Whatever the historical background from the 20s, 50s or 70s- thoroughly covered by Cormac in the book- the reason why two teams endure is that neither's fans are willing for theirs to dissolve. Which, unsurprisingly, isn't really addressed in the podcast interview. Instead, we heard about a couple of academic sociology surveys suggesting that people from the PUL community who aren't interested in football wouldn't mind if there was a cross-border team. Presumably as they're unaware that one already exists, albeit bulked out by English and Scottish players
My fave bit is Cormac's claim that there might well have been a UI team in the 70s but for the Troubles. Or essentially, there would have been broad civic co-operation between Unionists and Nationalists but for the slight snag that there wasn't.
Interesting historically, a daydream in the present basically.
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