK.

Yeah I tend to agree that the Thames Valley backlash would have been TTL's MK Dons, and killed off the idea of mergers/franchises for years to come.
Oxford City Council tried to bribe Maxwell to back down with a promise of a new stadium at Seacourt or Botley (apparently "on a site owned by the Co-Op" though I'm not sure exactly where; the old Co-Op site behind Elms Parade wouldn't fit so I assume either where the west end of the shopping park is, or the current Park & Ride), which would have been wonderful for the club and city - as close as you can get to a proper town-centre stadium, almost next to the station, modern facilities etc. 40 years later they're maybe, possibly, going to build an equivalent between Oxford and Kidlington.

 

[Stateless]

Wimbledon were nearly merged plenty of times - with Milton Keynes City about 1980 when Ron Noades purchased the Buckinghamshire club for a pound; with Crystal Palace after Ron Noades bought them; and with QPR when QPR were about to go bust and Wimbledon were being kicked out of Selhurst Park by...Ron Noades.

 

[Stateless]

Wimbledon were nearly merged plenty of times - with Milton Keynes City about 1980 when Ron Noades purchased the Buckinghamshire club for a pound; with Crystal Palace after Ron Noades bought them; and with QPR when QPR were about to go bust and Wimbledon were being kicked out of Selhurst Park by...Ron Noades.

This is a generous meaning of 'nearly', of course.

 

[Coiler]

My observation/opinion is that mergers in the UK can happen at a lower level (outside of the league structure)

They're basically impossible at the US major league level too. The WW2 NFL hybrid teams were just a desperate expedient due to lack of players (and they were terrible) and nothing like it has been remotely proposed or considered since.

With any top down franchise ownership, the mental and legal obstacles may be different than across the Atlantic but the final difficulties are the same.

The closest example I can think of was a plan by MLB to contract the Minnesota Twins and Montreal Expos baseball teams in the early 2000s, but even that was really just a hollow negotiation ploy that likely wouldn't have gone through.

 

[OwenM]

ISTR another early proposed merger was Woolwich Arsenal merging with Fulham to form London FC, due to their sharing directors.
Arsenal moving across London of course led to some rules against that kind of thing that would then be disregarded for Wimbledon - we might see a similar thing here.
Elsewhere Yokohama Flugels merged into the Yokohama (F) Marinos in Japan around 2000 I think, but most of the fans instead formed Yokohama FC.
Whilst in other sports I think there was an attempted merger of Parisian rugby union sides early post-professionalism called off due to protests (@Redolegna?) and of course the Welsh and Scottish systems basically did it successfully ..... for very given values of successful, anyway.

They're basically impossible at the US major league level too. The WW2 NFL hybrid teams were just a desperate expedient due to lack of players (and they were terrible) and nothing like it has been remotely proposed or considered since.

With any top down franchise ownership, the mental and legal obstacles may be different than across the Atlantic but the final difficulties are the same.

The closest example I can think of was a plan by MLB to contract the Minnesota Twins and Montreal Expos baseball teams in the early 2000s, but even that was really just a hollow negotiation ploy that likely wouldn't have gone through.

IIRC there was another early days case in the 1890s National League (another one where they already had the same owners?), but as has been said that's a bit different.

 

[Coiler]

IIRC there was another early days case in the 1890s National League (another one where they already had the same owners?), but as has been said that's a bit different.

Besides teams being a lot more fluid, it wasn't a merger so much as a parasitical conflict of interest where one team used another as a source of players. The most famous example is the 1899 Cleveland Spiders being owned by the same people as the St. Louis club (which is now the Cardinals), where because St. Louis was a bigger market, Cleveland got strip-mined of any players with talent, resulting in the statistically worst MLB team ever.

4 NL teams contracted after that year (the last in MLB history).... and then the American League started up, taking many of them back and leading to the World Series era that has endured ever since. While multiple ownership was formally banned, in practice the 1950s Kansas City A's (which were terrible) had a reputation for basically being a "Quadruple A" farm team for the Yankees, where any good player such as home run champion Roger Maris would get "traded" to the Yankees in a lopsided deal once he proved himself against major league opponents.

 

[Space Oddity]

They're basically impossible at the US major league level too. The WW2 NFL hybrid teams were just a desperate expedient due to lack of players (and they were terrible) and nothing like it has been remotely proposed or considered since.

With any top down franchise ownership, the mental and legal obstacles may be different than across the Atlantic but the final difficulties are the same.

The closest example I can think of was a plan by MLB to contract the Minnesota Twins and Montreal Expos baseball teams in the early 2000s, but even that was really just a hollow negotiation ploy that likely wouldn't have gone through.

The only merger from that era that lasted was the Boston Yanks and the Brooklyn Tigers (formerly the Brooklyn Dodgers), and that was because they were a perennial bottom-dweller and a new franchise that showed every sign of becoming a perennial bottom-dweller, AND Brooklyn's owner joined the upstart AAFC league and so was stripped of his NFL franchise rights.

And the Yanks moved to New York in 1949, and folded after 1951.

 

[OwenM]

Besides teams being a lot more fluid, it wasn't a merger so much as a parasitical conflict of interest where one team used another as a source of players. The most famous example is the 1899 Cleveland Spiders being owned by the same people as the St. Louis club (which is now the Cardinals), where because St. Louis was a bigger market, Cleveland got strip-mined of any players with talent, resulting in the statistically worst MLB team ever.

4 NL teams contracted after that year (the last in MLB history).... and then the American League started up, taking many of them back and leading to the World Series era that has endured ever since. While multiple ownership was formally banned, in practice the 1950s Kansas City A's (which were terrible) had a reputation for basically being a "Quadruple A" farm team for the Yankees, where any good player such as home run champion Roger Maris would get "traded" to the Yankees in a lopsided deal once he proved himself against major league opponents.

Cleveland will be the one I was thinking of

 

[Space Oddity]

Besides teams being a lot more fluid, it wasn't a merger so much as a parasitical conflict of interest where one team used another as a source of players. The most famous example is the 1899 Cleveland Spiders being owned by the same people as the St. Louis club (which is now the Cardinals), where because St. Louis was a bigger market, Cleveland got strip-mined of any players with talent, resulting in the statistically worst MLB team ever.

4 NL teams contracted after that year (the last in MLB history).... and then the American League started up, taking many of them back and leading to the World Series era that has endured ever since. While multiple ownership was formally banned, in practice the 1950s Kansas City A's (which were terrible) had a reputation for basically being a "Quadruple A" farm team for the Yankees, where any good player such as home run champion Roger Maris would get "traded" to the Yankees in a lopsided deal once he proved himself against major league opponents.

Fun fact--the 1899 Spiders are not only one of the worst teams of all time, the worst in many categories, but they possess one crap record that will never be taken from them--most Away games lost in a season. That number (101) will never be equaled, because the team only played 42 home games to 122 road games, instead of a 50/50 split. And that was because nobody wanted to play at Cleveland because attendance was horrible, and well, they were a lot more fluid about those things in those days.