Alan Pattullo: It's time to bring Home Nations in from the cold

Published on Friday 14 January 2011 16:12

It isn't easy to dismiss a tournament which enjoyed a near 100 year run. Talk of the return of the Home International Championships - even if only for a sponsor-motivated one year trial period - should be applauded, as we approach, with a sense that something is missing, the start of the inaugural Carling Nations Cup next month.

As a test bed, this Dublin-based series of challenge matches between Scotland, Wales, Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland could be of some worth. However, what we really want to see is the full-fat version of something which once did a pretty good job of keeping British football fans entertained. Absence might have made the heart grow fonder, and it's true that, by the time it ceased to be in 1983-84, weakened teams and an ever-present threat of hooliganism had severely dented the competition's reputation.

One of the arguments supporting the tournament's abolition was that it held back the progress of the British teams, who, intent on kicking lumps out of each other in an orgy of tribal rivalry, were failing to absorb the lessons learned from playing continental opposition. Well, this has meant to have been happening now for near-on 20 years, and it hasn't appeared to have made a blind bit of difference.

Wales have still not qualified for a major finals, and Northern Ireland haven't done so since 1986. England seem to be going backwards if anything, while Scotland have wound up playing the likes of Lithuania and the Faroe Isles on a depressingly regular basis. The Scottish Football Association should be open to any idea that involves resurrecting a fixture against the Auld Enemy, with so little else to excite Scottish football fans left punch-drunk by endless off-field sagas of late.

The original tournament was probably put in cold storage at the right time, with the British game then facing other challenges. And it might have been preferable if the impetus behind its possible return had come from somewhere other than a car manufacturer, with Vauxhall providing the drive. But we should welcome the tournament back. What's a broken crossbar between friends?