Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Football

FK Gence logo

Hello, can anybody please upload logo for FK Gäncä from here http://yalli.az/Khayal/albums/2271/40675 I tried to upload but due I am not sure how to upload logo's or give it right license, I am having problems and my files get removed.--NovaSkola (talk) 06:52, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Also could please someone update AZAL PFC Baku's logo from here

http://www.azerisport.com/images/articles/2010/08/04/thumb210_20100804013939919.jpg

--NovaSkola (talk) 10:43, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Nobody going to help me?--NovaSkola (talk) 15:55, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

Here you go: File:FK Ganja.gif. BigDom 16:47, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

And the second one: File:AZAL PFC Baku.jpg. BigDom 16:52, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks a lot!!--NovaSkola (talk) 21:44, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

National team callups in player infobox

Am I right in believing we have a consensus that a player's national team only belongs in the infobox once he actually plays for it? So we wouldn't add a national team with current year and zero appearances, as soon as the player receives a squad call-up. I'm sure this has been discussed before, but I can't find where. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 12:30, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

I believe so. That's the way I've always seen the matter anyway. Cheers, Mattythewhite (talk) 12:34, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

I ask because of Charles N'Zogbia's recent callup to the France squad. Someone added it to the infobox, I undid, claiming we didn't do that, someone else put it back, so I was hoping to find a discussion to point to as justification for why we didn't do that. Something a bit more convincing than "because I say so" :-) cheers, Struway2 (talk) 12:53, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

My opinion is the same as both of you, but I'm too new to know where any consensus would be. Although now that you mention it, it's strange that we treat clubs and countries differently. Being called up to an international squad and not playing is roughly analogous to being signed by a club and not playing. --WFC-- 21:27, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Devils advocate mode... For a player who was called up to a squad, did the week training camp and then didn't make the matchday programme for the friendly, no real reason to note in infobox - it is likely to be in the prose anyway. Other side of the coin is the player - often-times the 2nd or 3rd string keeper, but sometimes other players - who has been in the squad multiple times, even perhaps gone to the world cup a time or two, been in the matchday squad but yet not crossed the white line. They appear in all the squad templates so it seems like an anomoly that they do not have an entry in their own infobox.--ClubOranje^T 01:22, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

ClubOrange made a good point, that makes me think about what would be the best solution for the case. On the other side, we loose too many time removing that situations (NT in infobox 0 (0) that is continuously added and readded by many ID to many biographies... It also wouldn´t be so bad to have the 0 (0) as a sign that the player has been called to the NT. FkpCascais (talk) 22:22, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

Hmmmmm....

Folks, what to make of this, in Francisco Jiménez Tejada's "PRIVATE LIFE"? It is referenced, but it seems a bit unencyclopedical and bordering on the opportunistic (the "i hate Xisco as a player, now i have references to make him look bad" attitude), in my opinion.

I remember roughly one year ago, when Guti had the same (similar) stuff inserted in his article. I clearly remember someone removed the (referenced) bit saying it was unencyclopedical. What is your opinion? Free your mind! - --Vasco Amaral (talk) 16:48, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Doesn't look reliable from a first glance... it also seems to be idle gossip. Unless covered in-depth in reliable sources and significant to his notability, this shouldn't be there. I've removed it. – Toon 16:57, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

See the passion!

But a few things: 1. Seems to break Original Research and Wikipedia is Not News. 2. He is kissing a few guys but there is no evidence this was a gay pride event or even it was that he wasn't just there with some friends. 3. Usually supposed to wait until someone comes out before labelling them as a homosex.

If it made it into the national media then it is worth a mention.--EchetusXe 13:09, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

What to do if a roster has two players with the same family name?

Just updating Template:FC Ingolstadt 04 squad and there are players with the family name of Hartmann. Normally, I would include the first initial and a period, but in this case, one player is Manuel Hartmann and the other is Moritz Hartmann. So what to do in this situation? I decided to go with full names. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 22:49, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

I'd say you probably did the right thing. The only other option I can think of would have been to pipe one link as Ma. Hartmann and the other as Mo. Hartmann, but that might make it look like "Ma." and "Mo." are titles like "Mr." or "Mrs.". – PeeJay 22:53, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Yep, looks good to me. let's just hope that these guys are one-offs. --WFC-- 00:36, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

That's what I used to do with Maik and Martin Taylor, as on this version of {{Birmingham City F.C. squad}}. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 08:11, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

Football kits

Now I don't follow this to closely but I believe I recall correctly (and {{Football kit}} seems to agree) that we don't include sponsors or manufacturers on the kits in the infobox. I really see no advantage of this over this so I delved a little deeper. There seem to have been a spate of uploads recently, and there might be other users doing similar things. My question is, do we try and stop these uploads, do nominate redundant/over specific ones for deletion etc. The deletion aspect, especially, sounds like a lot of work and I suspect that is why no-one has done anything thus far. Thoughts? Rambo's Revenge (talk) 10:50, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

There definitely shouldn't be manufacturers' or sponsors' logos on the kits because the logos themselves are copyrighted. All kits with sponsors on should be removed immediately. BigDom 10:54, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

That one's an obvious candidate for deletion. What about more subtle instances like File:Kit body grosseto 2010 away.png where they have tried to imitate a sponsor or team crest but is so small it is impossible to tell what it would be. File:Kit body timor-leste 2010 home.png is another example, except here the manufacturer symbol is recognisable at small scale. If lots need deleting would people help add to this list: User:Rambo's Revenge/Football kit deletion. If we do a massive nomination it should be under one unifying clear reason such as WP:Copyvio so all can be closed under one reason. Criteria for inclusion in the FfD should be strcit as I've seen mass FfDs thrown out where one file doesn't fit the rule. Rambo's Revenge (talk) 11:12, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, they can be a picky lot over at FFD. On the ones where the logos are tiny and indistinguishable, they should just be deleted for being completely useless, rather than copyvio. BigDom 11:55, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

There is a user at Wikimedia Commons called Bruno-ban who insists on adding logos to the kit images he makes. I have done my best to remove the logos from as many as I can, but he and other users don't seem to be able to recognise the copyright violation and re-add the logos. This feels as pointless as reverting live score updates, but I'll keep going anyway. – PeeJay 12:01, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

Okay I've listed here the ones that featured a copyrightable logo. Input welcomed. Rambo's Revenge (talk) 17:43, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

Articles that currently use one or more of the nominated templates (strike once an article is sorted):

• B68 Toftir
• B68 Toftir II
• Faroe Islands national football team
• Vanuatu national football team
• Sri Lanka national football team
• Hibernians F.C.
• Yeovil Town F.C.
• 2010–11 Yeovil Town F.C. season
• Syrianska FC
• Jordan national football team
• Bradford Park Avenue A.F.C.
• Solomon Islands national football team
• Zambia national football team
• Cape Verde national football team
• ÍF Fuglafjørður
• N.E.C. (football club)
• Equatorial Guinea national football team
• Pobla de Mafumet CF
• FC Twente
• FC Utrecht
• FC Dynamo Kyiv

--WFC-- 11:47, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

Personally I am opposed to the inclusion of these logos on the kit images in infoboxes, but........if we're deleting them solely on the grounds of copyvio, then should we not also delete all photos of players in shirts which have club badges and sponsors' logos clearly visible? How is the case of the infobox images any different.........? — Preceding unsigned comment added by ChrisTheDude (talk • contribs) 09:42, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Good question. Answering on the spot, I guess it is something like that those pictures are not trying to capture those logos as such. It is an incidental (de minimis) form of copying. Wheras, the kits have no need to include that information and are deliberately infringing copyrights. Not sure if that is correct legally but it makes sense in my (unqualified) eyes. Rambo's Revenge (talk) 09:59, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

County Mayo (Ireland) Football

Can someone please create pages for football clubs and create pages for the seperate leagues in the amatuar league Mayo & District League and edit the page its not up to scratch?Dooniver (talk) 11:24, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

Jesus, that's one of the most dreadful articles I've ever seen. No offence. BigDom 17:15, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

A bit better now thanks to Peejay. I would offer to help but my knowledge of Irish football isn't very good.

promotion, relegation, and color-coding

recently a very well-intentioned IP editor has made significant changes to the league tables on 2009–10 Lega Pro Prima Divisione, 2009–10 Lega Pro Seconda Divisione, and 2009–10 Serie D. the tables have been changed to show the final fate of each team in the league; many of these low-level teams in Italy have declared bankruptcy well after the completion of the season and have been reassigned to amateur divisions. to me, the tables have become almost unreadable, and at a glance only indicate that low-level Italian football is seriously messed up, not how the leagues were supposed to function. is there policy on this? i only reverted one of the IP's changes, on 2009–10 Serie B, where they had changed the qualification column to indicate that the playoff winner had directly won promotion. —Ed Cormany (talk) 15:36, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

Only those teams leaving the league should be shaded. If there is a team who originally finished in a relegation or promotion spot, but nevertheless stays in the league on special circumstances, e.g. a revoken license for another team, the line of this team is unshaded and a footnote should be added under the table as well. See also 2009–10 Fußball-Regionalliga#Regionalliga West for an example. --Soccer-holic^{I hear voices in my head...} 17:26, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

I also fixed the 2009–10 Serie B table. The other tables should be changed in this way as well. Please take a look at the code, especially regarding the marking of play-off winners and general notes.--Soccer-holic^{I hear voices in my head...} 17:45, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

The Serie D tables look OK to me. Three or so footnotes for each, but that's alright. Eldumpo (talk) 19:24, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

Njaaaaa... they are too busy with their colors. Usually, the darker shades of green or red are used for visual indication of direct promotion or relegation, with the lighter shades used for possible play-off matches. For lower leagues in general, there is no need for more colors such as yellow, orange, blue or pink as in the top-level leagues.

On a side note - why are the English Football League tables using that tartan green color as indication for their promotion play-off spots? The standard lighter shade of green (also used for e.g. the 4th place in the Premier League) would be a much better fit, and the looks would also not be as fugly as they currently are (at least from my point of view)... --Soccer-holic^{I hear voices in my head...} 21:14, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

@Soccer-holic: the teams that have left the league are marked with (R) after its name and color shading is intended to indicates the direct relegation/playoff zone. The main problem w/ those tables IMO is the color choice – when you have a palette of bright green, red, orange and yellow it really makes the table unreadable. Different (preferably light and subdued) shades of two colors should be enough. Also I'd recommend grey for special occasions like disbandment of the team – see examples here and there. —WiJG? 15:18, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

New Zealand Mainland Premier League

Can anyone tell me if Mainland Premier League counts as a Fully professional league ?

I'm asking because I was looking at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Hamish Lewis and I'm not clear whether this player meets WP:ATHLETE as a pro; I'd think this league was pro, but IDK.  Chzz  ►  17:11, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

I seriously doubt it. I thought Wellington Phoenix were New Zealand's only professional club but I could be wrong. Argyle 4 Life^talk 17:22, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

There is no fully professional domestic leage in New Zealand. The Phoenix are professional. They play in Australia's A-League. --Mkativerata (talk) 19:51, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

Mainland Premier League is not even the top level domestic league. Soccer_in_New_Zealand#Professional_football and the following paragraph clearly answer the question.--ClubOranje^T 05:27, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

It does, indeed; thanks (all) for the answers.  Chzz  ►  22:50, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

New football season

The English season kicks off shortly, with Norwich City v Watford.

I've been working on developing Carrow Road, the venue for tonight's game, with an aim to getting it to Featured status. Your edits are welcome, and comments at the talk page, where I've also posed some questions where I'm unsure or want consensus for how the article should develop.

Happy new season to you all. Even Ipswich fans. --Dweller (talk) 18:01, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

And a happy new season to you :) --WFC-- 21:08, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

Category:Lists of association football players by national team

There are three examples at the above category page (namely England, Scotland, Wales) where a full list of all internationals to have played for that country exists as an article (with players listed in alphabetical order) but the article name is given an '(alphabetical)' suffix, whereas there is also an alternative page that only lists players who have reached a set threshold of caps, but this latter page is not given any suffix. As an example see List of England international footballers (alphabetical) and List of England international footballers, the latter only listing players with 30 caps or more. I would like to either make the 'complete' listings the master article (with no suffix), and a suffix be added to the qualified list, or for a suffix to be added to both lists, as this would be a more accurate descriptor of what the pages are.

Additionally I would like to ask an admin to move the page history of List of Wales international footballers to List of Wales international footballers (alphabetical) following recent changes, although hopefully this would only need to be done as a short term measure, depending on people's views on the above.

Please note I am the original creator of the Wales page (the one now called 'alphabetical'). Eldumpo (talk) 19:40, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

The talk page for List of Wales international footballers will also need moving to List of Wales international footballers (alphabetical). Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 19:47, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

Why on earth do we need two lists? The 25+ caps one is totally redundant, given that the big one is sortable. I say AfD the smaller one, and move List of England international footballers (alphabetical) → List of England international footballers. --WFC-- 21:07, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

If you look at the selective lists of Germany players or Scotland players, they add a lot more useful information than just the number of caps and goals scored. If those lists were expanded to include every player capped for those countries, their length would become a serious issue (both lists are around 70,000 bytes in size at present, and will for obvious reasons only get bigger, unless the selection criteria is tightened). I think it is comparable to the situation with club lists of players, where the main article is generally a selective list that provides comprehensive information about all the important players in a club's history, with daughter articles providing comprehensive lists of all players with a lower number of appearances. Jmorrison230582 (talk) 10:22, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

Quality scale: Anel Raskaj

Im asking for second opinions on the quality scale of Anel Raskaj, Halmstads BK, in my personal opinion its either C or B, asks for others opinions as im the original creater of the article. --> Halmstad, Charla to moi 22:06, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

Where can we find firm criteria by which to assess biographical articles? Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 19:03, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Wembley Wizards

This article, about the England v Scotland match on 31 March 1928 has multiple issues, most especially the tone and poor referencing. Is there anyone who fancies taking it on and re-writing it? Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 06:03, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

1939–40 season

Looking at his stats in my trusty copy of Joyce, Wally Akers' three games for Mansfield can only possibly be the three games played at the start of the 1939–40 season, which was abandoned because of the outbreak of war. Joyce says that he included these games in players' stats "for completeness". Should they be in the player's infobox......? -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 06:14, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

IMHO - no. The season was abandoned and thus officially never took place. (I had the same situation with Robert Perrett who played in all three Southampton matches, but is shown as having made no league appearances for the club.) I would put the status of these matches alongside play-off matches; they can be included in a player's total appearances but are not League matches for infobox purposes. Purely my personal opinion. Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 06:26, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

Also worth noting, of course, that any player who played in said season and whose stats have been sourced by Joyce could have their infobox stats "out" by up to three. I only picked up on it in the case of Akers because he only joined the club at the start of the season and they were the only three games he played for them...... -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 06:37, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

In List of Birmingham City F.C. players, which used Joyce as its main source for pre-war players, I excluded games played in that season, but added a footnote against each affected player saying so. But I've been inconsistent on individual player articles in the past, and I'm not sure what my personal view is as to whether they should count or not. However, from a WP:V point of view, i.e. "whether readers can check that material added to Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source, not whether editors think it is true", if we're using Joyce as the RS, either we ought to count them, or every time, however boring it is, explain why we're choosing to not follow that RS. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 07:30, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

Personally, it was the first time I'd encountered the problem, because, of course, Gillingham were not a Football League club in that season. If, however, I was to do an article on a player who played for the Gills in say, 1934, and in Joyce it said, for example, "Stoke 1936-39, 52 apps", I wouldn't have a source to indicate how many to knock off for the '39-40 season.... -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 07:50, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

Are there other sources than Joyce out there for player stats info from that era, and if not, shouldn't we be going with the published/verifiable information that we have i.e. whereby 1939-40 games are included as regular fixtures? Eldumpo (talk) 08:00, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

If we have other sources, club complete records or whatever, we can make a choice as to which to use. But if we only have Joyce, then we have to use him, and as in Chris's example, we won't know how many to knock off. Perhaps, for clarity, we should always footnote whether or not stats from that season are included or not... cheers, Struway2 (talk) 08:19, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

Then again, there is always this book from the same publisher as Joyce's book. I was thinking about purchasing it, but £12 is a lot of money for only 118 pages. – PeeJay 09:53, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

A template could easily be created that makes a little reference note. That'll make it easier to implement. Sandman888 (talk) ^{Latest FLC} 10:06, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

CAF Awards 2000

This page lists the nominations[1] but I can't seem to find out who won the other awards other than the Young player of the year going to Eto'o. Can anyone help? TheBigJagielka (talk) 13:52, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

Nevermind[2] TheBigJagielka (talk) 14:01, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

List of top-division football clubs in UEFA countries

Would someone be able to have a look at the lead for this? I'm in the middle of work on the technical side of it (images, alt text, sorting etc). I think the explanation of what countries are and aren't in the list are good, but I'm quite stumped at how to do a succinct lead introducing 50+ separate leagues. Thanks in advance, --WFC-- 01:32, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Have a couple of sentences at the top of each league's section introducing that league? cheers, Struway2 (talk) 08:50, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Projects

The WP:Milhist project has several sub-projects set on specific targets, e.g. the Majestic Titan which aims to have every battleship in one large featured topic. On the project page you can easily see the progress and primary editors, which makes cooperation easy.

I would therefore like to suggest that Footy set up equal projects which aims to improve specific areas of wp:footy. These could be;

1. League of Europe: The leagues of Europe in UEFA coefficient order (perhaps top 10 as a first milestone?): Premier League / La Liga / Serie A / etc
2. The Core project: the articles assessed as vital in the assessment department.

Sandman888 (talk) ^{Latest FLC} 07:17, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Player of the Year lists

After commenting on Argyle POY, I feel there should be a larger debate on the issue. The player of the years lists should in my opinion be done with as they a content forks of a "list of players". It can easily be indicated on the list of players who where player of the year. As an independent article on the phenomena "player of the year" those would more often than not, not meet the notability criteria of an article. Sandman888 (talk) ^{Latest FLC} 07:33, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Manchester City F.C. 4–1 Tottenham Hotspur F.C. and Tottenham Hotspur F.C. 3–4 Manchester City F.C.

Are these games really worth of a separate article? I think no. Opinions? --Angelo (talk) 08:33, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Definitely not. The first one was surely no more notable than City's 4–1 wins against Spurs on 15 January 1930 or 17 March 1954, and nobody would write articles about those games. As for the second one, coming from three goals behind has been achieved many times so nothing special there either. BigDom 08:47, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Coming from being behind 3-0 in an away fixture to win 3-4 is not exactly an everyday occurrence, but I agree with you that it may still have happened enough other times so as to be not particularly notable, or notable enough. However, coming from behind in that manner with only 10 men has happened exactly how many times before? Would you care to cite some references to other away games won in this manner by other teams to prove your point? Thanks. Mancini's Lasagne invite to Harry 17:59, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Well, Manchester United 5–3 win at Spurs a few years ago is one that immediately comes to mind. On 4 December 1960, Burnley came from FOUR goals behind to get a draw, again at Spurs. On 23 August 1958, Manchester City came from three goals behind at Burnley to win 4–3. On 13 September 1924, Blackburn came from three behind at Burnley and won 5–3. On 1 January 1896, Burnley themselves came from three goals down at Bury to win 4–3. Indeed, on the second ever weekend of the Football League on 15 September 1888, Burnley came from three behind to beat Bolton Wanderers 4–3 away. I don't know much about the results of other clubs, but I assume that most have achieved the feat at least as many times. Also, I admittedly don't know if there were dismissals in those games but they do show that a three-goal comeback is not unheard of. BigDom 18:38, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps it was my bad to have written "in this manner" in my challenge above. So let me address that now ... what I meant by that phrase was "away from home, coming back from being at least 3 goals down, AND doing so with only 10 men (or at least less players than the opposition; 9 against 10 would also count, and so on)." All of your cited examples meet the first two criteria but, as far as I can determine, NONE of them meet the third one. I had already agreed with you in my first post that matches meeting the first two criteria are perhaps not "notable enough." Clearly it is the third criterion (in this case the dismissal after the first half ended of Joey Barton for his cussing out of the referee) that makes the comeback all the more notable. It was comeback matches where the comeback team was at a numerical man disadvantage in addition to an away disadvantage and a heavy score deficit disadvantage that I was challenging you to cite. So I now repeat my challenge ...

BTW, most people consider the Eusebio-led comeback of Portugal against North Korea, from being 3-0 down to win 5-3, as one of the most notable World Cup games ever played. Why is that do you think? I suspect it wasn't because Kenneth Wolstenholme in his game commentary came up with, "... certainly the North Koreans may not be very tall, but they're quick, they're very, very nippy, and they can jump as well"? Mancini's Lasagne invite to Harry ^Talk 22:11, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Agree. Might just as well say this game, played under similar conditions to the City 4-1 game, was worthy of an article (well, I might, but most people wouldn't :-). Further, I don't really see why any of the games in Category:Premier League matches is article-worthy, apart from possibly the Battles of Old Trafford. Where the game has no aftermath and no lasting coverage apart from being the answer to a trivia question, a sentence or two in the season article is plenty. Nor do I see why the Charity/Community Shield appears to be automatically notable. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 09:19, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

I would especially say that Tottenham Hotspur F.C. 9–1 Wigan Athletic F.C. is not notable. Any article that feels the need to say "x is notable because..." in the first sentence is usually non-notable. This game is apparently notable because it equalled the highest number of goals by one team. If it had set a new record, then maybe. But otherwise, it was just another match. BigDom 09:29, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

None of those seem notable to me. Does anyone think that the Copa Hermandad match/friendly competition between Everton and Everton de Viña del Mar is notable? I'm pretty sure it's not, but wasn't definite about starting an AfD. Ilikeeatingwaffles (talk) 09:35, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

I'd say that was even less notable than the PL matches. AfD seems like the way forward there. BigDom 09:38, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

For your interest, I have nominated the two articles above for deletion: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Tottenham Hotspur F.C. 3–4 Manchester City F.C. and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Manchester City F.C. 4–1 Tottenham Hotspur F.C.. --Angelo (talk) 10:52, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

This is just the problem folks. There are no guidelines for what is a notable match. I asked last week if there were before creating articles and was glad I did. To go to alot of effort to write the articles only for someone to say 'not notable' is a great disincentive. Why is the Community Shield notable? Why is the annual MLS All-Stars game notable? We need clear guidelines....--Egghead06 (talk) 11:59, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

"Why is the annual MLS All-Stars game notable?" Errrrm, you've stumped me! Might it possibly be because it features a team made up of all the best players in the MLS? Honestly, I think that part of your comment reveals much more about how parochial and limited your own perspective is - not all football is played in the UK. However, I do agree with the rest of your comment ... there does need to be some guidance for what constitutes "notable" otherwise to delete such articles once others have gone to the effort of creating them does appear to be a bit like rejecting a piece of string because it is not long enough. :) Mancini's Lasagne invite to Harry 18:18, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

The significance of the Ballet on Ice (which would be a more appropriate title than Manchester City F.C. 4–1 Tottenham Hotspur F.C.) is from marking the moment when City became viewed as genuine title contenders - the point when the glory years under Mercer and Allison began in earnest. Being from the days when Match Of The Day only had cameras at one ground, it is the foremost recorded example of that side in their pomp (the 4–3 win over Newcastle to clinch the title was not shown, the cameras were at Old Trafford instead). That said, I've always been a mergist on these issues. Outside cup finals etc. I typically favour material being incorporated in the relevant season article if it exists, particularly for occasions where the match was of greater significance to one team than the other. Oldelpaso (talk) 13:28, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

I would consider both of these articles as notable, but then I would. I would strongly suggest that these two articles are not deleted, such an action might create an extremely vague precedent. The issue here is what exactly constitutes notable. Be that a game, a player, a coach, a manager and all else in football. We need a guideline. Can we agree one that suits all and avoids any potential conflict of interest?

I note many commenting here have created acticles that themselves could be considered by some as not very notable (not me). It would be a waste for that effort and data to be deleted if it didn't meet an unwritten rule.

It would be a shame to delete these articles (those in question). Please consider the minimum action, the movement of this data into any relavant season article and allow those that created them the time to do so. Thanks. gonads³ 17:25, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

On the issue of the separate match pages, I made the two match pages because I believed they are both important matches in Manchester City's history. Also, I have invested quite a lot of time in creating these articles and other users, such as Falastur2 ^Talk have valued them as they have been looking for users to expand Manchester City's range lack of Wikipedia articles. Hence I thought a match page for the two aforementioned and very well known matches were a good idea. Furthermore, there is a page on Tottenham's 9-1 win against Wigan and that match page is allowed so therefore on that premise, and on the basis there is no official rule/line on specific match pages on Wikipedia, I believe there is no argument to delete these pages (Stevo1000 Talk 18:33, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

I think that finals of major competitions should be treated as automatically notable. From an English perspective, this would mean that all FA Cup and Football League Cup finals, and all Community Shields would be considered notable, as well as all Champions League, Europa League, Cup Winners' Cup, UEFA Super Cup and FIFA Club World Cup finals. Other than that, I think that any matches that received significant media coverage after the fact should also be considered notable. The problem is how to define "significant media coverage". – PeeJay 18:00, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

I'd personally say that both of these games were notable, and would agree with PeeJay's idea above. They are the foremost matches in City's history and have acquired legendary status amongst the fans; not only that but they both received significant press coverage afterwards over the events of the games. How many games have ever become so renowned as to be known by a nickname rather than the score, anyway? The Battle(s) of Old Trafford I can think of. Any others? I'm not sure; I can't think of any. Incidentally I agree with Oldelpaso that the 4-1 article should have been named The Ballet on Ice rather than going by the score, for the very reason that The Ballet on Ice has become famous in English football history under that name. In fact, not so long ago The Mirror ran this piece remembering the game in a series of articles about memorable moments from footballing history. On top of this, the other game is, let's not forget, the game highlighted by neutral, leading national commentators as "the greatest cup comeback of all time", These are hardly a flash-in-the-pan reaction to good scorelines, as some appear to suggest earlier in this debate. Falastur2 ^Talk 19:07, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

As one who did comment above on those two matches' apparent lack of notability, having read the explanation here of the 'Ballet on Ice' in Manchester City's history, I withdraw the comparison with my club's League Cup game. However, please understand that to assess general notability, the reader has to see in the article evidence of the match's importance in the grand scheme of things and aftermath or legacy as demonstrated by significant ongoing media coverage after the event. With respect, there's nothing in either article to show that. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 07:49, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Any event that can create a vernacular term such as "Ballet on Ice" that is still being used in the English language over 40 years later to fondly refer to it is indeed a notable event. Surely such an event is much more notable than an event that merely created "significant media coverage after the fact" because those events still don't leave a legacy of adding a new expression to the common English language that refers to them. Was the "Battle of Britain" just another air battle? Was "Trafalgar" just another sea battle? So in that context I ask, was the "Ballet on Ice" just another football match? If it was, then why do we have the legacy of that expression in our common football culture in order to refer to it?

IMO the only real problem with the "City-Spurs 4-1" article is its current title. The article suggests that it's just another league game in over 130+ years of such league games - hardly notable, whatever the scoreline and whichever teams took part in it. The title needs to be changed to "Ballet on Ice" ASAP. Because it is as a definition of that cultural expression that the article belongs in Wikipedia, not as a record of just another football match. If 50 years from now I was someone reading a novel set in Manchester and one of the characters in the book referred to having been present at the "Ballet on Ice" game at Maine Road I would probably want to look up in an encyclopedia what that term was referencing, just as I might also want to look up what and where Maine Road was - which is why that football stadium has its own article too. This is no different a situation than some young person today wishing to look up the term "Battle of Britain" in an encyclopedia because they first came across the term in a novel set during the Second World War.

As for the football significance / notability of the game ... it is particularly notable right now because there is currently "significant media coverage" (PeeJay's criterion) worldwide WRT all of the foreign "Galacticos" that Manchester City is currently adding to its squad, and this article serves to document that the Season 1967-68 was the last season in English League football that the championship was won by a team that consisted of ONLY English players. That is a notable fact and a statistic quite worthy of being captured in an encyclopedia in its own right. Arguably it was after that season that the "foreign intrusion" into English league football initially began, an issue that has now reached its zenith forty odd years later in this upcoming season's need to register 25-man squads. So which would be the most appropriate match to capture for posterity in a Wikipedia article out of all 42 of the league games that the last all-English League champions team played in that pivotal season? Surely the one that even Match of the Day dubbed the "Match of the Season"?!

Add to those above reasons that this game was ALSO notable for being played in severe artic weather conditions that by rights should have had the match postponed; within the modern Premier League or Football League environment that match would not have been allowed to proceed if weather conditions such as those prevailed today. If I remember correctly, that First Division league game was played on December 9 1967 (not 1968 as currently stated in the article) which was the weekend of the First Round Proper in the FA Cup that season, many of which fixtures were devastated by the severe winter weather conditions across the country - over a dozen matches were postponed and at least two more were abandoned due to blizzards in the FA Cup alone. The primary reason the officials permitted the City-Spurs game to proceed was because the MotD cameras were at Maine Road and there would have been no program that night if the game had not have been played. It was truly amazing that the players could even stand up without falling over let alone produce such an entertaining game (within the limits of a frozen solid pitch and snow falling for almost the entire game).

So exactly how many highly notable facts does a Wikipedia article actually need to document before other editors finally acknowledge that the article has true merit and worth within the Association Football area of Wikipedia articles? Mancini's Lasagne invite to Harry 17:28, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

BTW, is it permissible to edit an article while it is in AfD discussion like this? For instance, at least 3 people have stated here (me being one of them) that the "City-Spurs 4-1 game" article would be much better titled "Ballet on Ice" - and that if it had of been called that initially, it might not have been selected for deletion. So is it still possible to change the article's title and modify its text in order to make its "notability" more readily apparent to the reader (as someone suggested above)? Mancini's Lasagne invite to Harry ^Talk 22:45, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

• Wishful thinking if participants at sports AfDs realised that the likes of WP:NSPORT and our internal guidelines are merely helpful rules of thumb, but that only the WP:GNG actually matters, there would be no need for this discussion. Watford 2–2 Reading has unquestionably received significant and consistent persistent media coverage. Would it survive an AfD if created? Answers on a postcard... --WFC-- 20:19, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

The same goes for Burnley 2–1 Orient, especially round these parts. BigDom 18:10, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

• I'm struggling to see the difference between these two articles and this non-football example. Just curious as it's on show here and it made me think. Can anyone help explain? Thanks. gonads³ 21:11, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

• Actually you bring up a good point there. If that Grand Prix is notable, even though the only coverage was just after the race that has subsequently been forgotten, then it could be argued that every Football League match ever played in England must be notable. Otherwise, it's double standards. BigDom 21:17, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

• You could always ask. --WFC-- 21:33, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Equating a Grand Prix to a Football League game is pretty skewed. A Football League game is more akin to a Formula 3 race at best, in terms of wealth and crowds etc, whereas a Grand Prix is more like a World Cup quarter-final or bigger. There are fewer than 20 Grands Prix per year, and there are hundreds of Football League games per year, yet more people worldwide watch a Grand Prix than watch the Premier League. More than five times as many people watch a single Grand Prix than watch the Champions League Final. In the whole of football, only the World Cup final gets more viewers than a Grand Prix. Formula One is only the top 1% of the motor racing season, and only those individual races get their own articles. None of the other thousands of races get articles (even if someone wins by a huge margin...), and no domestic racing series gets standalone articles for its races, so why should the Premier League, which is just a domestic competition? Bretonbanquet (talk) 01:29, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

• I was merely trying to compare these articles with a GP event that in itself wasn't especially eventful, but at the same time worthy of today's featured article. Skewed? I'm not convinced, but would a comparison of this to this make a fairer comparison? The former has articles for each event throughout the year. I think that maybe they could. It's clear that further discusion is required to help provide consistency with respect to notability here. Achieving this would help many editors understand better before commiting their time. Thanks. gonads³ 17:18, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Incidentally, does anyone else find it to be slightly double-standards-ish (no personal insult intended, I assure you Angelo) that this debate is going on in parallel with, and yet completely independently from this AfD over the article in question? My point is particularly with emphasis to the view that it seems quite like the AfD will eventually decide for deletion, while this debate appears to be swinging the other way. It seems illogical to allow both processes to go on at the same time, and especially when an admin will eventually swing the axe as a result of that AfD and with no reference to this debate. We should have one combined discussion on this point in general, or we should all debate the AfD first and then come back to this point after the resolution of the said AfD - otherwise what we in fact have here is two opposing trials for the lives of articles, both stepping on each others toes and neither seemingly aware of the existence of the other. Falastur2 ^Talk 00:53, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

I think this whole issue requires an RfC and perhaps some sort of policy. If the articles being discussed are deleted then that would set a precedent for the following to all go, IMO:

• Battle of Old Trafford (2003)
• Battle of Old Trafford (2004)
• Nottingham Forest F.C. 1–8 Manchester United F.C.
• Manchester United F.C. 9–0 Ipswich Town F.C
• Liverpool F.C. 4–3 Newcastle United F.C.
• Newcastle United F.C. 8–0 Sheffield Wednesday F.C.
• Portsmouth v Reading (29 September 2007)
• Battle of Bramall Lane --129.234.252.67 (talk) 09:36, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Agree with the above. Deleting is all too easy. Whats needed is a policy and guidelines as to just what is a notable match. Otherwise this all gets just too random and disorganised and, something we all should be concerned about, a disincentive to creating articles. Who in their right mind is going to create an article for what they believe to be a notable match just for a group of people operating under no guidelines to cry 'delete'? --Egghead06 (talk) 10:01, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Although !voting delete, I asked the closing admin to make a closing statement on both of the AfDs. I hope they do. Then again, I hope that Watford win the league this season. The best course of action IMO would be to let the AfDs run their course, then start an RfC before nominating/creating any more. --WFC-- 17:25, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

I've added three RS to the AfD page, each of which demonstrate that this match is historic, not only in the history of MCFC, but in the history of football. I request that those who have already given an opinion there return to review. --Dweller (talk) 21:01, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Seriously though, two wiki pages dedicated to 0-0 draws between Man U and Arsenal? At times wikipedia seems to slide away from being an encyclopedia into being a repository of media links. People need to ask themselves "if there was an encyclopedia on Manchester Utd, would it have 3 whole pages dedicated to just 1 game?". All very much OTT.Koncorde (talk) 11:36, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

No but you can see how it happens. I (or anyone else) picks up a book 'Memorable Games of (for example) West Ham' sees West Ham 10-0 Bury or West Ham 8-1 Newcastle (when Alvin Martin scored a hat-trick against 3 different 'keepers). Decides to write articles on them. Are they notable games - the club/the book/reputation/folklore and Google would seem to think so - Wikipedia - who knows?--Egghead06 (talk) 15:37, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

Oh I know, I just remain amazed (and I consider myself an inclusionist!). The issue is, typically, that the match warrants a footnote, someone creates a wiki in a pique of nostalgia, it gets AFD'd, and in response editors leap in to pad out what was originally an interesting tidbit of information into a full blown article structured wholly around rote repeating of information you could get simply from a link to the relevant Sun article.Koncorde (talk) 15:51, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for that. Thought we were building an encyclopedia. Now I know when nostalgia for a better and less angry time, when knowledge and expansion thereof were encouraged, comes over me I can just Google and take it from there--Egghead06 (talk) 16:08, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

You know I'm not attacking you Eggy :D I'm not attacking anyone, I'm culpable too. It's just startlingly predictable. Koncorde (talk) 19:44, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

WP:NOTPAPER. I also fail to see which of the "nots" that most of these games fail. Jmorrison230582 (talk) 20:17, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

I have no wish to labour any point on this subject (no really!) but would point out even as this discussion goes on we have Charlton Athletic F.C. 7–6 Huddersfield Town F.C. created. IMHO this is the type of article that should be encouraged. I'll say no more. The drive is towards deletion and brevity in this modern world of sound bites.--Egghead06 (talk) 05:27, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

The difference with that match is that it actually still receives coverage, unlike the other games we are discussing that have just been lost in the mists of time, remembered only by the most ardent of the respective teams' fans. BigDom 07:53, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

I would agree with Dom, that would seem to me to be a historically notable game as a matter of an official record a la Football records in England.

Meanwhile Jmorrison raised the spectre of WP:NOTPAPER, which is fine. But specifically a lot of these individual games fall under the criteria of WP:NNEWS particularly under the criteria of Wikipedia:Notability (events).

"News reports. Wikipedia considers the enduring notability of persons and events. While news coverage can be useful source material for encyclopedic topics, most newsworthy events do not qualify for inclusion. For example, routine news reporting on things like announcements, sports, or celebrities is not a sufficient basis for inclusion in the encyclopedia."

Specifically Utd playing Arsenal falls under WP:ROUTINE for instance. Koncorde (talk) 08:13, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Am loving the look of Football records in England. Its got the aforementioned 'West Ham 10-0 Bury' in it. Guess this must be a useful yardstick for notability then?--Egghead06 (talk) 08:29, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Isn't all that needs to be said, said with the note "West Ham United 10–0 Bury (Second round, second leg, 25 October 1983)"? Essentially we just return back to the point I made originally.

"that the match warrants a footnote, someone creates a wiki in a pique of nostalgia, it gets AFD'd, and in response editors leap in to pad out what was originally an interesting tidbit of information into a full blown article structured wholly around rote repeating of information you could get simply from a link to the relevant article."

I'm not strictly against an article for each historic game in that respect, but what is notable is the scoreline - not strictly the content of that result. The scorers are irrelevant (unless they achieved something themselves) the teams involved are pretty much irrelevant too (unless there was more to it - such as a rivalry or a match of significance other than its scoreline). Koncorde (talk) 09:49, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

To reply to myself for a moment, for instance WHUFC.com has an article on the subject: [3] Does wikipedia need to mirror any of that information?Koncorde (talk) 09:54, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

You have to take each match on its own merits. If a game from 50 years ago is still included in lists of the greatest comebacks, has been included in different books that are independent of each club involved and still receives general coverage then it is notable. If it is only a match that is notable in the history of one club but has been forgotten by everybody else, then it isn't notable. There's nothing else to it. BigDom 10:18, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Cruft?

As a supporter of a lower league team, the articles of my heroes are free from the extremes of fancruft and there are few cup-finals and heavily promoted pre-season tours to be distracted by. But because of an interest in things Ecuadorian, Antonio Valencia found his way onto my watchlist some time ago. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that Man Utd players receive a lot of "overenthusiastic" edits, but is there any consensus as to where we draw the line at inclusion of goals and appearances? I can happily accept debut, first (competitive) goal, first goal in European competition, appearances and goals in major finals or season defining matches. Various editors have wanted to include every pre-season friendly goal and appearance, a description of the manner of scoring of each goal he has for the team, and now a goal in the glorified friendly that is the Community Shield. I would argue that if each goal he got for Wigan and El Nacional did not need noting, then neither do his Manchester United ones, but to enforce this, I would end up in an editwar. Does one just abandon all senior players' articles at such high profile clubs to those who mistake Wikipedia for Twitter, perhaps with the hope of restoring some order and proportion after they retire and drop off the attention span of the masses, or is there a standard or example of best practice to which we can refer those who fail to distinguish between an encyclopaedia and a fansite? Where do we draw the line? Kevin McE (talk) 10:41, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

I think it's a matter of building a comprehensive biography. Given time and a decent amount of sources, one could probably write a GA-class article about any recent league player. The trouble is that players in the bigger leagues get more exposure and therefore they will naturally receive more edits from enthusiastic IPs. I think my point is, don't limit the content of one article just because Gillingham players don't get as much exposure as Man Utd players. – PeeJay 18:06, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

"A comprehensive biography"? That would be a book. These are meant to be encyclopaedic articles. Where do we draw the line between encyclopaedic coverage and "overenthusiastic" fans (by no means always operating as IPs)? Kevin McE (talk) 19:33, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Hence why we only write about biographically significant events, such as a player's first goal of the season or a sending-off. – PeeJay 19:37, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

I generally agree with you Kev. But I think the community shield is a tricky one. It's a friendly, but to shamelessly paraphrase a well known lager company it's probably the biggest friendly match in the world. --WFC-- 00:56, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

First goal for a club is fine, but whence do you derive consensus for first goal every season? Kevin McE (talk) 14:42, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

What makes a first goal more important or notable than the second goal? BigDom 14:47, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Non-notable pre-season goals you say? A bit like this? I'd take it out but it would probably return by tomorrow!!!--Egghead06 (talk) 15:36, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Players now meeting WP:ATHLETE

Would an admin mind restoring the Jack Midson, Sam Deering and Danny Philliskirk articles, as they have now made appearances in League Two per this? Cheers, Mattythewhite (talk) 16:56, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Done dude, done. The Rambling Man (talk) 17:02, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Might as well have started the Philliskirk article from scratch.--EchetusXe 18:25, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Spent ten minutes tidying it up. Argyle 4 Life^talk 20:20, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

The salted Ray Putterill has also played in the FL now. BigDom 20:37, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Unsalted and re-tagged. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:45, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Please note, I'm happy to undelete articles on request, but the onus is on the requestor to ensure the the restored article is up to snuff otherwise I'll end up looking like more of an arse than normal...! The Rambling Man (talk) 20:50, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Might be worth starting that one from scratch. --WFC-- 21:05, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm getting the feeling that it might be worth starting each of these bad boys from scratch. Best bet is to ask for "unsalting" of salted players, but beyond that, start from scratch per WFC. Easy, and no admin needed... The Rambling Man (talk) 21:07, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

I have my own opinions on players who play one League Two match, but as these guys will clearly keep going (injury permitting) I'll let that slide. That aside, I think a great job has been done with all the above articles. Ironically, players who win promotion from the Conference tend to start off as better articles than players from bigger clubs who start off in the League Cup or on loan. --WFC-- 01:02, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Mike Green (goalkeeper) as per [4] Kingjamie (talk) 19:18, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

It should be located at Mike Green (footballer born 1988) or Mike Green (footballer born 1989), depending on his exact DOB. GiantSnowman 19:34, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Bristol Rovers OP says 1989. [5] Kingjamie (talk) 19:56, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Done. Oldelpaso (talk) 21:06, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Could an admin plse undelete James Ellison (footballer born 1991) - he played for Burton in the League Cup last night?--Egghead06 (talk) 06:51, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

Distillery vs Dundela

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distillery_F.C.

How can Distillery have played Dundela in December 1880 when Dundela's page states club founding in 1895? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.44.206.64 (talk) 21:53, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

A different Dundela team by the same name perhaps? Or a typo? GiantSnowman 17:51, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Flickr Photos

Hey, I was wondering how to search more effectively for football photographs on Flickr. I found this photo and some others and I think the licensing allows us to use it. That Getty Images confuses me though.--EchetusXe 11:08, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

That photo is OK to upload. Just check [6] for the symbols used on photos. Avoid anything that has Getty Images on it and be careful as some on Flickr users pass off press photos as their own. The photos from the last World Cup were prone to this. If it looks too professional (high quality action shots, very good close-ups), it might be worth a double check.--Egghead06 (talk) 11:20, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

How would you go about asking them to change their license?--EchetusXe 17:18, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

I like this tool. And I believe the Getty thing is fine. It is not a Getty image but Getty and Flickr have partnered to make licensing easier for Flickr uploaders. Also see Wikipedia:Upload/Flickr for a graphical representation of the icons. You can use the advanced search feature at Flickr to trim down search results to hose with the appropriate licensing. It is true that you have to make sure yourself that the images are not ripped off by the uploader and licensed incorrectly.Cptnono (talk) 21:32, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Senior career Infobox: league appearances & goal reference

Hello... what websites do you use to reference a player's league appearances and league goals in the InfoBox, especially played outside the UK football league? The reason I ask is, I am looking at Ricardo Carvalho's SoccerBase entry ([7]) and I see that his SoccerBase career data and his Wikipedia InfoBox entry don't match.. should SoccerBase be used to update his Wikipedia InfoBox entry (assuming SoccerBase is accurate)?

Also, should his loan appearances and goals for Leça, etc., be replaced with (?) (?) as they do not have a reference? Thanks

JMHamo (talk) 23:56, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Soccerbase is fine for English clubs. Or Neil Brown's site for older players. The reason Carvalho's soccerbase figures differ from those in the infobox is because someone's included apps/goals in all competitions in the infobox, rather than just those in the domestic league as it should be. The figures in his career stats table down the page are sourced to National football teams, which is accurate enough for well-known international players from well-known countries. There is a page Wikipedia:WikiProject Football/Links which contains football sites of all (OK, some) nations, but whether its contents are reliable and up-to-date I couldn't say. hope this helps, cheers, Struway2 (talk) 07:38, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Charges of fake football player information

See Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Users User:Heritagesoccerpro and User:Zombie433. Uncle G (talk) 07:10, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

• where? Sandman888 (talk) ^{Latest FLC} 13:47, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

HELP (or should i say "Ayuda"?)!!

Lest an edit war erupts, i need some assistance with this matter (some Spanish users would REALLY come in handy right now!):

A user with a recent "history" has been changing Javi Martínez's birthplace. I replied to him once that all three external links which appear in the player's page say he was born in Estella-Lizarra (and i add here, as in the user's talkpage, a FOURTH one - please see here http://www.futbolme.com/com/jugadores.asp?id_jugador=3986), including the OFFICIAL website of Athletic Bilbao.

To the contrary "effect", we have his word (and a revert summary which is in no way explicatory - see here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Javi_Mart%C3%ADnez&diff=378162667&oldid=378031247), and the Spanish wiki entry. About the latter, one would think that a Spanish piece about a Spanish player would be enough source for validation, but it's not ref'd, who's to say it's a correct insertion?

Please, inputs here, so we can end this discussion before it gets out of hand. Cheers - --Vasco Amaral (talk) 15:13, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

I've added an inline ref to Athletic's website, and a note in the edit summary pointing to a comment on the article talk page. Won't necessarily stop the other editor changing it without supplying a source, but if they do, it's arguably vandalism. People don't always appreciate the need for referencing reliable sources on BLPs. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 15:45, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Well the two towns are less than a mile apart, and it is unclear from Google maps where one starts and the other stops. Ayegui is for at least some functions (tourism and public transport are evident from the website) under the auspices of Estella, which has 7 times the population: Estella boasts a hospital with a maternity ward. It sounds very plausible that he was physically born in Estella, but born to a family resident in Ayegui, or even that if talking to someone in the area he would say that he is from Ayegui, but farther afield it is more worthwhile refering to Estella, as the <2000 population of Ayegui is unlikely to have impacted on the national or international consciousness. Is our usual intention to record the place of residence at birth or the location of the hospital? Kevin McE (talk) 17:22, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

I beleave the answer to Kevin´s question should be neither of the choices, but the place where the birth actually happend, meaning, the place of the maternity, if he was born there, or the place wherever the birth happend, if it wasn´t in the maternity. The place of residence of his family at birth shouldn´t count for that purpose. As curiosity, there are "funny" cases of people that were born inside an airplane during a flight. I can´t remember any now, but if anyone does, please say the result of the passport birthplace for the person born in that situation. FkpCascais (talk) 04:09, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

Request for photographs and images

To help address the many requests for photographs People-photo-bot has moved article talk pages from Category:Wikipedia requested photographs of people and Category:Wikipedia requested photographs of sportspeople to Category:Wikipedia requested photographs of association football people if it contains the template {{WikiProject Football}}. Members of this project are invited to address the requests for images listed. Please note that some articles may now have an appropriate photograph and that the need-image flag has simply not been removed, this can also be checked using the Image Existence Checker link on the category page. If a page has been incorrectly moved please inform me on my talk page.--Traveler100 (talk) 17:11, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Can that be added on to the err '{{Football|class=Start|importance=Low}}' thing?--EchetusXe 22:07, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

At the moment {{football}} doesn't have a photo parameter, although I'd certainly be happy to see one in the future. I suspect you'll probably have seen 100s of these edits on your watchlist, but for the benefit of people who might not have, you can currently add a photo to this category by tagging a talk page with {{reqphoto|association football people}}. Regards, --WFC-- 00:10, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

Football qualifying tables

Here is the final table of the Group 4 from UEFA's 2010 FIFA World Cup qualification.

Since Wikipedia has adopted the Vector skin as the default skin, I think it is the time to try to modify this template. I am talking in regards the fixtures table (on the right hand side) which is taking a slighter more space. If we can alter the size of the first column (showing the countries' names), we can reduce its size (from 165 to 145).

Team Pld W D L GF GA GD Pts Germany 10 8 2 0 26 5 +21 26 Russia 10 7 1 2 19 6 +13 22 Finland 10 5 3 2 14 14 0 18 Wales 10 4 0 6 9 12 −3 12 Azerbaijan 10 1 2 7 4 14 −10 5 Liechtenstein 10 0 2 8 2 23 −21 2

Azerbaijan – 1 – 2 0 – 2 0 – 0 1 – 1 0 – 1 Finland 1 – 0 – 3 – 3 2 – 1 0 – 3 2 – 1 Germany 4 – 0 1 – 1 – 4 – 0 2 – 1 1 – 0 Liechtenstein 0 – 2 1 – 1 0 – 6 – 0 – 1 0 – 2 Russia 2 – 0 3 – 0 0 – 1 3 – 0 – 2 – 1 Wales 1 – 0 0 – 2 0 – 2 2 – 0 1 – 3 –

The "problem" is on names which are a bit long like "Bosnia and Herzegovina", which can be solved by writing "Bosnia & Herzegovina" or simply "Bosnia & Herz.". Let me know your opinions. —Chrisportelli (talk) 20:26, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

According to WP:MOSDASH, unspaced en dashes should be used for the score table, which would improve aesthetics in that section. I'd also use an em dash instead of an en dash for the "Wales v Wales" etc. table cells. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 20:46, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

I guess the above can be incorporated into the redesign. As for the main question, if the concern is length, and the table on the left continues to have the full country name, I guess the table on the right could just use flags? --WFC-- 00:19, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

Bearing in mind the above comments, and the fact that access guidelines suggest that where practicable we should accomodate for 800x600, how about the example below? --WFC-- 00:50, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

Team Pld W D L GF GA GD Pts Germany 10 8 2 0 26 5 +21 26 Russia 10 7 1 2 19 6 +13 22 Finland 10 5 3 2 14 14 0 18 Wales 10 4 0 6 9 12 −3 12 Azerbaijan 10 1 2 7 4 14 −10 5 Liechtenstein 10 0 2 8 2 23 −21 2

— 1–2 0–2 0–0 1–1 0–1 1–0 — 3–3 2–1 0–3 2–1 4–0 1–1 — 4–0 2–1 1–0 0–2 1–1 0–6 — 0–1 0–2 2–0 3–0 0–1 3–0 — 2–1 1–0 0–2 0–2 2–0 1–3 —

It would make a little more sense if the rows in the right table aligned with the rows in the left table. That is, vertically the teams would be ordered by point totals instead of alphabetically. Actually, there isn't much need to have two tables at all—take a look at the table I created at 1974 World Junior Ice Hockey Championships a couple of years ago. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 01:18, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

I agree with the suggestion that Germany should be the first country in the table on the right, Liechtenstein the last (I won't change the example- I'm sure people get the idea). Not sure about a single table though. Firstly because rowspan may (or may not, investigation is underway) cause issues with screen readers. Secondly because having two tables would make articles render quite nicely at even lower resolutions. That's a big plus for readers using handheld devices. --WFC-- 01:36, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

Ah yes, handhelds, good reason for two tables. My only remaining comment then is something I should have noticed before, and this has always been a pet peeve of mine. Text table columns should always be expressed in em-spacing units, not in pixels. They should scale with the user's preference for font size. So replace all the width=25 with style="width:2.2em" to have uniform width columns at every font size. (I actually see a 1 or 2 pixel difference between the GD and other columns in the current version.) As for the first column I think 14em looks about right. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 02:04, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

Makes sense. I'm still getting used to coding in em, it's like converting from imperial to metric. I'll continue to persevere, because it's clearly a better way of doing things. --WFC-- 03:13, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

I think we could make it easier for people with poor eyesight who now have to squint to work out which flag is which in the right hand table, or use the wikilinks. Why not keep the right hand table's column of flags in the same order as the left hand table? Then it's easy. --Dweller (talk) 08:02, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

But then we would have to change the order of the results table every time the points table changes order. In my opinion, we should keep the results table sorted either alphabetically or by the pot each team was drawn from when the group draw was made; alphabetical order is certainly easier. – PeeJay 12:35, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

Then I don't think you should discard the team names for the sake of a bit of width. --Dweller (talk) 12:37, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

People with poor eye-sight have the opportunity to increase the size of the display. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 13:52, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

Flags should not serve as a short-hand for names of countries. God forbid Russia, Netherlands, Serbia, Slovenia, Slovakia and Luxembourg get drawn in a group together, or that we cover a West African tournament involving Mali, Senegal, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ghana, Burkina Faso and Benin. Kevin McE (talk) 15:11, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

I think once a tournament is resolved then there should be no obstruction to removing some of the extraneous naming if the results are tallied up in the same row as the appropriate country. If we're going to start pulling the "flags aren't clear" business then how do we explain the lack of names across the top of each box too? At some point we have to consider our readers are not stupid. So long as the table is clear, and the flag is previously connected to the name, then we shouldn't have to keep bringing up the country name again and again and again. If we're going to start working on the basis that people are ignorant of their world flags, so we need to spell it out for them then simply hovering over the countries flag should bring up the name of the country.

How many encyclopedias list the same team, and flag repeatedly just because people might be a bit thick?Koncorde (talk) 15:21, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

Precisely because people aren't "thick" we don't need to repeat the flag names across the top, because they appear in the same order. We should and do consider our partially-sighted readers in our quality work on this encyclopedia, so it should be ingrained in standardised templates. --Dweller (talk) 16:21, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

There is more chance of me unilaterally achieving world peace by midnight than there is of this (adjective) opinion-driven flag "conversation" being in any way productive. My proposal may need to be scrapped for other reasons, but it meets the established guidelines on flags. If you disagree with those, do something about it. --WFC-- 17:00, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

What about using the three-letter country codes in the results table as a compromise? Invisibletr (talk) 17:17, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

WFCforLife, as well as calming down, you need to scroll down a bit on the MOS page. You'll find the relevant section at Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_(icons)#Accompany_flags_with_country_names. I appreciate what you're trying to do, but saving a few cm of width shouldn't be achieved at the expense of making the encyclopedia less accessible. --Dweller (talk) 17:21, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

I have remained civil and rational. I won't hold my breath, but would be grateful if you recognised that, refrained from trying to discredit me, and stuck to the matter at hand. Moving on, the very section you have quoted begins: The name of a flag's country (or province, etc.) should appear adjacent to the first use of the flag icon, as not all readers are familiar with all flags. Nearby uses of the flag need not repeat the name. It goes on to say that if the flags are repeated far away, the country name should probably be repeated. The wording is about as unambiguous as my previous edit or edit summary, which is a rare thing indeed in the Manual of Style. --WFC-- 18:36, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

And surprisingly agrees with my opinion too. Do we actually have any suggestion that the tables are somehow less clear if we remove the text, but align them with the teams final standings as Andrwsc suggested?Koncorde (talk) 19:39, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

Update: I failed to achieve world peace. --WFC-- 13:42, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Definition of "Foreign Player"

Can anyone point me to an official definition of a "Foreign Player"? For context, it's in relation to List of foreign Scottish Premier League players which defines a foreign player (in the context of Scotland) as one that was born outside the British Isles? Also related to a discussion here. Thank you. --HighKing (talk) 17:28, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

I think the simple reason for that list having that criteria is that a list that included English, Welsh and both types of Irish as "foreigners" would be implausibly long. Jmorrison230582 (talk) 18:00, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

Sounds like it's a makey-upey list then? No? There's nothing official about the list. It can't be used to determine eligibility for the Champions League using Home Grown players? --HighKing (talk) 18:07, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

There are no rules of that nature in Scottish football that I'm aware of. Another valid reason for not counting "British Isles" players as foreigners is the sheer number that would have a theoretical dual nationality between Scotland and that other nation. Why should Aiden McGeady (for argument's sake) count as a "foreigner" (given that he plays for Ireland) when he and both of his parents were born in Scotland? Jmorrison230582 (talk) 18:15, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

OK, so "foreign players" isn't a definition by the Scottish FA, as far as we know. So what use is the list? What is the article relevant to? Who decided on the definition of "foreign"? Good point about Aiden McGeady, but what then about Roy Keane? The UEFA rules state ‘Home-grown players’ are defined by UEFA as players who, regardless of their nationality or age, have been trained by their club or by another club in the national association for at least three years between the age of 15 and 21. The UEFA rule does not contain any nationality conditions. It also applies in the same way to all players and all clubs participating in competitions organised by UEFA. So it's not done, in fooball clubs, based on nationality. --HighKing (talk) 18:25, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

Participations in national teams count as well. FkpCascais (talk) 18:29, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

That would be a weird definition of foreign. Many Scottish players are developed between those ages by English clubs (eg Graeme Souness, John Wark or Darren Fletcher). If and when they played in the SPL, they would count as "foreigners" because they weren't "home grown". Jmorrison230582 (talk) 18:31, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

That's what the proposals for the Premier League are. See here. --HighKing (talk) 18:34, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

• It doesn't use the word "foreign" anywhere though. Red herring. Jmorrison230582 (talk) 18:36, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

That's kinda the point. If there's no definition of "foreign" being used officially, what's notable about the article? Who decides that "foreign" means? Also, this article gives another good overview (and uses the word "foreign"). This example is a fans forum for a poll on best foreign player, and it includes Roy Keane. This BBC article compares where today's premier league players come from with a decade ago, and include RoI players as foreign. This article defines "foreign" as any player not eligible for the National Team. This Newspaper article defines foreign as anyone who isn't British. --HighKing (talk) 18:43, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

The fact there appears to be different definitions of the term "foreign player" justify the method used by the author of the article, which included the ROI and EWNI. It is not our job to determine if the article itself is notable or not here, the issue is the term "foreign player" and if there is an official (UEFA, FIFA, SFA) position on it. BritishWatcher (talk) 18:48, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

I have come across this article [8] which says:

"There has been some confusion and much debate in recent days about whether or not Nacho Novo can play for Scotland," said SFA chief executive Gordon Smith.

"On one hand, the Fifa regulations say that George Burley can pick eligible players who hold a British passport - and, on the other, we have the gentlemen's agreement with the other Home Associations that says that we will pick players based on their bloodline."

That was in 2008, i dont know if there has been changes since then, but according to that it doesnt sound like FIFA view English people to be "foreign" when it comes to Scotland and there for nor are people of the Isle of Man and Channel Islands which are not part of the United Kingdom. BritishWatcher (talk) 19:04, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

I will just like to remind everybody that the article is stable and there has not been any debate regarding any player neither nobody wanted to incorporate other British nations in it. On the other hend, the list has been very usefull to show the non-domestic players that played in the Scottish Premier League. FkpCascais (talk) 22:09, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

I agree, there is no need for a change and the list is of use to the reader. It also basically matches the list found at List of foreign Premier League players although that too should say British Isles rather than just Great Britain and Ireland. BritishWatcher (talk) 22:21, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

Indicating Club's League in Single Season Cup Competitions

I'm specifically looking at the Football League Cup, but I think the question would apply in any national cup competition that includes teams from multiple levels. I think it'd be appropriate to indicate the current league level (Premier versus Championship, Serie A vs Serie B, etc) for each of the participants. Upsets tend to be of significant interest in these competitions, and the easiest way to know (without prior knowledge) whether an upset has occured is to compare the two teams' league levels. Also, league seems as relevant as national origin in international competitions (Europa League, etc), which seems to be indicated by default. I've made an edit along those lines in the 2010-11 Football League Cup, which has been (reasonably) reverted, and I'm curious to see if there's some kind of consensus. Indicating the league textually does seem a bit cluttered, and I'm inclined to move to color-coding instead, although that might create its own rainbowism. And along those lines, it's probably worth creating a template for these (if one doesn't exist already) as all of the current single-year articles seem to handroll a wikitable. Simianvector (talk) 00:25, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

In a competition like the League Cup, whose entry is restricted to teams from a small set of clearly-defined levels, I don't see a problem with including an indicator of the level. The most straightforward method would be columns as your trial edit had, but containing the number of the level, i.e. 1 = Premier League/old First Division, 2 = Championship/ex Division One/old Second Division, etc. Clear to understand, no need for the reader to know what the abbreviations stand for or that Championship is above League Two.

Colour-coding wouldn't be acceptable on MoS (accessibility) grounds without an alternative means of expressing the information, such as symbols, which adds an additional level of complication. I'd suggest that the reader would grasp more easily that level 2 was above level 3, than that a blue team with a dagger was above a yellow team with a star.

However, if you tried to extend it to something like the FA Cup, teams enter from dozens (hundreds?) of leagues. Their names would be meaningless to most readers, and the concept of "levels" below the top very few is a relatively recent invention and a fluid one. It's not my area of expertise, but I'd be surprised if it was easy to reliably source the lower levels of the structure as recently as 10 years ago. Daresay similar problems would be found in other countries' competitions. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 10:54, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Would 2 or 3 character abbreviations be suitable: Premier League, PL; Championship, LC (League Championship); League 1, L1, etc...? Darigan (talk) 11:05, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Although it might get a bit odd by the time you get down to the Hellenic Football League Darigan (talk) 11:11, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

If there's a real determination to do this, we could go down as far as the Conference National, and label everything below that as a regional league. --WFC-- 15:22, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Hi WFCforlife, I'm not too bothered either way, and the Conference National sounds like a reasonable cutting off point for the English football league, but the issue then might be how the cutting-off point is found for leagues around the world. Could we tie it in to a rule whereby the lowest league to sustain professional teams (similar to footie's WP|Athlete standards) become the cutoff point... I'm not entirely sure if this is feasible, opinion? Cheers Darigan (talk) 15:34, 13 August 2010 (UTC) - edit - Juat re-read your post and looked at the breakdown of the English league - The break between National and Regional leagues is probably better than my follow-up Darigan (talk) 15:35, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

I would suggest to take a look at a couple of other domestic cups within UEFA (I think the Romanians do it, but I'm not sure about that). In order to distinguish the different levels, every club NOT in the top league is being annotated with roman numerals, e.g.:

Team 1	Score	Team 2
Springfield Isotopes (II)	2–1	Capitol City FC

I don't know if this is desired or not, but it might be an alternative to think about. --Soccer-holic^{I hear voices in my head...} 17:00, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Just to aggregate together the ideas so far and respond in bulk, I see the accessibility issues of colo(u)r or the league's badge or icon (which would be the most obvious correlation with national flag in international competitions), and agree it should avoided on those grounds. An abbreviation avoids that problem but to Darigan's point would need a key. Numeric representations avoid that, but I think arabic numerals tend to be heavily used in football result tables and could be confusing. So Roman numerals are a good compromise, but would again likely need a key, or at least an explanation, and below a certain level it's not clear whether you're at IX or X. Though at least in the English game it seems pretty well defined. So at this point I'm leaning towards Roman numerals for National levels, with perhaps a default indicator for 'lower level' leagues which would include everything below the lowest National league. I'll give it some time for other ideas and otherwise try out a trial edit on the current League Cup and see what it looks like. Simianvector (talk) 18:15, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Attention User:Zombie433 the cheater

I'd like to point out that User:Zombie433 is putting false informations into the articles. At first I thought that he is a football manager, but now I see that he is a stupid, crazy man, pure cheater. He faked thousands of articles about african footballers. I don't have a point why he is doing it? The most generic falsifications he is doing are inserting fake youthyears, fake number of matches and goals in club career, fake years, matches and goals in youth national teams (U-17, U-20).

In this discussion I explained how he was faking Dominic Adiyiah article [9]. The worst thing is that users from other lannguage wikipedias are copying this statistics. Also websites like transfermart are instering faked stats from youth national teams by Zombie433 to players profiles.

I already removed false information from hundreds of articles faked by Zombie433. But there are thousands more biographies falsed by him. I need your help to completely remove Zombie's fake contribution from articles.

Also I think that we should convince wikipedia administrators to permanently ban this cheater. Since 2 years he made so much damege in footballers articles, but it's a time to finally stop it.--Wrwr1 (talk) 01:59, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm glad people are finally noticing how detrimental Zombie433 was to the project. I said as much on several occasions, but he always seemed to get away with it, what with other people assuming good faith and all that. I agree that all his contributions need to checked (some of his additions were OK, so they don't need removing). BigDom 10:25, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

• • I have wasted enough of my time on this Zombiecase. I think the main question should be :How could this have happened? After 2 years you can find traces of his contributions all over the web. Cattivi (talk) 11:13, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Chris Morgan (footballer)

Hi there seem to have been a series of disruptive edits at Chris Morgan (footballer), with one user reverting some but not all of them, and then me reverting a new disruptive edit without reverting back further (sorry). Could someone take a look at it please. Cheers Darigan (talk) 13:21, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

I've undone one more, think it's OK now. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 13:45, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

National youth squad navboxes

This navbox has just survived a TfD discussion due to a lack of consensus. Since I am certain that a consensus has been established by this WikiProject regarding national youth squad navboxes, this result should never have happened. Perhaps we should take this opportunity to establish the desirability of these navboxes, so that we have a definite record of whatever consensus we achieve. – PeeJay 00:46, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

RfC closure?

I think it's fair to say that the recent flag-based RfC over the football squad template ended in little consensus. However, I think that there are some (non-flag) things that can be taken from it, and that there are things that most editors can agree on that should at least ensure that any future disputes over that template do not cause disruption or take people by surprise. I have attempted to summarise these things here, and would be grateful for input from as many people as possible, to ascertain whether I have truly reflected the RfC and the current situation. Regards, --WFC-- 01:03, 14 August 2010 (UTC)