What's in a name when it's just a brand?

03 August 2012

The row over the name of our Great Britain team at London 2012 is irrelevant.

The name 'Team GB' is a brand name, a collective of the nations which represent the United Kingdom at these Games. This includes Northern Ireland.

In a geographical sense, Great Britain is England, Scotland, Wales; whereas the United Kingdom includes Northern Ireland.

To stretch this further (and again geographically), the Republic of Ireland, along with the Isle of Man and various other islands around the kingdom, make up what is known as the British Isles.

So, for the sake of simplicity and to prevent our fabulous BBC commentary team becoming tongue-tied, Great Britain and NI are known as Team GB.

ALAN KERR

Newtownabbey, Co Antrim

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