• Hi Guest!

    The costs of running this forum are covered by Sea Lion Press. If you'd like to help support the company and the forum, visit patreon.com/sealionpress

Football PoDs and alternate possibilities.

Actually, thinking about it, you would see Rangers try undoubtedly. Queen's Park though might have been a stretch. They were against the formation of the Scottish League, never mind joining a British one.
 
British League, Scotland vote for independence in the 21st century, big controversary about whether there should be a new scottish league or if the current status quo should remain.

Can't risk losing the big Celtic-Liverpool derbies.
 
If there's a British league, wold we have one British national team or a similar setup to hockey (where a sole GB team does the Olympics, but the individual associations compete in Europe/World Cup?
 
If there's a British league, wold we have one British national team or a similar setup to hockey (where a sole GB team does the Olympics, but the individual associations compete in Europe/World Cup?

The international teams already existed prior to the formation of the leagues so possibly you'd still see the 4 teams even though there's only one league, though if there's a single FA, you imagine there will be pressure for a joint team.

I think the existence of the home nations matches possibly prevents that though. You'd probably need an earlier pivot towards the realisation that the Europeans and South Americans are overtaking the brits in the inter war years or the logic will always be that england-scotland is the big money spinner so why ruin that to beat spain 10-0.
 
In Very Minor PoD news, I was thinking earlier how much higher placed West Ham could be if Antonio hadn't been injured earlier in the season, forcing us to rely on Haller. Or if Haller could actually score goals in the Premier League.
 
In Very Minor PoD news, I was thinking earlier how much higher placed West Ham could be if Antonio hadn't been injured earlier in the season, forcing us to rely on Haller. Or if Haller could actually score goals in the Premier League.
If we're doing it based on clubs, I would simply have had us never be owned by Roland Duchâtelet.
 
This one's easy, Sunderland's scam of paying over the odds for straw and tarmac and then using the excess to pay their players illegal bonuses over the legal maximum wage isn't leaked to the Football League by a whistler blower and we don't get fined, have to sell our team and thus suffer our first ever relegation.

Instead we keep our unfair financial advantage and dominate english football like a dishonest colossus.
 
In terms of the formation of a British League, you just need to avoid the Scottish FA getting formed.

If for whatever reason the SFA is never formed, is it possible for the Football Association to effectively become FIFA but in the 1870s or is it more likely that it ends up as a British FA? In any case, how easy is it to avoid the creation of the SFA?

I think the existence of the home nations matches possibly prevents that though. You'd probably need an earlier pivot towards the realisation that the Europeans and South Americans are overtaking the brits in the inter war years or the logic will always be that england-scotland is the big money spinner so why ruin that to beat spain 10-0.

Is it possible to achieve this if WW1 is delayed or if the World Cup is brought forward, this time with British participation?
 
If there was a UK-wide league structure, how would Scottish teams outside of Celtic (or whatever TTL club was the big superteam there) fare in the top level?
 
If there was a UK-wide league structure, how would Scottish teams outside of Celtic (or whatever TTL club was the big superteam there) fare in the top level?
In terms of budget adjusted for TV money. Hibs, Hearts and Aberdeen would be upper Championship, lower Premier League.

Dundee United and Motherwell Championship. The rest of the Premiership League One. Except for Hamilton who somehow always survive relegation.
 
A slightly later POD I've always wanted to do something with is the Dick Kerr Ladies and the ban on women's football.

Essentially during WW1 and shortly afterwards, their were a series of charity exhibition games with the female workers of a preston factory, that included the first women's international game and were hugely popular.

On boxing day 1920, they played a game at Goodison Park, Liverpool that got 53,000 through the gates, when the average attendance at an everton home game was closer to 30,000. (To be fair, Everton did get 59,000 for the game on new years day so it was least partly a 'this is a bank holiday lets go the footie thing', you almost certainly wouldn't see those crowds on a non holiday).

Then in 1921, the FA said 'Complaints having been made as to football being played by women, Council felt impelled to express the strong opinion that the game of football is quite unsuitable for females and should not be encouraged.

Complaints have also been made as to the conditions under which some of the matches have been arranged and played, and the appropriation of receipts to other than charitable objects. The Council are further of the opinion that an excessive proportion of the receipts are absorbed in expenses and an inadequate percentage devoted to charitable objects.

For these reasons the Council requests the Clubs belonging to the Association refuse the use of their grounds for such matches.'


With no league clubs being able to host them, the dick kerr team, later renamed preston ladies, were unable to attract big crowds in the UK anymore, though they did still play in front of big crowds when touring USA and Canada. English woman's football never took off.

It's difficult to not look at the current dire state of woman's football in the uk, where crowds are normally less than 1,000 people and not think there's a big missed opportunity there given the genuine public interest about the exhibition matches.

I know previously @OwenM has suggested that if you move forward the football pools betting league a few years (otl, that was formed in 1923) you could see financial interests in favour of a second league which might lead to no ban. But well the Pools themselves were almost banned a bunch of times so they're probably not inclined to stick their neck out and there isn't really enough teams for the structure to be in place.
 
Quite a basic one, but changing the winners of certain seasons where they're separated by goal difference or a certain number of points could be fun (would also mean that Charlton would win the 1936/37 First Division ahead of the Woolwich Rejects which is all I can ask.)
 
Quite a basic one, but changing the winners of certain seasons where they're separated by goal difference or a certain number of points could be fun (would also mean that Charlton would win the 1936/37 First Division ahead of the Woolwich Rejects which is all I can ask.)
1923-24 springs to mind - if Cardiff manage to score against Birmingham or Huddersfield don't get their third on the last day of the season the league has a Welsh champion.
And 2012 of course.
 
1923-24 springs to mind - if Cardiff manage to score against Birmingham or Huddersfield don't get their third on the last day of the season the league has a Welsh champion.
And 2012 of course.
With Cardiff you just need the modern GD then Goals Scored, rather than GA
 
I assume somebody has already worked out who'd be the winners if the 2 point system for a win remained? How about if you do Magath's suggestion and give 0 points for any 0-0 draw?
 
Very boring call, so I got to to pre-WWII, looking for titles decided by less than 1 win, and then looking to see if there was a single result that could be flipped from a win to a draw (or vice versa) to change the champions

1902-03 - Aston Villa win instead of The Wednesday
1904-05 - Everton win instead of Newcastle
1910-11 - Aston Villa instead of Manchester United
1914-15 - Oldham instead of Everton
1923-24 - Cardiff instead of Huddersfield
1928-29 - Leicester instead of Sheffield Wednesday

1937-38 - Wolves instead of Arsenal

The three in bold are more interesting
 
Back
Top