Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Football

South African leagues

I've created four new pages for the PSL's predecessors:

• SASL (1962-70)
• FPL (1969-90) - I can't find what FPL stands for, presumably Football Premier League
• NPSL (1971-95)
• NSL (1985-95)

Any improvements much appreciated. TheBigJagielka (talk)

Trial of new parameter in fb template - tournament qualified

As what the Ukarinian Premier League article happened, I'm now doing a trial of adding a new parameter of tournament qualified for the fb template, which shows at Premier League, La Liga, Serie A and Bundesliga until the season finished. If the trial is successful, then we could implement into other leagues since next season. The usage of the parameter is tournamentqualified= and only apply on they are sure to qualify for the tournament, but not sure to qualify for the stage. Raymond "Giggs" Ko 02:37, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

Since this is a somehow related discussion, please take also a short glimpse at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Football/Season article task force#Qualification colors. --Soccer-holic^{I hear voices in my head...} 09:27, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

More band-aids to fix a WP:FUTURE issue. Utterly Hopeless. How about writing a complete paragraph in the annotation section to confuse readers even more? And while you're at it, add (BS) which is self-explanatory. Brudder Andrusha (talk) 16:39, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

Even worse than writing essays about European qualification in the annotation section, as seen in various Premier League articles: Using regular and pointless paragraphs.--Soccer-holic^{I hear voices in my head...} 17:27, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

It seems that that pointless is not there now. But it was clear when you agreed to the prose two seasons ago when then this issue came up. Brudder Andrusha (talk) 18:58, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Seriously, and once again, if you don't like the format of the league season articles, go ahead, set up a proposal, and present it to the masses when finished. Since the Ukrainian national football team does not compete at the World Cup, there should be plenty of time available once your domestic season is over.

The proposal is quite clear - Display information that is verifiable and not in conflict with WP:FUTUREBrudder Andrusha (talk) 18:58, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

On topic - While the new abbreviation surely adds some clarity, I do not think that the Q or TQ parameters should be continued to be used. There are just too much unnecessary reverts related to them, because casual readers do not understand the actual meaning at first sight and thus add them on behalf of their own understanding, often resulting in erroneous edits. Just leave them out completely and only add C for the champions, R for the relegated teams and, if necessary, O and A, once the respective facts become true. And regarding the qual/rel column - how about adding an automatic footnote which states something in the terms of "these spots are available, teams are qualified once season is over" and leaving the actual facts to the respective Champions League, Europa League or similar articles? --Soccer-holic^{I hear voices in my head...} 17:27, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

Obviously that fool of a goon who invaded the Ukrainian Premier Season after the 23rd Round continues to think that his band-aid approach of annotation is a solution - even after the season has completed. Dumb is even dumber who continues his folly of (Q) and (TQ) after the season is over that one has to wonder what is his real mission here is. Brudder Andrusha (talk) 18:58, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Review

As the season of the four leagues was over, I'd like to invite all of you to review for the design. Raymond "Giggs" Ko 13:04, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

Redundant categories

Recently GiantSnowman, advised me not to substitute Category:Spanish footballers for Category:Footballers from Majorca as he (or she) claimed both had to be there, although they are clearly redundant. I have asked him (or her) to link me to the guideline that states it and to tell me if this is global for all categories or only applied to footballers, but he (or she) does not know this. Could someone help me? Thanks. Paucabot (talk) 07:12, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

I'm a he ;) - oh, and basically I noticed that Paucabot was removing Category:Spanish footballers from articles about Spanish footballers, and inserting regional categories instead. I advised him (or her) not to replace the national category, but said that regional categories as well was fine. GiantSnowman 07:17, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Guidance related to subcategorization is found primarily at Wikipedia:Categorization#Subcategorization. I can't be certain, of course, but perhaps the suggestion is that Footballers from Majorca is a non-diffusing subcategory? -- Black Falcon ^(talk) 07:23, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

I'm also a he . I have already read the guidelines you linked me (Thanks!) and I am still thinking that Category:Footballers from Majorca is not a non-diffusing category as you can see with the spanish wikipedia category es:Categoría:Futbolistas de España por comunidad autónoma. Furthermore, I don't understand why GiantSnowman has deleted the new category if he said it was possible to have both. Paucabot (talk) 07:10, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

I don´t see them organised in sub-categories, so only when, and if, that happends, you can start removing the Spanish footballers category.

P.S.:If GiantSnowman was a "she", wouldn´t he be a GiantSnowgirl then? :) FkpCascais (talk) 08:05, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

They already are organized in subcategories: Category:Basque footballers, Category:Cantabrian footballers, Category:Catalan footballers. Or am I wrong? Paucabot (talk) 10:28, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

No, you are not wrong, obviously Basque, Cantabrian and Catalan footballers categories are sub-categories of Spanish footballers, but for that sub-categories to be enough to discart Spanish footballers, all other 14 missing Spanish regions should also have sub-categories, so all Spanish footballers could be sub-categorised, and not only from those 3 regions. It wouldn´t make sence to have the regional subcategories used in only 3 cases, and the "Spanish footballers" category for the rest. I´m not sure if this was clear, but you can also have this other perspective, exemple, if you use the category, Category:People from Novi Sad, since Novi Sad is the city capital of Serbian province of Vojvodina, you could discart the category Category:People from Vojvodina, but that doesn´t necessarily happend, and is even often to see both used. For your case, since the regions of Spain even usually participate in non-FIFA football tournaments, it can be usefull to have some regions footballers categories to have an idea of which players could be selected to those non-FIFA teams (Catalonia, Basque Country, etc.). But, it is usefull to have the Category:Spanish footballers present anyway since they are, after all, Spanish. Resumingly, I think that the sub-categorisation is only usefull in cases where the sub-categorisation is complete, meaning, in Spanish case, that all 17 Spanish regions would have their sub-categories. FkpCascais (talk) 02:47, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

I still don't get it clear. Is it your point of view or is this a guideline of this project? If it's the second one, where is it explained? Paucabot (talk) 20:19, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

"Released from contract"

Yep, it's that time of year again. It has been reported by the BBC that Bradford City have released (note tense) seven players. City themselves have confirmed that the players will go "when their contracts expire". To me this is a definite indication that these players no longer play for Bradford. So, the question is, do we have to wait until 30th June, or can we start related editing now? GiantSnowman 18:51, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

Yup interesting time of year----my view, for what it's worth, is that if the club announce it then the players are 'out' and editing could begin. Trouble happens when folk use some tabloid or blog for their info.--Egghead06 (talk) 05:30, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

There is a difference in the standard of info that should be expected in an encyclopaedia than in a pub conversation. At the Dog and Duck, it is fine to say that Lee Trundle has been released: to all intents and purposes, his connection with Bristol City is now over. But the club remains financially committed to him, and he to the club legally, until the end of the contract. News media will use informal, imprecise language (contrast the club's and the BBC's comments quoted above in relation to Bradford's soon-to-be-former players; note the BBC's inconsistency between the headline and the lead para headline here. We seemed to reach a consensus last year on player articles of phrasing like "currently at Livmanchelsenal FC, but due to leave upon the expiry of his contract in June 2010", and we have had players whose departure is pending indicated by a dagger or similar, with suitable footnote, on club squad lists. It is probably not worth running around reverting every premature edit claiming end of a contract, but there is no real excuse for declaring something to have happened before it does. Kevin McE (talk) 07:22, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Always assuming, of course, that we know when a contract ends! Do all contracts run until the end of June or do some run until the end of a season? Very often no date is given for a contract end--Egghead06 (talk) 07:28, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Exactly. Articles should say exactly what we do know, and no more, when it comes to BLPs. It's always worth remembering that we're discussing the specific details of someone's livelihood, and that Wikipedia is a very high-profile site for most player biographies (I'd be unsurprised if it were the first Google result for most active players these days). Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 09:32, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

But that cuts both ways. Media such as the BBC show themselves to be imprecise and inconsistent, and so not, in this context, reliable for the finer detail of contract dates. So maybe not specify "June", but equally don't say in May that he is no longer employed by a club when standard contract lasts until the end of June and we do not know that the specific contract is any different or that the contract has been cancelled rather than simply allowed to dwindle out. Kevin McE (talk) 10:15, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

It's certainly true that the sources themselves may not be perfect, but by reporting exactly what they say we're at least leaving the potential for a false interpretation to the reader rather than making it ourselves. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 19:00, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

End of June citations available c 2/3 way through this; here; and 4th paragraph of this. Kevin McE (talk) 22:25, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Category:Expatriate footballers in East Germany

User:Zombie433 has been populating this category, but hasn't been doing it correctly - because West Berlin, i.e. Hertha and TeBe Berlin, was not East Germany, and nor is anything after 1990. With this in mind, it seems like a fairly useless category - there weren't many people that moved to East Germany. Zombie, for some reason, removed this comment from his talk page when I added it. ArtVandelay13 (talk) 09:47, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Indeed. Also, afair, there were no foreigners allowed in East German football which leads me to believe that Abdul Aziz Moshood has not played for Dresden at all - I also cannot find anything to corroborate his stay with the club in 1989.

The category should be deleted - but I dunno how that works. Madcynic (talk) 10:32, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Correction - there were foreigners, but not in the top flight. Also, there was a third-tier club called SASK Elstal which was composed exclusively of members of the Soviet Army based at Elstal. An exampe for a foreigner who played in the lower tiers is Chérif Souleymane who played for a Neustrelitz club and SC Neubrandenburg, according to the latter club's homepage. However, as none of those players were allowed in the top flight, it is unlikely that many more than my example pass the notability test, hence, the category will be permanently underpopulated. Madcynic (talk) 10:48, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

The vast majority of User:Zombie433's 'X-ian footballers in X' category populations are completely useless, IMHO. Look at all the junk at the bottom of Edgaras Jankauskas's page. --JonBroxton (talk) 17:39, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

There were some foreign players in the final, 1990-91 season but not many Anatoly Demyanenko Pavel Chaloupka Cattivi (talk) 17:52, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

I don't think that was East Germany, either by nation or by association - the 1990/91 NOFV Oberliga was under the DFB. ArtVandelay13 (talk) 19:07, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

That was in November, East Germany still existed when the season started in August. Chaloupka, Peter Disztl, Paul Caligiuri and a few others all played when the DDR still existed (Demyanenko was not a very good example) Cattivi (talk) 09:06, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Moshood didn't play for Dynamo Dresden, Stuttgarter Kickers. The Finnish stats in the infobox that I can check are also wrong Cattivi (talk) 09:19, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

This Zombie433 has a clear habit of making massive listings and categorizations without even reading or checking what he is doing. He already started to add all foreign players that played in Montenegrin clubs in a list of foreign players in Serbia, while I wrote clearly, in the beggining of the article that Montenegrin clubs are excluded... This adding of Hertha´s players at DDR category is another tipical exemple. He doesn´t know the basics, but that is not the worste (not everybody needs to know everything), the worste is that he doesn´t even bother to check, or, completely ignores when corrected. I had already recently posted here an issue regarding his massive categorizations of "Siuxian expatriates in Tunguzya" categories and, everybody agreed, but nothing happend... While not a vandal, his massive and frequent errors are very, very annoying!

P.S.:Regarding the category itself, despite being clearly, even if complete, underspopulated, I would find interesting leaving it, but, of course, correctly used. FkpCascais (talk) 09:47, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

I have asked a question on his talkpage, I believe he's adding a lot of fiction Cattivi (talk) 09:57, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Wanna bet he´ll just put it unresponded in his archive? :) FkpCascais (talk) 10:02, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Ha, ha, ha,... I won! He archived it. He´s incredible... :) FkpCascais (talk) 10:20, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

That didn't take long. I bet he doesn't know about this source [1] Cattivi (talk) 10:45, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

After a second question, he made some changes to the Moshood article. (Not enough in my opinion) But at least that's some result :) Cattivi (talk) 11:42, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

I am still expecting to see what will be the outcome of that... I honestly think that his main reason for avoiding discussions is because his English is far from being level 4, as he claims in his user page. Anyway, congrats for archiving comunication with him! FkpCascais (talk) 11:59, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Philippe Davies

In relation to a dispute at Philippe Davies, User:JonBroxton states "multi-source references removed as they are now superceded by the identical bio link in the external links section". I would prefer inline citations be used to specifically show which claims are being referenced and what the source is. Could anyone add anything? Cheers, Mattythewhite (talk) 21:35, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Verifiability states "All material in Wikipedia articles must be attributable to a reliable published source to show that it is not original research, but in practice not everything need actually be attributed. This policy requires that anything challenged or likely to be challenged, including all quotations, be attributed to a reliable source in the form of an inline citation, and that the source directly support the material in question." From that I would say inline citations are always better over external links. GiantSnowman 21:54, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Having seven or eight references redirecting to the same page just seems like overkill to me. The citations were for things like his height and his place of birth, none of which are "challenged or likely to be challenged", and which can be easily verifed by one click on his external bio link. --JonBroxton (talk) 21:57, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Oh, and just to clarify - it's not really a "dispute", more a case of two editors presenting the same information in different ways. I prefer the single-source way, but I'm not going to kick up a fuss if consensus thinks otherwise. --JonBroxton (talk) 22:00, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Jon. No need to cite everything if one citation lists all facts. Imagine citing every song name on an album back to the album's liner notes. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 22:03, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

The same individual citation for every sentence in a short paragraph is probably overkill, once for the paragraph should do. However, if the external link is actually a general reference, it should appear as such in the references section, not (or at least, not only) in the external links section. But the trouble with general references, whether properly placed or left in the external links section as many people do, me included, is that it's far too easy to add unsourced bits and the reader will assume it can be verified by the general ref, whether it can or not. Probably why they invented the {{No footnotes}} template. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 22:26, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Early history of English football clubs

Many articles on English football clubs seem to have very poor early history information (Chesterfield F. C. is a cgood example). I happen to have acquired an offline source (see here for description) which could be used to expand this information for any club that was in the League in the 1999/2000 season. Since I don't know which articles need this most and I'm sure someone reading this does, it would be very helpful if anyone with a specific case needing work could leave a message here. You can see what sort of information I have in mind with this edit to my team. Alzarian16 (talk) 01:32, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Wigan Rovers

I'm not brilliant with team notability - especially among the lower, regional leagues - but does this history merit an article? I think so, but though I'd check here before creating the article...cheers, GiantSnowman 06:48, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

I think the criterion that we usually set to imply notability is participation in a national cup competition. Since this team played in the FA Cup on several occasions, I would agree with you that it is a notable club. Certainly, if this were to be deleted there would be many more existing articles about teams at a lower level that would have to go as well. I'd say go for it, create the article. BigDom 08:47, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Harry Hampton at Blackpool?

The Blackpool F.C. season 1916–17 article mentions in passing that "Harry Hampton...briefly played for Blackpool this season, scoring eight goals in seven league games" but there is no mention of him playing war football here (or anywhere else for that matter) on his own article; in fact it mentions his participation (and injury) on the Western Front. Can anyone find a source either way? Cheers, GiantSnowman 08:04, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

I dare say that User:Dudesleeper would be your best bet here, he's definitely a Blackpool fan (so is User:Tangerines). I suppose there's every possibility that it was a completely different Harry Hampton (seems likely), seeing as there is more than one on the Harry Hampton disambiguation page. BigDom 08:45, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

The Aston Villa Player Database page cited as a general reference in the player's article says he played for Villa and guested for Bellis and Morcom, Birmingham, Blackpool, Derby County, Fulham, Nottingham Forest, Reading and Stoke during the war. Matthews confirms Birmingham, Derby and Forest, Blackpool season page has two book sources. See no reason why the other clubs shouldn't be right as well. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 11:15, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

BigDom - the other Harry Hampton (who I was actually searching for when I came across this older player) was Irish and played club football for Dundee & Bradford, before returning to Ireland in 1914. In 1915 he returned to Bradford to live and worked in the Labour Corps during WWI (he had injured himself and was unfit for active duty), so I doubt it's him. Struway - many thanks for that! GiantSnowman 19:32, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

bdfutbol.com - a respectable source?

Hello footies,

following a discussion at an FLC, here, the reliability of bdfutbol.com was brought up. It's an excellent site for Spanish stats, as the official stat-sites are horrible. It only include league games and goal (see here )

Pro

• all the data can be verified at LFP.es (the Spanish FA), however they only list player stat one season at a time, so to list one player one would have to include either one big general reference to LFP, or links to all the relevant seasons he played.

Con

• I can't see what makes BDFutbol a WP:RS. The website itself says "All the information in this web (data and photos) has been obtained from 1) data recopilated by myself, 2) internet pages that show it publically and 3) people that has contacted with me to provide me them." which is hardly confidence-inspiring, particularly the third of his data sources. The Rambling Man (talk) 08:01, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

• • Cheers, Sandman888 (talk) 11:18, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

I can only say that it has been allways corect whenever I used it. I simply love it! It is usefull for Segunda División, as well. FkpCascais (talk) 11:20, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

I touth it was linked with reputable Spanish magazine Don Balón, but now I see that it isn´t, [2], and now I understand your questions regarding WP:RS... FkpCascais (talk) 11:27, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Yes, well I'm not doubting that it's useful, interesting etc, but as you say, does it meet our WP:RS guideline? If so, how? The Rambling Man (talk) 12:03, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

As I touth that it was linked to Don Balon, that makes an extensive coverage of the Spanish football for decades now, I touth that automatically, "their" site, was too, but since they don´t have any connection with them, or to any news agency whatsoever, the site itself looks more like original research. By now, I can only say that I personally find it reliable because I haven´t finded any errors (maybe, yet...). Althougth, we can say that is a website specialised in one area (football), in one country where the sport is particularly popular, where websites with errors wouldn´t probably enjoy such good reputation, like in this case. But... FkpCascais (talk) 12:28, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

I suspect the owner(s) of the bdfutbol.com website simply compiles data from LFP.es (which is far from user-friendly). I've never seen data at bdfutbol.com which is not found at LFP.es (although it is much more difficult to find there). Accordingly, I believe it is a valuable reference, if for no other reason than the difficulty of using LFP.es. Is it a reliable source? I doubt it. Jogurney (talk) 13:18, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

• Victor the admin states http://bdfutbol.superforos.com/viewtopic.php?t=159:
• The data is taken -initially- from LFP.es, but there are some important things to point out:
• LFP.es only contains data from the second division starting on 1992-93. Therefore, all the data I show before that season has been collected from other sources.
• The data from the second division in LFP.es is minimal. Only the name of the players and its statistics is shown, but there are no player profiles. Moreover, in the player profiles (of the first division), only data regarding first division is shown, not the second. Instead, my site shows everything.
• In my site the players that have not played any match in the season also appear in the squads, in LFP.es they are missing.
• - LFP.es contains several errors regarding players information such as place and date of birth, names and surnames. Much of these information is corrected in my site thanks to the messages sent by the users (some of them have came directly from relatives (sons, grandsons...) of the player, so I trust them).
• - In addition, my site shows many useful information that LFP.es doesn't, such as photos, playing positions, data from the spanish national team, player's relatives, managers, etc.
• However, ALL the data regarding "statistics" is exactly the same as in LFP. Therefore I think my site is a reliable source.

• • Does that meet the criteria reg. sources? Note that we are only considering the stats, not the more questionable part of birthday errors corrected by grandsons.Sandman888 (talk) 11:01, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

#### in Fooian association football

Yesterday I went into Category:2010 in association football. I saw that all of the articles titled in the format of my section heading are sorted by "#, <nationality> <year(s)>". I noticed that the England and Hong Kong articles, however, were sorted under "E" and "H", respectively; both of those articles are assigned categories via a navigational template. I went into {{English football seasons}} and {{Hong Kong football seasons}} and then updated the category sort functions. However, the articles are still sorted under "E" and "H". Sometimes those sorts of things can take a few hours to update, but it's been almost a full 24 hours. If someone could fix that and/or explain to me why that is then I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks. JohnnyPolo24 (talk) 12:26, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Moving 3 articles (lists) to reflect inclusion criteria

see this page for discussion. it concerns:

• Arsenal players
• Aston Villa players
• Birmingham players
  • Cheers, Sandman888 (talk) 13:15, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

I fixed your botched attempts at notifications. On another note, why only those 3? By my count this project has 13 FLs on players that would be affected by this point. Woody (talk) 13:25, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Tom Heaton

Tom Heaton has returned to Manchester United F.C. I am not sure if he is in the first team or reserves. either way can i still add him to the Manchester united squad template. Gobbleswoggler (talk) 09:49, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

First of all, how do you know that he has returned to Manchester United? Loan contracts run until 30 June, so isn't he still technically on loan? Secondly, the Manchester United website lists him only as a reserve player, so I would not add him to the squad template. – PeeJay 13:01, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

PeeJay, I'm not sure that loan contracts are until the end of June. For example, Ryan Taylor played for Rotherham in the play-offs yesterday despite having been on loan at Exeter. However, I would agree with you that as a reserve player, Heaton should not be included in the squad template. BigDom 16:36, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

There's no fixed period. Unless a source can be found indicating that the loan is definitely over, we shouldn't assume it. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 09:18, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

Conversely, unless a source states that the loan extends beyond the end of the borrowing club's season, we shouldn't assume it. where does the burden of proof fall? Kevin McE (talk) 18:11, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

Well, we're damned both ways basically. I'm still of the opinion that when one is updating the current status of a given player one should always be working from a source which says whatever one is adding. For most of our current notable players, this really shouldn't that difficult because their notability implicitly suggests that reliable sources are keeping track of them. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 09:24, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Angelos Basinas

How many league games has Angelos Basinas played for Portsmouth as soccerbase's stats contradict portsmouth fc stats. Gobbleswoggler (talk) 15:49, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

12 according to SKY Sports [3]TheBigJagielka (talk) 20:48, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

Not sure what you're asking. Soccerbase say 20 games in all comps, of which 15 in the League, and Portsmouth F.C. say he's played 20 games, which presumably means 20 games in all comps, the same as Soccerbase says. Sky's 12 League games is for this season only, the same as Soccerbase says. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 21:12, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

Payrool

This may be off topic with Wikipedia, but how much do footballers in Europe get paid a year and do you know any clubs that have recieved concerns about it? – Michael (talk) 16:00, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

Surely that is what google is for? Anyhoo, this survey from 2006 showed an average in the English Premier League of £676,000 a year and that will have only gone up. Cristiano Ronaldo apparently gets £11.3 million, but professionals in the English fifth division (Football Conference) probably earn more in the range of £20,000 a year, if that. Not quite sure what you mean by 'received concerns' is that an accountancy term? --Pretty Green (talk) 16:29, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure that there is some official definition of a sensible wages/turnover ratio. I've seen a website which keeps track of it from Scottish clubs at least. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 09:26, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

York Region Shooters

The Canadian team Italia Shooters has recently changed their name to York Shooters. There was already a club called York Region Shooters but it is now defunct. I moved the defunct club's page to York Region Shooters (1998) however there are many links to the York Region Shooters page. Is there a bot that can automatically update links?

i.e. it could find

"[[York Region Shooters|" and replace it with "[[York Region Shooters (1998)|"

I would like to move the Italia Shooters to the York Region Shooters page.TheBigJagielka (talk) 20:27, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

I think you want to use WP:AWB. GiantSnowman 22:48, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, just done that now. Fascinating tool TheBigJagielka (talk) 01:46, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

RfC on "Safety" article titles

Hello. I recently opened an RfC on sorting out the titles of the "Safety" articles, both for the position and the scoring play. Since no one has yet responded, I am notifying potentially interested WikiProjects and inviting comment in order to build consensus. Please go here: Talk:Safety_(American_football)#RfC:_.22Safety.22_article_titles to comment. Note that both the position and scoring play are exclusive to American football; however, since there appeared to be extensive comment from association football fans in previous move requests that ended in no consensus, I am notifying this WikiProject as well. –Grondemar 21:07, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

Why Protect a page? Paranoia

So the Ukrainian Premier League Season has completed... And now the harassment begins. Why is the duplicate use of (R) needed (and enforced) when the is a specific column with Qualification and Relegation which details quite clearly where the teams are relegated and that the season is over. The (R) is NOT needed!

Also why is that footer blaring information which is not pertinent after the season is completed? The annotation is bogus and just another attempt of control, conformation and harassment. Brudder Andrusha (talk) 22:44, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

Have you tried to discuss this calmly with the other editors of the page? I'm sorry but I don't think this is a case of harassment, just a disagreement over how to present a very minor part of the table. Camw (talk) 04:10, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

I would agree with you that the (R) is not needed when the season is finished (along with some stuff in the footer). But if there was a disagreement, talk it out. Digirami (talk) 05:09, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

It's precisely because of the "stuff in the footer", a.k.a the legend, that the addition marking must be presented. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 18:22, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Must be presented? If 6 of the 7 annotation symbols are not needed in the post season - the footer is a typical array of useless information with additional bytes that are carried onto every standings table that uses the template. Brudder Andrusha (talk) 20:10, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

If it's an "array of useless information with additional bytes that are carried onto every standings table", then let's change the template rather than ignore what we don't like (or understand) about it. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 20:19, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

An attempt was made but it was reverted - as usual by those who seem to think that they know better. Brudder Andrusha (talk) 00:00, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

As a reference, please see: 2009–10_Fußball-Bundesliga#League_table and 2009–10_Premier_League#League_table. Are those leagues doing it wrong? --Walter Görlitz (talk) 00:08, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

In the case of The Bundesliga, the (R) is duplicated because the 17th and 18th placed teams are clearly relegated by the information in the Qualification and relegation column. The 16th placed team is correctly clarified by the (O). All other annotation should not be displayed in the post completed season – especially qualification. In the English Premier League only the (C) should be annotated because it is clear that the 18th, 19th and 20th teams are relegated. Because of the variation of the different conditions that exist in different competitions around the world - the canned format of this footer is inappropriate. The template fb footer had an conditional option for not displaying this annotation leaving the information to be entered by discretion by a manual entry that would be specific for each competition. Flexibility is the key, which is lacking. Brudder Andrusha (talk) 03:43, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

So everyone else is doing it wrong and only you are doing it right. I understand. Please fix the template. Until it's fixed, it is correct formatting to use the additional marking. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 13:52, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

One thing further. At any other time prior to the completion of the season, the markings are incorrect. They are only correct at the end of the season when a team is crowned champion, some teams are promoted and others relegated. At all other times it is simply an indication of current placement. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 19:56, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

If you still think that you are the ruler of Wikipedia, as what you are doing now, you'll lose all reputation here. The consensus has been made recently but you still against it. Wikipedia is not your own site. Thank you. :-) Raymond "Giggs" Ko 21:56, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

International Years again

What is the general feeling of consensus for the recent Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Football/Archive_41#End_dates_on_international_careers discussion? I only ask because a couple of users are still adding end-dates to players, which I wouldn't mind so much for players that have not been recently selected, but they seem happy to add them to players that are actually in current World Cup squads...inconsistantly so, as Rio Ferdinand and [Ashley Cole]] seem exempt, despite thier last actual caps being in the same game as Tom Huddlestone. While players who have not been included for "ages" may be open to interpretation disagreements, surely someone in a "current squad" is somewhat less so?--ClubOranje^T 06:32, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

My opinion is that, unless the player has specifically come out and said they are no longer available for international selection, or they have retired from football altogether, their international years should be open ended, with the year of their first cap, following by an ndash. --JonBroxton (talk) 06:51, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

Exactly. That's the safest option, and we should always err on the side of caution when it comes to BLPs. The argument again this is basically an "appeal to accuracy" which requires the reader to trust the editor. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 09:35, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

Completely agree. Take the case of Ben Sigmund, who won his first cap in 2000, but didn't win his second for another seven years - and he's now in the NZ World Cup squad! GiantSnowman 18:04, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

Isn't that why we edit this encyclopedia on a Wiki platform and not carve in stone, so we can edit as things change? So between 2000 and 2007, there was absolutely nothing factually incorrect in saying "Sigmund had a single international appearance in 2000." Mosmof (talk) 00:54, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Also agree. I do have another question: Does the first year correspond to the first call, or first cap, in case that are different? FkpCascais (talk) 18:08, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

Date of first cap, always. GiantSnowman 18:11, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

I have to disagree re: end date. At least for the majority of English and Brazilian player articles I've come across, the end dates were/are set whether their absence from international matches were voluntary. I don't see a compelling reason to change this practice, even if it's not set as policy. Vast majority of players (a) end their international careers before their club careers and (b) do so involuntarily. And the ones who do announce international retirements end up coming back anyway. It seems safer, more accurate and WP:Ver to use a piece of data that is inarguable, the most recent cap date.

I'd avoid using squads and callups as guides, since it's possible for a player to be called into camp, but still end up playing for another national team. All national team stats are for participation, not consideration. :And yes, some long-absent players are included in squads. But again, the infobox dates are for caps (since the years are right next to the number of caps and all), not considerations, which is open to interpretation.

I do agree with the call for consistency, though, and I don't think it's unreasonable or confusing to set the end date if a player hasn't appeared for his country for a full calendar year or longer (so anyone whose last appearance was in 2008 or earlier), regardless of circumstances. Mosmof (talk) 19:34, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

But if you put an end date, to the vast majority of readers, it will signify that his international career has ended entirely, and that he will never play for his country again. As I said before, unless the player has specifically come out and said they are no longer available for international selection, or they have retired from football altogether, this is simply factually incorrect. --JonBroxton (talk) 20:16, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

You're basing your definition of "incorrect" on how you guess the majority of readers will interpret a data. The problem is, you're only guessing, and it's not our problem if readers read into things that aren't there. I can just as easily argue that the majority of readers will understand it as "Player x earned n number of caps between 199x and 200y", which is perfectly correct. I could be wrong, but I'm not any more wrong than you are. Another issue is that an international career is never officially over - conceivably, Italy can call up Paolo Maldini as an injury replacement for its World Cup squad.

I wouldn't be guessing at all. Let's say that Player X first plays for Country X in 2004. Unless he says otherwise, or he retires entirely from football, he is theoratically eligible to play for his country again, at any time. Putting an end date is WP:OR, because we have no citable evidence that his international career has ended. So his international box should read "2004-", because we have no idea when his international career will end. The only way we will know for certain is when he declares himself ineligible, or retires from the game. As far as Paolo Maldini is concerned; under normal circumstances, yes, absolutely he could be called up as an injury replacement for its World Cup squad. This is exactly why international years should be left open-ended. The same goes for any active player who has not withdrawn from international play. The only difference with Maldini is that he *has* formally announced that he has retired from international football, and there are citable sourced which confirm this. If he goes back on this announcement, fair enough, we change it to reflect this. But for anyone who has NOT made an announcement, we need to leave it open ended. --JonBroxton (talk) 02:34, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

My point about "guessing" was about your assumption about how people see the infobox. Also, Wikipedia is an encyclopedia of what has happened, not what might or might not happen in the future, so I see the infobox as a record of the past, i.e. how many caps a player earned, and when those caps were earned. To assume a player's international career isn't over is WP:CRYSTAL because it's an assumption of a future event that's not guaranteed (as opposed to club affiliation, which is active until a contract is terminated).

You're twisting the definition of WP:CRYSTAL. We're not saying what might or might not happen in the future. We're saying that this person HAS played for Country X since Year X, and he is still eligible to do so, unless we have a source that confirms otherwise. To assume a player's international career IS over is WP:CRYSTAL unless we have citable evidence confirming it. --JonBroxton (talk) 03:55, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

To me, it does the reader great disservice to not provide the years for international caps earned for, say, Sylvinho or Robbie Fowler or Nick Barmby. Mosmof (talk) 03:16, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Maldini is probably a bad example give he has not played football in almost a year.Hack (talk) 03:01, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

You misunderstood my point. Maldini is an example of a player who is still eligible for a call-up, since anyone who's registered with an FA is eligible. International career never officially ends. Paul Gascoigne is eligible for a call-up as well - and as far as I know, he never announced his international retirement. Mosmof (talk) 03:16, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Comment: Data is plural. It's not "a data" as you wrote, it's "a datum". Please see http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/data . Feel free to discuss the actual issue again now. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 00:50, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Off-topic as it is, Bryson has said that this is a lost cause; while "a data" is pretty odd, and really should still be "datum" (or the contemporary "a point of data"), nobody would bat an eyelid at "the data says otherwise" rather than "the data say otherwise" these days. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 09:39, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Plus, plenty of players have gone back on international retirements that are purely unofficial. And is Nick Barmby's international career any more over than Paul Scholes', simply because he hasn't bothered to say, "Hey, I'm done with England". Instead of relying on fickle whims of professional footballers, I'd rather rely on verifiable facts - dates of the first and most recent caps. And removing the end date on Jamie Carragher's international cap years, as some editors are doing, is crystal balling, since they're are basically saying "He will earn another cap at some future date". Mosmof (talk) 00:46, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

I'm going to have to agree to Jon with this one. Unless they officially retire (from all football or just their international career), leave the year open ended. Digirami (talk) 06:51, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Mosmof, this is certainly a matter of opinion rather than one with a definite right answer, but at this point it's pretty obvious that we've got consensus to leave these open-ended unless a player has explicitly retired. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 09:39, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

I can live with that. I just hope everyone understands and is prepared for the amount of work required to go through articles of active footballers with stalled international careers to enforce this consensus. It's easy to talk about high profile players like Jamie Carragher, but the footballing world is littered with middling players who stop playing internationally involuntarily. I'm all for consistency, and from experience, I've found it to be easier to rely on most recent cap date than to find out whether a player has announced retirement, and whether or not he's changed his mind since then, as footballers often do. It's not like a player retiring from club play, which requires termination of contract. I think there is a danger in relying on unofficial, non-binding and often ignored announcements, but I realize I'm in the minority.

Finally, not to be the pedantic asshole, and I promise I won't bring this up again, but please repeat after me: there is no such thing as an "official" retirement from international play. Those announcements are unofficial requests to not to be called up. They don't prevent players from being included in squads and they're easily and very often reneged without any paperwork. Mosmof (talk) 01:21, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

I would say that the end year should represent the last cap earned. I don't completely understand the idea that it suggests the player's international career is over, as giving the end year does not actually explicitly state they have retired/are unavailable for selection etc. Using Barmby as an example, surely it is more informative for the reader to see when he last earned a cap than for it to be open ended and so insinuate he is still a member of the squad? Mattythewhite (talk) 01:49, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

I fully agree with Matty on this. Knepflerle (talk) 10:17, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

But the problem is that then the club and country fields in the infobox would have different semantics. The club field doesn't cover appearances, it covers employment. We try to approximate this with the country field by setting a "start date" of when the player has committed to playing for the country (first cap), and after that any player who is still under consideration for selection is considered "employed". Yes, this leads to some strangeness where a player remains active in football long after he's dropped out of the thoughts of the national coach, but the alternative means a fundamental change in the semantics of the field from "can play for" to "has played for". Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 08:39, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

I don't see that as a problem because of the differences in way players are hired by clubs and country. It might help you understand better if you think of playing for a club as a full-time 9-to-5 job and national team as seasonal or freelance work. With the former, terms of employment are based largely on time and you're expected to show up everyday unless you're told otherwise, and there's a formal process for terminating employment. WIth the latter, you show up only when there are specific projects, and if the supervisor decided he doesn't like you, he just doesn't call you. Why is this distinction important? Well, when you're writing your C.V., say you haven't done any freelance work for Acme Widgets since the Germany project in 2006. It would be awfully dishonest and uninformative to write your time with Acme Widgets as "2001-present", simply because you're "eligible" and you haven't told Acme not to call you.

And have you noticed that of the three figures in the national team line, we all agree that the start date and the cap count are about when a player "has played for" his country, but you want the end year to be when a player "can possibly play for and hasn't explicitly said he doesn't want to"? Why do so many editors think this inconsistency is preferable to a simple "has played 34 times between 2001 and 2006"? Mosmof (talk) 11:43, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

Because as we've discussed before, this gets messy and misleading if, say, a player is regularly called into the squad as a substitute but doesn't play in a game. And it rather demands that if a player doesn't get called up to a squad his years have to immediately be set to his last played game. We keep repeating these same arguments and nothing is changing. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 13:27, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

Why would you remove the end year simply because a player's in a squad or on the bench? We're talking about participation, not the potential to participate. Again, I'll concede to the consensus, but I don't get the desire to complicate things. Mosmof (talk) 13:47, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

This has become a bit messy. I found one example: Vitali Kutuzov – here, the player in question has "2002–present" for national team years. And another question: Is it wrong that this player has the national flag next to his national team? I found a couple of Belarusian players with the flag in the infobox. Jared Preston (talk) 11:23, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

What I have been doing is leaving the last year open for international players still playing (unless they stated they wan´t play internationally any more), and when the player retires, I put the year of his last cap, as the closing year of his NT career. FkpCascais (talk) 11:30, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

Regarding the flags, I have been removing them. They shouldn´t be used in infoboxes (I even found some flags in club section, as well). FkpCascais (talk) 11:32, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

Well, it seems that a lot of players linked to the Belarus national football team have flags in their infoboxes, if you want to take a look. Jared Preston (talk) 11:44, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

Presumably this is just an editor education issue. If someone has time it would be best to nuke the lot of them and notify whoever was responsible of the flag guidelines. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 13:27, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

If we give the closing date for the caps, then we have given one extra piece of unambiguous, unchanging and verifiable information - the year of the last cap.

If on the other hand we leave it open-ended, we omit this information and are hoping that the reader guesses our "convention" re international retirement - they have no way of finding out what our convention is from the article, it is important remember.

The only reason against the end date is a potential for misunderstanding, but I'm not convinced it will arise, as anyone looking at another article will swiftly realise that most current international footballers have cap date 200x-2010, as you'd expect.

The infobox should be kept for completely unambiguous information, because there is no room for explanation. If we want to inform a reader that a player has retired internationally, we should state so in the text, not imply it in the infobox (again assuming a reader guesses our convention correctly).

I would also contend that the end-date format is easier to maintain; most biographies' "number of caps" are updated at the time of match, and thus the end date will get its (maximally once a year) update. If a player has caps but then a long career afterwards, drifting to ever smaller clubs or with no official declaration of retirement, then it is far less likely that the infobox will get updated to indicate that the player is retired; with the end-date convention the infobox will be, and remain, up-to-date even in this eventuality. Knepflerle (talk) 13:15, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

But it isn't "unambiguous", because being capped (i.e. getting some time on the pitch during an international match) is certainly not the only indicator we have of appearance with the national team. Players on the bench are still with the national team, even if they aren't capped in a give game. The same applies to players who are suspended. For us to set end dates means that we need to agree what "end" means - date of last cap is misleading in too many cases for it to be a good choice. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 13:27, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

Yes, a player on the bench is with the national team, but not playing with the national team. Cap number is updated only when the player sets foot on the field. So why complicate matters by using a different criterion for the end year? Mosmof (talk) 13:47, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

Again, you must remember that readers have no idea what "convention" we use. The reader sees a set of years next to a number of caps; I guess 99% will expect that the years correspond to when they got the caps, not when they last sat on the bench or team bus. I certainly would never have guessed that the cap number and dates are worked out quasi-independently using different criteria.

In the infobox we don't have room to explain further, so we have to pick the simplest, most obvious option - use dates which directly correspond to the information next to them. Not hard, not complicated, not misleading. Knepflerle (talk) 13:56, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

And you know what is complicated? Going through articles of guys like Cicinho and Sylvinho and Nick Barmby and Robbie Fowler and Emerson AND Emerson and Shinji Ono and Clint Mathis and Pierre Womé and Claudio López and hundreds of more obscure footballers and making sure the end year isn't entered until they announce retirement, and then going back and re-entering the end year when they do fade into obscurity and retire from club play. Changing our practice and removing end years because a mythical Wikipedia reader might be confused (and is it really a problem if people mistakenly believe Kieron Dyer's international career is over?) in a move away from consistency and simplicity seems misguided. Mosmof (talk) 14:15, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

Why would they not assume the equally likely case that an end date means "left or retired", like it does in the club section? Media reports still frequently refer to such-and-such a player as being a "Q-land international" even if he hasn't had a cap for a while. If this were really such an obviously correct choice then we wouldn't repeatedly argue about it, and there wouldn't repeatedly be shown to be a good level of support for the status quo. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 21:17, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

What "status quo"? I just listed a bunch of lower tier international articles where the accepted practice is to put an end year on international careers whether the players like it or not. It's only in higher profile footballer articles where editors impose the "we mustn't mention the year of the most recent cap until he announces his unofficial retirement from the international game, which he'll more likely than not come out from" convention. These articles are very much in the minority. Mosmof (talk) 00:37, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

Well we could do exactly the same for club data. In that case, to denote retired players we could do something revolutionary and use the word "retired" in the infobox, instead of having our readers playing the WP:FOOTY-convention-mind-reading guessing-game.

The media reports argument is a red herring - it's no excuse whatsoever for having a date next to a piece of information which doesn't correspond to that information. We report when they played and leave it at that; leave it to sourced article text to make uncertain judgments on whether they'll play again.

Just for once, put yourself in the shoes of the reader, and stop thinking about this in terms of editing convenience and editor discussions. Pick the convention that any reasonable reader would think we're using (date next to caps corresponds to date of caps - how obvious is that?), instead of this bizarre unpredictable mish-mash. Knepflerle (talk) 23:16, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

Chester FC article naming

Having not seen the original discussion at this talk page, I opened a move request to shift Chester F.C. (2010) to Chester F.C.. The move passed but was subsequently reverted on the basis of the original discussion here. Whilst I sympathise with the points made previously, I think that:

• Chester F.C.'s gaining use of the Deva Stadium confirms the serious of the club, which was previously not confirmed
• The original argument missed that article naming is not a just a case of notability; it is also one of pragmatics.

Anyway, there are comments on the talk page at Talk:Chester F.C. (2010); if people would like to join the discussion (even if it's to tell that I'm wrong and should shut up!) then that'd be great. --Pretty Green (talk) 07:22, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

National squad list layout

Umm... when did it go to the a different layout? Brazil is the example of the format we had traditionally have, but Spain has a newer one. For consistency sake, I think every national team squad list should have the same format. So, 1) what's with the new format?; 2) is it the preferred format now? I personally still prefer the layout still used in the Brazilian team article. Digirami (talk) 06:29, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

The Spain format just seems wrong. Having sortable tables with rows divdeing according to position in the middle is just daft. Including details of a player's debut is not important enough to be on a national team article. Ilikeeatingwaffles (talk) 09:20, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

The Spain one is ridiculous. Once you've re-sorted it in any way, you can't then get the position rows back in the right place, so there's no way of checking a player's position...... -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 09:51, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

On a similar note, I'm not sure why the squad section for Northampton Town is not the conventional style. Ilikeeatingwaffles (talk) 11:13, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Eurgh, those new layouts look atrocious! No need for specific positions (i.e. RB/CB over DF), no need for previous club etc. GiantSnowman 17:23, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

The "new" layout for national teams has been around, at least for the top European teams, for as long as I've been active on Wikipedia (about two years). Sorting issues aside, I actually prefer the "new" layout, simply because the columns are no wider than they have to be. If you look at the Brazil squad list, there is a lot of unecessary empty space between a players name and the rest of the information about that player. For the club layout however, I agree that the conventional format is better. Sir Sputnik (talk) 18:08, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

The Spanish page is using a table whereas Brazil is correctly using template:nat fs g player, etc. Someone should change the Spanish article unless there's a reason not to. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 18:20, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

I agree that the debut column is unnecessary for these tables. The format used at Brazil seems right to me; all the information that's really required, and no irrelevant padding. Knepflerle (talk) 10:14, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

Returning to the club side of this problem, I've changed back the sections at Northampton Town, Burton Albion and Sheffield Wednesday, but this was undone for the Cobblers and the Brewers. If others would help in keeping an eye that'd be helpful. Ta. Ilikeeatingwaffles (talk) 09:16, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

Nottingham Forest had an attempt at a table, as well. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 09:49, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

Seems to have been done also for Swindon Town F.C.#Current Squad.--Egghead06 (talk) 11:44, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

Nelson Stiffle

I have just created Nelson Stiffle and was wondering if there was a definitive source to the claim he was the first Indian-born Football League player. Hack (talk) 06:54, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

I have a vague feeling I created an article for a Gillingham player who was born in India and pre-dated him, but I might be imagining that. I'll check later...... -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 08:05, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Arthur Mills? Hack (talk) 08:11, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

That'll be him :-) -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 08:29, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Presume they must mean born in what is now India... Reg Tricker was born in Karachi in 1904, which pre-dates Mr Mills. If it helps, this Ashton United page gives a bit more info about Mr Stiffle's early career, though I think their stats are for all competitions, not just league. Still has nothing more than "India" for place of birth. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 08:39, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

No, they mean what was then India. Karachi is now in Pakistan. India was split into India, West Pakistan (now Pakistan) and East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) in the late 1940's (ish)--ClubOranje^T 11:30, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

I think that's actually the point Stru was making. Mills and Tricker were born in what was then India, but Stiffle was (maybe) the first FL player born in what is now India..... -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 11:34, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Oh!. I see now. Sorry.--ClubOranje^T 20:05, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Judging by the comments it would seem that we think we know the first FL player from what was India as well as the first from what is now India. Hack (talk) 10:15, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

Is allfootballers.com still down? Hack (talk) 09:16, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

It is, unfortunately. It's put paid to a few of the Nelson F.C. player articles I was creating, but now I can't. :( BigDom 16:15, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Stevenage F.C.

Stevenage Borough F.C. announced yesterday that they are dropping the "Borough" from their name.[4] The club's website clearly states that the club won't officially change its name until 1 June, which is obviously after the close of the current 2009–10 season. From the club's release: "Stevenage chairman Phil Wallace has announced that the club will start its new life in the Football League as Stevenage Football Club, dropping the word ‘Borough’ from its name from 1st June... The change of name has been approved by the FA and the Football League. Stevenage Football Club will take its place in the Football League at the AGM in early June 2010." As a result, the 2009–10 article shouldn't have been moved from 2009–10 Stevenage Borough F.C. season (to 2009–10 Stevenage F.C. season). However, all future seasons should obviously have the new format. Could an admin move it back? JohnnyPolo24 (talk) 13:21, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Moved, although I didn't need my admin special powers to do so..... -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 13:26, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

I've been editing for a few years, but I'm always wary of moving an article to a location that's already a redirect. I was told long ago that you can lose an article's edit history if you do it incorrectly, so I've always tried to avoid it. JohnnyPolo24 (talk) 13:46, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

On the same topic, this change of name is affecting many of the players' articles. For example, on the article for Mark Robertsm all mentions of "Stevenage Borough" have been replaced with "Stevenage" so that it now appears he won the Conference with "Stevenage", which is clearly not true in my opinion. The player's statistics table also appears to be in denial that he represented "Stevenage Borough" for the last two seasons. What do others think is the best way to deal with this? BigDom 19:53, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

Bernard Williams

This fellow looks interesting - an Irish player who spent 15 years in France, winning two league titles and a Cup. Can anyone dig out any more info on him? Cheers, GiantSnowman 20:02, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Victor Gibson

Another Brit active in France, does anyone have his Scottish Football League stats for Morton and Falkirk? Thanks, GiantSnowman 20:45, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Categories based on religion for football players?

What is the general opinion here about adding catgories based on religion to football player's articles? The concrete example here is Franck Ribéry where editors keep adding the [[Category:Muslim]]. I've removed them repeatedly because Wikipedia:Categorization/Ethnicity, gender, religion and sexuality#Religion says: Categories should not be based on religion unless the belief has a specific relation to the topic. I don't think that Ribéry's belief has any specific relation for his article (he is, after all, notable for playing football). Any comments? --Jaellee (talk) 20:49, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

I´m not sure if such a simplicist category should even exist. That category could possibly contain tousands, not to say, millions of articles... FkpCascais (talk) 20:54, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

I support deleting all of these religion-based categories from footballer biographies. I don't think many footballers are notable as adherents of a particular religion (even ones that converted to a particular religion during their football career like Ribéry). If a footballer was also a leading practitioner of a religion or wrote books on the subject perhaps the category would fit better. Jogurney (talk) 21:00, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

I supported adding the category to Ribery because his conversion is clearly cited and frequently mentioned by announcers when he plays matches. I would hope that everyone agrees that the category English Christians would belong on an article like Linvoy Primus. As for Ribery I believe his conversion is of enough significance to include it. 97.116.18.242 (talk) 22:31, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

The case of Mr. Primus is completely different. He is notable for something directly related to his religion. M. Ribéry on the other hand is notable only for playing football, which is in no way connected to his religion. His convertion is cited frequently only because he is a high profile player. If he had instead decided to only wear pink socks for the rest of his life, it would have been mentioned almost as often, but that does not mean he sould be categorised under People who wear pink socks. Sir Sputnik (talk) 23:55, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Sir Sputnik, your analogy is poor and irrelevant. The choice of someone's dress is insignificant in comparison to their religion. There would never be a category former but the latter can be an important classification. As for the significance of faith in Ribery's case, it is of enough importance to mention I believe. It is attributed to his transformation from troubled youth to great player.[5] His marriage and family is also strongly tied to his conversion. 97.116.18.242 (talk) 02:49, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

I think that is an argument for including information about his religion and conversion in the biography, not for use of the category. When you look in the category Muslim people, do you really expect to find someone notable as a football player, or instead people notable as leaders, theologians or responsible somehow for advancing the religion? Jogurney (talk) 03:10, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

I agree that in the cases mentioned it is notable enough for a brief mention in the article text itself, but there's no need for an entire categorisation system to be set up because of these occasional special cases. In the vast majority of cases the information would be unverifiable and/or a trivial intersection - see WP:OC#CATGRS, and particularly this CfD discussion. Knepflerle (talk) 10:12, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

Ribery's being Muslim is mentioned for the same reason that the good doctor's other profession is frequently mentioned - because journalists and commentators are lazy. It is not an important enough aspect of Ribery's biography that he belongs in the category when the lack of sources in this domain means that the vast, vast majority of footballers are not in a religion category regardless of the strengths of their convictions. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 08:30, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

I don't believe you have read the information I have cited above. Ribery's faith is directly credited as the reason Ribery has become as good as he is. WP:BLPCAT states: "Categories regarding religious beliefs and sexual orientation should not be used unless the subject has publicly self-identified with the belief or orientation in question; and the subject's beliefs or sexual orientation are relevant to his notable activities or public life, according to reliable published sources." His faith is most definitely relevant and notable to his public life and should therefore be included. It is not a petty mention as you suggest. 97.116.18.242 (talk) 16:08, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

But that's specific to Ribery. I'd say he's the exception that proves the rule - more often than not, religion is irrelevant to a player's notability. Most professional footballers are categorized by nationality, position, club affiliation, age, etc, but I have yet to see religion as a universally used category in discussing footballers. Mosmof (talk) 16:16, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

His notable activities are those of a professional footballer, not an adherent of a religion. I don't see any evidence that his religious faith is relevant to his notability as a footballer. Jogurney (talk) 17:11, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

Even the source cited above [6] states that "On the subject of Islam, Ribéry is definitely not talkative. ... I prefer to keep my reasons to myself." For me, this means that he obviously avoids to be notable on account of his beliefs. --Jaellee (talk) 18:37, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

I don't want to seem like I'm parsing words here, but the spirit of that section is that if a person is exceptional in some way because of the expressed choice then it's worth noting. I would suggest that Franck Ribery is not entirely alone in being both a Frenchman and a Muslim, even in a footballing context. As Mosmof says, this is indeed the exception that proves the rule, as a seeming edge case which in fact enforces the purpose of the guideline. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 21:22, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

I agree with the above assessment. I am not advocating the inclusion in trivial instances or as an universal descriptor. I believe in exceptional cases such as Primus, Ribery and perhaps Anelkas that a religious category is appropriate. This view is supported at WP:OC#CATGRS with the quote "Likewise, people should only be categorized by ethnicity or religion if this has significant bearing on their career." and at WP:BLPCAT "ategories regarding religious beliefs and sexual orientation should not be used unless the subject has publicly self-identified with the belief or orientation in question; and the subject's beliefs or sexual orientation are relevant to his notable activities or public life, according to reliable published sources.". In regards to Jaellee's comment a person does not need to be extremely open with their faith for it to be relevant to their notability. As to Jogurney, Ribery's faith is relevant to his faith because as I have shown above it is attributed by reliable sources to his transformation from a troubled youth player to international star. 97.116.18.242 (talk) 03:23, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

But what's the point of an entire categorisation system for the tiny handful of notable exceptions? It would make sense if we had this information and it was notable for many players, but it isn't.

The link I gave earlier has the following advice:

"Dedicated group-subject subcategories, such as Category:LGBT writers or Category:African American musicians, should only be created where that combination is itself recognized as a distinct and unique cultural topic in its own right. If a substantial and encyclopedic head article (not just a list) cannot be written for such a category, then the category should not be created"

If decent head articles get written on this subject then maybe we can think about setting up a general category system, but until then it's premature. Knepflerle (talk) 08:05, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

Play-off appearances

I'm of the understanding that play-off appearances do not count towards league appearances and as such should not be included in the infobox stats. Could this be backed up, as User:SBFCEdit disagrees with regards to Steve Morison's stats? Cheers, Mattythewhite (talk) 21:28, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

You are correct. --JonBroxton (talk) 21:30, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

See the infobox documentation, which says "note: Playoff matches are not counted as league matches by most statistical sources (e.g. Soccerbase and the Sky Sports (Rothmans) Football Yearbook, so they should not be included in this infobox". cheers, Struway2 (talk) 21:37, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Walter Puddefoot

Is this player any relation to Syd and Len? Dates are similar (1920s) as is the unusual name...GiantSnowman 01:08, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

Requested move of Red Star Belgrade (and Real Madrid)

Red Star Belgrade is currently going through it's fifth(!) requested move discussion; members of this WikiProject may want to contribute to the discussion here.

There is a (very) loosely related requested move discussion at Talk:Real_Madrid_C.F.#Requested_move, but I suspect that may be closed in the near future anyway. Knepflerle (talk) 10:06, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

Copa Libertadores

I have requested that the page be introduced into peer reviewing. This page is entering an interesting phase and I believe it has real potential to become a feauture article.Jamen Somasu (talk) 12:35, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

I notice that on the PR page you've written "It would look great on the WIKIFootball project if we had a feautured page". Presumably you're aware that the project already has over 50 Featured Articles......? -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 12:44, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

I highly support the idea of promoting Copa Libertadores into a Feature article. In fact, I think we should also play focus and try to promote most of the important competitions in our project to feature article status, e.g. UEFA Champions League, UEFA European Football Championship, La Lega or Serie A. I think we have pay too much attention on clubs and players, but significantly insufficient on tournaments.

Returning to Copa Libertadores, although I support we should pay more effort on it to promote it to feature status, the current state of the article is far from fulfilling the FAC requirements. Obviously it significantly lacks citations. It also contain lots of NPOV sentences and phrases. I suppose these are the most basic stuffs that a feature article should acquire. Anyway, it's a good start. Salt (talk) 18:22, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

Well, I cited every "NPOV" phrase and...well, simply I cited everything AND I added a bibliography section. What else could it possibly need to become a FA? Jamen Somasu (talk) 22:44, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

I see you've started a peer review, which is a good start. After the most obvious problems have been fixed I'd take it to WP:GA first - they'll give you plenty of in-depth feedback, but the criteria aren't as stringent as for WP:FA. Knepflerle (talk) 23:29, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

I will do that. If this thing gets aproved to become a good article I will bump it up to FA and see the smalls things needed to become one. Thanks for the insight! Jamen Somasu (talk) 23:43, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

David May

I don't want the one that played for Manchester United, but there was another who played during the 80s, I think he might of played for Chelsea and Sheffield Wednesday, but it's very hard to find any material. Don't know if anyone know who I am talking about? Govvy (talk) 18:08, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

According to The PFA Premier & Football League Players' Records 1946-2005, there's only one David May. The nearest I can find is a Larry May who played 31 games for Wednesday in the 1980s? Mattythewhite (talk) 18:13, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

Larry May played for Leicester, Barnsley, Wednesday and Brighton between 1976 and 1989. There's also a Warren May who played 90 League games for Southend in the mid-80s...GiantSnowman 21:27, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

Winners boxes

This topic first came up at the season article task force's discussion page a couple of weeks ago: would it be possible for us to do away with boxes such as this:

2006 World Cup Winners
Italy Fourth title

I don't see the point in having an extra box to tell us who the winners of a competition were, when it usually clearly says who the winners were several times further up the page. It seems to me that these boxes serve no purpose other than as decoration. Who's with me? – PeeJay 21:51, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

I concur - totally pointless. I have deleted them from league season articles where I've come accross them. пﮟოьεԻ 57 21:58, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

Indeed. We've got more than enough existing templates for use on competition articles which make these points clear. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 22:10, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

I like them. For the most part they are not templates and it sums up the accomplishment of the winning them in a conspicuous way (in addition to the any prose, of course). I would rather have this than (C) in league standings (the latter requiring me to look up what it means). Digirami (talk) 22:35, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

Indeed, it's better than having the (C) in the league table, but surely it would be obvious from the league rankings who won the league anyway? It's not a matter of having one or the other. We could easily do away with both and simply mention who won the competition in the lead section. – PeeJay 22:38, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

I also reckon that the winner boxes do no harm and they are less useless than some of the annotation floating about which is not even in use. But not always the top team wins the championship - The team could be stripped of the title for past misgivings. Brudder Andrusha (talk) 22:43, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

This discussion is not about annotations. Any anomalies relating to the awarding of the league title should be mentioned in prose, not using a template such as {{winners}}, which doesn't actually explain the anomalous situation anyway. For example, if there is a championship play-off, it should be obvious who won the play-off through the use of {{footballbox}} to show the match result. If a team is later stripped of the league title, this should be mentioned in prose too. – PeeJay 22:53, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

Sometimes there isn't a standing that would define the champion (which almost happened this year in Uruguay and happens every year in Chile). Obviously, it could be easy to deduce without this little box... but it doesn't hurt to have a little something extra to make it obvious and clear to any reader who the champion is outside the lead (perhaps if they are just breezing through). Digirami (talk) 22:56, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

Pointless redundant repetition. If it's not clear who the champions are, improve the text. It's just an excuse to have yet another flag draped about for little other than decoration. Knepflerle (talk) 23:20, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

No more pointless than to give a PeeJay lookalike the go ahead and play master administrator because he doesn't like the color of some flag. Brudder Andrusha (talk) 23:25, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

Keep your comments on the issue rather than the editors. Knepflerle (talk) 23:26, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

The editors aren't the issue - They do a fine job. Its the PeeJay lookalikes.

Let me guess, would no true editor support the removal of the flags? Knepflerle (talk) 23:38, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

Consider this a warning. Refrain from attacking other editors or you'll find yourself blocked. This idiotic rivalry you have with PeeJay2K3 isn't improving the encyclopedia. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 08:18, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

Incidentally, this was taken to TfD a couple of years ago for precisely this reason, and in a rather poor close was basically kept as WP:USEFUL. I don't think anything's changed to make the template more worthy since then. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 08:27, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

I don't see the value of these flags, especially the size of them. You should have the winners in the infobox and lead at the top of the article, so if that's all you want to know, you need not scroll all the way down. Then, in the detail of the article, it tells you who beat who in the final. It's a bit insulting to the reader's intelligence to add a decorative flag immediately afterwards. --Jameboy (talk) 17:54, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

It's even worse in domestic club competition articles, as there isn't even a flag in there. Just redundant text. – PeeJay 19:30, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

Why worse? Just add the club emblem instead. Is that too hard? Brudder Andrusha (talk) 16:38, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

You must not be aware of WP:FAIRUSE. Any non-free content must be accompanied by a valid Fair Use rationale. However, since the club logos would only be used for decoration, this would not be deemed to be Fair Use. Nice try though. Let's delete the boxes. – PeeJay 18:05, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

Ivan Ergic

Hi everyone. I started having a slow edit-war going on that article. The problem is that Ergic played for many years as "Australian" while with FC Bassel, but since then, he has played for the Serbian national team. I moved the lead sentence from "I.E. a Serbian-Australian footballer" to "I.E. a Serbian inernational footballer". Despite having double nationality (Serbian/Australian), he can´t play anymore for Australia, thus footbalistically being "Serbian", but another editopr disagrees with me, reading the previos version, and the Auatralian footballer categories... As additional information, he is also a Yugoslavia born, only having lived fpor some period in Australia. We have some reverse exemples of players that have been born in Yugoslavia and played for Australia, where I defend to say that they are Australian footballers, of course. FkpCascais (talk) 22:19, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

The category system and the inclusion criteria for the categories aren't up to the actual complexity of citizenship and nationality in anything other than trivial cases. Nothing new there - I'm not sure there's much to be done here, as this is a widespread problem nobody feels like fixing. Knepflerle (talk) 23:25, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

To complicate matters he was born in what is now Croatia. For the purposes of WP:Football he is Serbian by virtue of playing for the national team. I say leave the Australian categories since he is an Australian citizen and spent a fair bit of his football development in Australia. Hack (talk) 01:17, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

OK. Thanx a lot. :) FkpCascais (talk) 08:39, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

North Korean "Expatriates"

I was just reviewing Category:North Korean expatriate footballers, only to find that almost half of the players listed in that category apear to have never lived or played outside of the DPRK. Does anyone know anything about this? I just wanted to make sure I'm not missing anything before I remove the category from the articles in question. Thanks. Sir Sputnik (talk) 00:19, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

From what I see, it looks that User:Junichi, that has made most of the articles, has been including the category from the beggining, probably because he doesn´t really know what it means... FkpCascais (talk) 08:57, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

Africa Cup of Natons 2013

Do hosts of the 2012 edition Gabon and Equatorial Guinea automatically qualify for 2013? TheBigJagielka (talk) 12:16, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

South Africa Football NFL (1959-1977)

I've created League and Cup (Castle Cup) new pages for the PSL's predecessors:

• National Football League (South Africa) and one season 1977:
• 1977
• Castle Cup football

Also to editing teams:

• Rangers Johannesburg
• Durban United F.C.

And small change:

• Hellenic FC
• Highlands Park FC ‎
• Lusitano F.C.
• Durban City F.C.

Any improvements much appreciated. RAMR2 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 12:16, 20 May 2010 (UTC).

New table format

The whole point of the past argument about the format is to have one not only good on info but also eye-friendly (because the current one sucks).

I propose a small change to the table format to have a "colspan" after each final or whatever as well as adding a width limitation to everything to make it look neat.

i.e.

Year	Country	Home team	Score	Away team	Country	Venue	Location	Refs
1960	URU	Peñarol	1–0	Olimpia	PAR	Estadio Centenario	Montevideo, Uruguay
	PAR	Olimpia	1–1	Peñarol	URU	Estadio de Puerto Sajonia	Asunción, Paraguay
	Peñarol won 3–1 on points
1961	URU	Peñarol	1–0	Palmeiras	BRA	Estadio Centenario	Montevideo, Uruguay
	BRA	Palmeiras	1–1	Peñarol	URU	Estádio do Pacaembu	São Paulo, Brazil
	Peñarol won 3–1 on points

What does everyone think? The list of Recopa Sudamericana winners' list looks like garbage right now and with my modification we can keep it somewhat simple without needing to separate a winner's list 5-10 times over. Look how much better the List of Copa Libertadores winners looks now than before. Jamen Somasu (talk) 14:23, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

This table looks OK, but I don't like the colspan between the two years. Seems unnecessary. – PeeJay 14:54, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

The colspan is to separate every edition from each other in order to not make it look all jumbled up. It looks crappy with only two editions but it looks a lot better when there are 50+ editions to look at. I have also combined it with some new limitations on the width of each section to make it look neat and organized. Jamen Somasu (talk) 14:58, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

People aren't stupid; they don't need a big fat line to separate each year. – PeeJay 14:59, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, but we should also strive to make information eye-friendlier (because the current version looks like crap). For UEFA pages where the finals are single matches, this is not needed. I should have been a bit more specific...this is for final series that involves two matches. On those sort of tables, not having this colspan (or something that can slightly separate every edition from each other) makes it look like pure crap. Jamen Somasu (talk) 15:05, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

empty table rows are bad for accessibility. We shouldn't use them for the sake of mere aesthetics. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 15:22, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

There is no one trying to access anything on the "empty row" since there is NOTHING in there but a small line (that is what it basically is). As a matter of fact, the FIFA World Cup page also uses this idea in the same way (although vertically) and it was welcomed! And that is a FA! This wouldn't be the first (or last) time something originally used for a purpose is taken and used for another purpose making a great contribution. Jamen Somasu (talk) 15:31, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

But the current World Cup top4 table doesn't look good. Cluttered with unnecessary colours and those extra lines. Imo List of European Cup and UEFA Champions League winners has by far the best looking table style. I actually have proposed to move away to the FL style used on the UEFA finals for the World Cup (but there was never much discussion). A similar style as already been applied to List of FIFA World Cup finals

I also think the line between years is unnecessary. Look at the UEFA Cup finals to see that it works fine (They were played in two legs before) chandler 15:51, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

The current World Cup top4 looks good and it is eye-frienly & informative. It IS a FA for a reason. What works for UEFA pages work only for UEFA pages, not everyone else. This is just for CONMEBOL; South American finals usually has a final series, not just a single match, which is why that line helps a lot. As I keep metioning, we should strive to make an article be its best for what it is, not what something completely different from it has. That's ludicrous. For CONMEBOL, it is needed. I could care less about UEFA's pages and if you think it looks good on their pages, good for you. However, UEFA and CONMEBOL are two different monsters that run things way too differently to have the same formats and tables (as well as the FIFA World Cup). Jamen Somasu (talk) 16:10, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

There is NO reason why table formats should be different for different confederations. They should very obviously be standardized. As I said, the UEFA Cup was played in two-legged matches until the last 90s. It's not a case of "what works for UEFA ONLY works for UEFA", everything is designed to work for EVERYTHING. chandler 16:39, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

"Accessibility" means the ability of visually or physically impaired users to access our content. Please see WP:ACCESS. Whether or not GA-class articles have problems is neither here nor there, as GA review is not perfect. This is still a problem. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 19:51, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

The posted layout looks excellent. Keep up the good work! Sandman888 (talk) 16:33, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

Looks ok apart from the needless empty row. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:31, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

I agree this looks okay. Visually, though the downfall is that the country information is kind of unnecessarily repeated. Additionally, the information is not sortable. I realise the main problem of going for a Winner/Loser system instead of Home/Away system is denoting the home/away legs etc. This is just a suggestion, but what do people think about going along the lines of this (added benefit of sortability) with a sort key used for the aggregate score. Rambo's Revenge (talk) 21:01, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

Year	Country	Winner	Score	Loser	Country	Venue	Location	Refs
1960	URU	Peñarol	1–0 (h) 1–1 (a)	Olimpia	PAR	Estadio Centenario Estadio de Puerto Sajonia	Montevideo, Uruguay Asunción, Paraguay
1961	URU	Peñarol	1–0 (h) 1–1 (a)	Palmeiras	BRA	Estadio Centenario Estádio do Pacaembu	Montevideo, Uruguay São Paulo, Brazil

Now then. That's a good way forward. A very good way. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:06, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

The empty row needs to go, as Chris said above, on accessibility grounds. But I was just wondering why anyone would actually want to sort on aggregate score? In the current List of Copa Libertadores winners format, the summary line after the lines with the scores tells the reader how the winner was determined (points, playoff score and venue, penalties...) You can't make the table sortable without losing that informative summary line, and from the reader's point of view, sticking that highly relevant information in a footnote wouldn't be an adequate replacement. Surely the loss to the reader of removing that summary line rather exceeds any theoretical benefit gained from forcing sortability onto a table that doesn't seem to have anything particularly worth sorting on? cheers, Struway2 (talk) 21:39, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

Personally, I think this way the winner becomes much more obvious at a glance. As for the summary line, all it is basically saying is, for example, that one match was a draw and one was a win. Isn't that painstakingly obvious from the scores? The sorting is beneficial for example sorting countries - gives you if numerous teams represent that country in the final, whether that country was more prolific in an era by looking at the years alongside country, and many other statistical patterns that might be found in the data. IMO sorting is almost always desirable. Rambo's Revenge (talk) 22:24, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

First, sorry if my previous comments came across a bit aggressive, I was tired and snappy last night and shouldn't have been on here at all :-( However... In the two rows illustrated, the summary line is indeed saying only that one match was a draw and the other a win. But that isn't the case for all entries in the table. Some winners were determined on a playoff, or on pens after a playoff, or on pens without a playoff, and the details are given in the summary line conveniently for the reader as part of that year's table entry, not buried elsewhere. I have no problem with adding sortability where it's helpful, but I'm not convinced that in this case, providing ready access to statistical patterns, for those interested readers who actually know that those funny buttons at the top mean you can sort the columns, outweighs losing basic information like how the 1981 winner won 2-0 in a playoff in a neutral country or the 1985 final went to a playoff and then penalties. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 07:41, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

As you may have noticed I'm quite a fan of sortability. Although not perfect, I believe the information above can also be incorportated into a sortable table—see below. Additionally you also then get given the location of the neutral playoff. Rambo's Revenge (talk) 10:25, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

How a sortable table could incorporate that information

	Match went to a playoff
#	Match went to a playoff and then a penalty shootout
†	Match went to extra time
*	Match decided by a penalty shootout after extra time

Year	Country	Winner	Score	Loser	Country	Venue	Location	Refs
1981	BRA	Flamengo	2–0 (h) 0–1 (a) 2–0 (n)	Cobreloa	CHI	Estádio do Maracanã Estadio Nacional Estadio Centenario	Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Santiago, Chile Montevideo, Uruguay
1985	ARG	Argentinos Juniors	1–0 (h) 0–1 (a) 1–1# (n)	América de Cali	COL	La Doble Visera Estadio Olímpico Pascual Guerrero Estadio Defensores del Chaco	Avellaneda, Argentina Santiago de Cali, Colombia Asunción, Paraguay

That latest version does now include enough of the relevant information for the general reader not to lose out. Not keen on the general appearance of that layout, but my personal taste probably isn't all that relevant to the matter :-) I'd be interested to know how often people (ordinary readers, not WP editors) actually do sort columns in sortable tables. Don't suppose it's something that's ever been recorded, even if it was technically possible. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 11:32, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

Released footballers

Does anyone know a website where it tell me players who have just being released? Cheers, Gobbleswoggler (talk) 16:34, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

Please be a bit more specific. Released from clubs? Better question...from where? Jamen Somasu (talk) 16:36, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

Any clubs, Gobbleswoggler (talk) 16:38, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

I seriously doubt it...do you have any idea how many clubs can a single city have, never mind a country? Let's not even get into the world...Jamen Somasu (talk) 16:44, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

Ok, clubs in england. Gobbleswoggler (talk) 16:45, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

What division?Jamen Somasu (talk) 16:47, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

Any league in the football league. Gobbleswoggler (talk) 16:49, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

There are a lot of divisions in England...Jamen Somasu (talk) 16:53, 20 May 2010(UTC)

Players who have been released from the premier league down to league 2.Gobbleswoggler (talk) 16:56, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

Ah! That is more like it...in that case, I haven't the slightest idea! BUT...the next person that reads through this might know what you are looking for. Have a great day! :) Jamen Somasu (talk) 16:58, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

BBC Sport is good at giving reports of players being released. Mattythewhite (talk) 17:20, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

You might like to look at PFA transfer list for some more info.--Egghead06 (talk) 17:54, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

UEFA.com conversions

Hi there teammates,

regarding this issue which i have brought up a few times, i would like to get some help (then, of course, all the good-faith users could drink from the subsequent pouring fountain :)), the following:

User:Thumperward unfortunately told me that all the UEFA.com links would only be corrected manually. Well, myself and others have been on to that, but i still have some doubts:

• I know that for instance this (http://www.uefa.com/competitions/ucl/news/kind=1/newsid=730715.html) should now read (http://www.uefa.com/uefachampionsleague/news/newsid=730715.html), the same procedure being used for the "uefacup" links (now "uefaeuropaleague"), case solved.

• However, what is the replacement for the links that read "magazine" and "footballeurope"? Those are important links, especially the latter, which contains several articles on weekend action across the European leagues, plus off-season moves.

• Regarding the links that read "intertotocup", that should be even more of a conundrum, as this competition has disappeared.

Attentively, i pass the ball - --Vasco Amaral (talk) 16:59, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

If all else fails then changing the domain to en.archive.uefa.com works for old articles including footballeurope and intertoto e.g http://www.uefa.com/competitions/IntertotoCup/history/Season=1998/intro.html to http://en.archive.uefa.com/competitions/IntertotoCup/history/Season=1998/intro.html Camw (talk) 09:55, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

Clean Sheets Vs Goals

I'm no expert, but why aren't goalkeeping stats given for goalkeepers and defenders? Clean sheets are far more important to a keeper than 'goals'. Likewise assists, tackles and pass completion percentages matter more for midfielders (and defenders). Although I accept that this data might be harder to come by. Clean sheets are a matter of record however. RI Carling (talk) 09:49, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

Do you mean in the infoboxes? That's because goalkeepers are just as capable of scoring goals as any other player is, they just don't do it very often. – PeeJay 09:58, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

Yeah...because I am sure anyone watching a game will normally think, "I think we might get a goal from Buffon and maybe an assist of Casillas"...this is just a matter of common sense; there should be a clean-sheet table for ONLY goalkeepers. Jamen Somasu (talk) 10:42, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

That kind of statistics table might be fine a section in the body of the article, but not for the infobox. Digirami (talk) 11:02, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

As long as the info is available in reliable sources, of course. Although the first commenter in this section, states that "clean sheets are a matter of record", I'd be surprised if a reliable sources exists that gives a clean sheets figure for Peter Shilton, let alone Frank Swift. If clean sheets were to go into the infobox, we'd then end up with a system whereby outfielders had "goals scored", goalies from the last ten years or so had "clean sheets", and goalies from before then had.........heaven knows :-P -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 11:05, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

PS "why aren't goalkeeping stats given for goalkeepers and defenders" - I've never ever seen a source that lists goalkeeping stats for defenders -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 11:06, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia isn't a collection of statistics. The idea of filling player articles with pass completion rates, etc. seems pretty unencyclopaedic. Ilikeeatingwaffles (talk) 12:51, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

Any admins about with an interest in cut-and-paste moves

might want to explain to this newly-registered (though not new) user how and how not to move pages, with reference to Greg Ross (footballer) / Greg Ross and Calum Woods (footballer) / Calum Woods. Judging by their other contributions, the user clearly knows how the move tab works, but not what they ought to do when it doesn't. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 13:37, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

I only checked the Calum Woods ones, but all he/she seems to have done there is re-directed one to to the other (prior to today there seem to have been two articles on this player) - nothing wrong there as far as I can see......... -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 14:03, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

Wow, there's a lot of back-history to that one: moved in 2008, recreated at its original location by an IP without changing the new one, then redirected by Unreal7 only for the other page to be redirected back to that one. I can't tell who if anyone was wrong there. Alzarian16 (talk) 14:07, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

It was Unreal7 as an IP (see their user page) who copied CW (footballer) to CW diff some months ago without changing CW (footballer), thus leaving 2 articles on the same player, then people edited both, and in the last few days it was redirected. Something's wrong somewhere... cheers, Struway2 (talk) 14:12, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

All the revision for those two articles should be where they are meant to be now. I left the generic {{c&pmove}} on their talkpage. Regards, Woody (talk) 15:23, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, Struway2 (talk) 15:52, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

FK Partizan crest.

The crest of the club was recently substituted by a older one by User:LAz17. As anybody can see, the crest of the club has 2 stars on top, but Laz, after failing to archive it by asking it on tyhe club talk page, revengfully replaced it by his own decition. Well, he put in place the crest of the club, yes, but of the organisation, SD Partizan. The problem is that the official crest of the football club is the same, but with the 2 stars on the top (as it rightfully was in place on the article, before that user, almost in a vandal move, replaced it). The 2 stars mean the 22 national championships... Since my download manager is not working properly, can someone please see, and fix it. Bast regards to everybody :) , FkpCascais (talk) 20:48, 21 May 2010 (UTC) P.S.:You can all see the official crest on the official club website, and on the previos version of the same (I wanted to revrt the move, but it doesn´t...). FkpCascais (talk) 20:49, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

The Libertadoes topscorer article...

Greetings all,
I would like some opinion on this article, please... before it gets ugly. Digirami (talk) 20:59, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

David Jones (footballer born 1984)

I wondered if someone can look at this page. I was the last to update the page but the stats box seems to have mysteriously disappeared.Gobbleswoggler (talk) 09:31, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

I don't think there has ever been a stats box on that page. Certainly not in the last three months or so. – PeeJay 09:34, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

I purged the page cache and it looks ok now. Camw (talk) 11:33, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

Category:Premier League clubs, Category:Football League clubs

Should the above categories be added to club categories? I see there are several such sub-categories in Category:Premier League clubs, but only a few in Category:Football League clubs. - Dudesleeper talk 17:26, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

Regarding honours

When a player plays the first half of the season for a team that later obtains a season-long championship, should he be considered a champion too? An example: José Ernesto Sosa played the first half of the 2009-10 with Bayern Munich, but joined Estudiantes for the second half. Bayern eventually won Bundesliga and German Cup. Is he champion of those tournaments? Thanks. Fache (talk) 21:06, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

It depends on the particular rules of that competition e.g. for the Premier League/Football Leagues players have traditionally needed to have played in 10 or more League matches to gain a medal. Eldumpo (talk) 19:14, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

File deletion

2009–10 UEFA CL0.PNG and 2009–10 UEFA EL.PNG are now for TfD as the season finished. Please help. Raymond "Giggs" Ko 21:29, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

Some weird articles

Could I ask you to have a look at the contributions of an editor, Cheese674 (talk · contribs) who may be 92.21.158.93 (talk · contribs)?

• 2010 Bass Charity Shield, a new article that describes a game in July 2010 (sic).
• Having set the scene, we have a new article, Bass Charity Shield: there is a Bass Charity Vase see here, but not, apparently, a Shield.
• U.E. Neuva Barcelona is another new article on a minor Spanish club, with a rainbow alliance of playing staff.
• We then move to this diff at Old Trafford: anyone?
• Ben Turner (footballer born 1992), another new article, looks mostly believable to me see here. How is he for notability?

Thanks, Mr Stephen (talk) 09:46, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

I've got rid of the first one, seeing as it was a blatant hoax. The others also seem to be hoaxes, but they aren't obvious enough for most admins to delete them under WP:CSD#G3. I think PRODs (or failing that, AfDs) are the best way to deal with the others. BigDom 10:19, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

Looking at this page, the recent history seems to tie in with the article, so I've moved it to the proper title and corrected the obvious errors (the creator seems to think that the tournament started in 2005 when it was actually 1889!). Whether or not it is notable enough for an article is another matter. Alzarian16 (talk) 16:50, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

Ben Turner is legit [7]. However, we'd need referenced domestic app for notability.

The Barca one a hoax though. Antartican player John Mikel?!? Rambo's Revenge (talk) 16:52, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

There is a Burton Albion youth player called Ben Turner, but it sure as hell ain't the one that's written about here. He also hasn't played in the Football League – he was merely a youth player at Rotherham United, possibly played first-team non-league football with Dronfield, never in a million years did he play for the non-existent Hillsborough (although he did play for Burton's reserves at Hillsborough Stadium). Also, the article says he is a defender while the link you have provided states that he plays in defense. And as for representing the England C team – well, if that's true, I will personally print out the article and eat it. Now, I'm all for assuming good faith, but giving a muppet like this any kind of benefit of the doubt is just ridiculous. BigDom 17:04, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

Completely agree BigDom, I've just PRODded it. GiantSnowman 17:09, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

Yep, don't think anyone's likely to contest that PROD. So that only leaves Bass Charity Vase. It only gets 790 Google hits, but some of those are news pages covering it in reasonable detail (this being an example). So do we think it's notable or not? Alzarian16 (talk) 17:14, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

The editor's another one of these Cheese291, Cheese286, Cheese300 serial sock/vandals. Some of their articles are total hoaxes, others are genuine, but created to add false information to. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 17:19, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

Ooh, good call. If any admins are reading this, please block the most recent one as a vandalism-only account. Alzarian16 (talk) 17:21, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

1962 and 1963 Copa Libertadores

Does anyone have a good site (any language will do) about those two editions? I keep trying to dig but I usually come up empty. Jamen Somasu (talk) 16:56, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

Alexander (or Aleksandar) Arangelovich, serbian player in Canada and Australia

I created his page on italian wikipedia (http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Arangelovich), he was a serbian player in Italy between 1947 and 1952: he emigrated in Canada and then in Australia: please, do you have news about him?93.33.6.63 (talk) 17:50, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

The player's article - Aleksandar Arangelovic - was actually created by myself over two years ago. That's all the info I can find on the guy. Regards, GiantSnowman 18:15, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

As a Serbian footy editor I can only say that what GiantSnowman did is excellent, and hardly something more can be added. I can only say that his name probably is "Aleksandar AranDJelović" (being the letter DJ also written as Đ, both correct in Serbian, and sounds as Italian "G" in Giorgio), but was probably addapted to Italian to "Aleksandar Arangelovic" because that way would be correctly pronounced. Aleksandar is certainly with A, not "Aleksander"... I´ll check in the next few days to see if there is possibly anything new about him, but I doubt. FkpCascais (talk) 18:57, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

I was looking for something really impossible, his career in Australia and Canada.. thank you very much for you help and if you need help to translate from italian in basic english I'm ready..93.33.6.63 (talk) 19:05, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

There is no record of him playing in Australia - so maybe he emigrated there as a normal citizen? GiantSnowman 19:14, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

or he played as amateur in an minoor league.. who knows it? A source says he played also for jugoslavian NT, possible?93.33.6.63 (talk) 19:20, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

No record of him playing for Yugoslav A team. 100% sure. FkpCascais (talk) 19:24, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

youth NTs teams, maybe? It seems it's written everything is possible knowing about him..93.33.6.63 (talk) 19:32, 23 May 2010 (UTC)