Professional Quidditch

[Goddlefrood]

No: HPFGUIDX 183845

> > > Erin:
> > > In the book (QttA), it lists 13 teams in Britain/Ireland 
> > > league. So how did it get to be just Ireland that went to 
> > > the World Cup?

> > Goddlefrood:
> > <snip>
> > National teams are different from club sides.

> Erin:
> Could be...but I was thinking that they take the best players 
> from each league...so wouldn't there be a mixture of players 
> from Britain/Ireland?  Of course, this is assuming that 
> national teams are not just club teams who won their season 
> league title...

Goddlefrood:

Once upon a time I sat on a plane next to a doctor from the 
New England region of America. This man, being a doctor, had 
achieved what I could only suppose was an advanced level of 
eduction. He was waxing lyrical about the beauties of the 
English countryside in particular, but also about the wilds 
of Scotland (he'd been to somewhere called E din burg). He 
was firmly convinced that Britain (as he named it) was a 
continent on its own and had nothing to do with Europe. I 
inquired whether he was serious, and a little discussion was 
had, a discussion that failed to convince our hero from Boston 
that Britain (his term) was not a separate continent, but part 
and parcel of the continent of Europe. There are no terctonic 
plates in either the North Sea or the English Channel, unless 
same are undiscovered.

It's surprising what occasional gems such as these one comes 
across.

I just like that story, but what has it to do, you may 
ask, with the matter at hand? Well, not a lot, to be sure; 
however, I know for a cast iron certainty that the Chudleigh 
Cannons and the other 12 members of the Quidditch League of 
what should correctly be named as the British Isles (seeing 
as the Republic of Ireland is implicitly included), are most 
emphatically not national teams. England, Wales, Scotland, 
Northern Ireland and Ireland (correctly the Republic of 
Ireland) are national teams. Scotland were, iirc from an 
interview or possibly from GoF itself, beaten in an early 
round. The other three national sides named (if they 
participate on similar lines to in football (that's 
soccer for the uninitiated)) were probably eliminated in 
preliminary or qualifying rounds not mentioned.

Goddlefrood, not expecting the Boston Red Sox to turn out
for the Olympics on behalf of the US, or whoever is the 
current World (a paper) series champion (Yankees was it?)