IT seems to me that Neil Bramwell and other advocates of a UK football team must know they haven't a leg to stand on.

If this went ahead, we would be able to harness the talents of Ryan Giggs and . . . well that's it really, isn't it?

I don't think there is a single other non-English player who would get a place in the side.

Giggs is good enough to improve any team and it's a shame in many ways that he declared for Wales. But he isn't good enough to clinch the argument on his own. He's a special case.

Isn't it strange that the sudden popularity of a UK team coincides with England's desperate need for a left sided midfielder, together with Giggs' pre-eminence in that position? Of all the short-termist suggestions to improve England, this is surely the most so.

Meanwhile, what's in it for the Celtic fringe? An untalented Scotland side (and I think they make us look like Brazil) can, by dint of hard work, perform respectably and give Scots something to cheer. In an all British set up they would virtually disappear.

The same is true of Wales and Ulster, only more so.

Already resenting the frequency with which English and foreigners alike conflate 'England' with 'Britain,' it is hardly surprising that they are dead against it.

I can't see what Rangers and Celtic have got to do with it, but if they join the English league it will only go to prove the lack of strength in depth north of the border.

As for arguments from the course of contemporary history, if they have any relevance at all it is to support the status quo. With devolution taking place in all three of the 'other' nations, there's never been a worse time to unite our sporting teams.

In the Sixties and Seventies, a British team might have been a world beater, now, the idea's a non starter. Let's carry on entering four teams for the international tournaments, as long as FIFA will let us get away with it.

PATRICK HANLEY, Brow Top Cottages, Grindleton, Clitheroe