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Comment here on this article about Teams That Never Were by @Pete U .
My immediate thought was Buck Bokai of the London Kings from TNG/DS9.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.
Likewise, but no way would the writers of Star Trek use Thames Valley.My immediate thought was Buck Bokai of the London Kings from TNG/DS9.
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.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)
As a Jambo (lived in Bruntsfield when I was a lad), Mercer's plan was never going to fly.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.
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.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.
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.
My observation/opinion is that mergers in the UK can happen at a lower level (outside of the league structure)
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.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.
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.
Cleveland will be the one I was thinking ofBesides 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.
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.