Named and shamed

Alright. Can't avoid it any longer.

I am writing this from Manchester, North of England, where those with  medium-sized memories recall the indifference of the rest of the nation in the face of this city's failed bids to host the Olympics over a decade ago, and are able to contrast this with the proffering of "lottery" funding and country-wide press-ganging into joining the enforced jingofest that is this month's corporate bullying convention and political opportunism show in That London.

But I'm not bitter (am I?). The sport has been great. It always is at the Olympics. And as usual it triumphs despite its unsavoury backdrop, as it did 4 years ago, and on most occasions before that (except 1972, 1980* and 1984 obviously). And few sport** fans cared that North Korea felt the need to avoid the trip south in 88. Anyway, I digress.

So why am I writing? I'll tell you why I'm writing...

I keep looking at the medals table. I know I'm British, and therefore aloof to this overrated sideshow of winners and losers, but I'm also a data wonk, and stats were a key factor in my sporting education. I grew up devouring the records sections in the Observer's Book of Association Football and the annual Football League Tables updates. I scoured the local library for football annuals full of results and historical comparisons. I'm old enough and ugly enough to admit this now without fear of being accused of jumping on the "geek is cool" bandwagon (that frankly left town 2 years ago anyway). I'm happy with my identity, thank you (he says, without a hint of irony, obscured by his interweb nom-de-plume).

But this medals table has something niggling about it. I can't find the United Kingdom. Yet there, currently in third place, among the official names of 203 other countries, are the words "Team GB". Why?

OK I've exaggerated a bit. Our former colonial conquest that occupies that barely habitable moonscape the other side of the planet calls itself, somewhat prosaically, The Australian Olympic Team. Slightly out of character, it would seem.

Nicknames for sporting teams are not new. The Ozzies are normally less formal about it, with their Socceroos, Hockeyroos and Wallabies. And taking football alone, fans across the globe all have pet names for their heroes, from the The Old Lady to the Super Eagles to the Blue Brazil.

A side note. The team from Sandwell I hate to mention (W**t Br*m) have been called the Baggies pretty much since the Norman Conquest. In the 60s their prim board decided they preferred a different nickname and tried to get those footy annuals I was reading to refer to The Throstles wherever possible. It didn't catch on. Anyway, I call them Tescos in mixed company, and other things elsewhere. But remember this point, I shall return...

But - and here's my point (at last! I hear you cry) - these nicknames emerged from the culture itself. From the fanbase. Perhaps from some obscure story nobody quite remembers accurately (why DO Stoke fans sing Delilah? Don't answer that, I don't care).

But Team GB (Dammit! Said it again!) is not that kind of nickname.

For a start, it's across all sports. For all the valiant Olympian ideology, Britain cannot be said to regard her various sporting competitors in anything like an egalitarian consistency. It just seems way too contrived to lump boxers with rowers, three day eventers with marathon runners or footballers with archers. Even if you try to ignore the class system (which is impossible), these people have little in common.

But OK, let's put that aside for the sake of a nationally unified tilt at the Olympian spirit. Even Andy Murray (without the canard of Scottish till he wins, British thereafter) said he felt differently about winning games at Wimbledon when he's "representing his country". Fine. No problem with that.

So where else is my British-reared, BSE-free beef? It's here: knotted within the aforementioned corporatisation and political meddling that threatens every games. It's always a talking point as the games begin, and gets forgotten when the more populist events like athletics get underway (oh, and cycling - the nouveau connoisseurs of which sprout in every direction these days, mostly in my Twitter feed).

This infernal name has corporate marketing and/or political communication theory writ large all over its ass. It has the odour of "conferred from above" and the word "imposition" written through it like a stick of sickly rock. It reminds us every minute that these games are being used to engender a homogeneous response that us individualistic Brits are not wont to. Semi-enforced hegemonic "enjoyment" of a similar ilk to the tired kitsch love-in that was once, but no longer, a spontaneous reaction to the Eurovision Song Contest.

"YES! WE ARE ALL INDIVIDUALS!" I hear you bellow. Stop proving my point. You're part of the United Kingdom, not North Korea. And certainly not subjects of McDonalds or Samsung.

We are a union, a broad church, but thankfully not one with a single mind. And, as pedants like me will point out, a country that includes Great Britain AND Northern Ireland (arguably). Yes, we all want to see a good Olympics. And these days, we apparently all want to see British success too (you have to admit, it wasn't always this way). So let the jingoism carry on unfettered. It's sport, not politics. And keep watching the sports we don't compete well at too. Handball can be mesmerising, as can wiff-waff.

But "Team GB"? Wise up, suckers!


* Yeah, Coe and Ovett. But Allan Wells? Nuff said. And the US were on Afghan soil before the Reds got there anyway, which makes it so much stinkier in the light of history.

** Sport. Not sports. Be very careful. Two nations divided by a common language, remember?