Progress history for this article's "speedy deletion" and AfD processing

Repost of 2003–04 Manchester City F.C. season/FA Cup Fourth round replay

A tag has been placed on 2003–04 Manchester City F.C. season/FA Cup Fourth round replay requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia, because it appears to be a repost of material that was previously deleted following a deletion process. If you can indicate how it is different from the previously posted material, place the template {{hang on}} underneath the other template on the article and put a note on the page's discussion page saying why this article should stay. Administrators will look at your reasoning before deciding what to do with the page. If you believe the original discussion was unjustified, please contact the administrator who deleted the page or use deletion review instead of continuing to recreate the page. Thank you.. See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Tottenham Hotspur F.C. 3–4 Manchester City F.C. and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Tottenham Hotspur v Manchester City (FA Cup 2003-04). Jmorrison230582 (talk) 20:09, 11 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Initial "speedy deletion" request in article

"speedy delete" notice 0 (cannot post this template on this Talk page without making it look as if it is this page that is up for SD)

"Contesting of SD" ("hang on") response in article

"hang on" notice 0 (cannot post this template on a Talk page)

"Contesting of SD" response on article's Talk page

Contesting of CSD G4 rationale

Background

For the record, when I created that subpage I did not realize I was actually putting that match write-up back in article space. I thought the subpage would be entirely "internal" to the corresponding season article (i.e., only accessible by clicking on the link I provided in the "Season review" section) in the same manner that archive subpages of User and Talk pages are not considered to be in article space. Comments during the previous AfD process were along the lines of, "this game should probably best be discussed in the article covering the season in which it occurred." Which is what I was effectively attempting to do. To have put the write-up of that game in just the overview section for that season would have unduly skewed the balance of the text to just that game, so I thought the linked subpage was an elegant solution.

Overall rationale for this remaining as an independent article

Having said that, now that the article is back in article space again and we have reached this point, I will still defend the article's renewed existence. There are about two dozen references cited throughout that article (viz. there are 14 references and 6 external links to video sources, plus there are other citations used in the match report area) that refer to this game as being one of the greatest ever comebacks in English football. Whenever the topic of football comebacks are discussed today, this game is now always one of the first games - if not the first one - that people mention. It has now become an intrinsic part of the zeitgeist re classic football comebacks - particularly FA Cup comebacks. Even if you read nothing else, please read the "Quotes" section and the titles of (most of) the cited references and external links. This game is more notable than many FA Cup or League Cup finals within the consciousness of football fans - and not just Man. City and Spurs fans, but many neutral fans too.

Why the CSD G4 criteria do not apply to this article

Most of the current cited sources were not present in the original article, although many of them were posted to the AfD discussion page very late on in the review process, long after many people had already cast their vote to delete because they could determine nothing that remarkable about the game from the article version that was being reviewed (since those cited references were not present in it). The text of that original article has also been reworked a number of times to improve its quality, although the text in the AfDed version hardly lacked that (and lack of quality wasn't the rationale for the original vote for deletion). However, the overall structure of the article is still the same.

I cannot say whether the improved textual changes within a similar article structure constitute enough differences between the original article and this one to categorically claim that "a sufficiently identical and unimproved copy, having any title, of a page deleted via a deletion discussion" (the cited CSD G4 criterion for the posted speedy deletion) has clearly been recreated, because that is a subjective judgment call, but I would argue that they do. If I felt that the quoted G4 criterion did apply in this instance I would not be here defending it. To determine the scale of the improvements between the original article that was deleted from article space (and, at that time, saved to private user space) and the current article being considered for speedy deletion, the reader should do a "diff" between the created version on 16 March 2011 (when I believed I was simply copying it to a subpage of the associated season article) and the current version.

"Insignificant media coverage" and "only immediate media coverage" arguments debunked

One of the reasons the original article was deleted was because a number of people voting that way in the AfD discussion claimed in their "deletion vote" that the game had not received significant media coverage to warrant having its own article. The more than two dozen cited references the article now contains (but didn't when those folk voted that way) would appear to refute that claim. Other folk went further still and claimed in their "deletion vote" statements that just because a game garners a lot of media buzz in the immediate aftermath of the game that that is simply par for the course; what really matters (for the game to be considered "notable" and worthy of its own article) is what people are still saying about the game many years on. Again, this viewpoint was proffered (and deletion votes cast) before many of the currently cited RS were added to the discussion.

The game only took place during the 2003-04 season so we will have to wait awhile to know what people are saying about this game many years on. However, I would like to draw people's attention to the fact that of the 13 sources now cited in the article's introductory text, only three of those (refs. 1, 3 and 4) are contemporaneous articles published within 48 hours of the game. Nine of the other ten RS articles (refs. 2, 5-11 and 13) are retrospectively published articles that fondly remember the game referring to it as a "classic", etc. (1 published in 2008, 3 in 2009, 4 in 2010, and 1 in 2011); while the tenth article (ref. 12) is also a fond retro article but it is hard to accurately date it (because the author did not correctly enter the required publication date in the required field). The six external links to video footage of the game are also all retrospective homages to this popular comeback game.

"High scores and comebacks are not unique" argument debunked

Another of the reasons that many people cited for deletion during the original article's AfD review was that high scores and comebacks, although unusual or even rare events in football, are still hardly unique events. It was tacitly assumed by many that the game was considered "notable" by its advocates because of the 3-4 score line - hardly surprisingly since the article's title first time around was "Tottenham Hotspur F.C. 3–4 Manchester City F.C." - yet although the game had a lot of goals (and all seven of them were very high quality goals too) that is NOT the reason the game is fondly remembered as an extraordinary comeback game. It is so remembered because almost everybody felt the game was done and dusted by half time - the fans of both teams, the TV pundits and commentators, and even City's own manager, Kevin Keegan, had all written City off. Not just because of the 3-0 score line, or the fact that they had lost their leading striker (Nicolas Anelka) and creative midfielder (Joey Barton), but also because they had been completely outplayed by Spurs during the first half. Even when City drew level at 3-3 in the 80^th minute still nobody foresaw City "nicking" the game with a last minute winner.

Final thoughts

A final point to consider. A number of people voted for deletion of the original article on the basis that the game would be more appropriately covered in the associated club season articles (but without thinking through the actual logistics of how that can be achieved). Whichever way the game is written up, it really deserves some sort of mention of the quotes, external links and references that are currently included in this article to explain why this game was, and still is, considered special. To condense all that down into a paragraph or two cannot be done, while putting anything much longer into a "Season review" section would completely distort the balance of such a review. Consequently, this article should not be voted for deletion on the basis that the text can simply appear elsewhere in another more appropriate article, because that is a bit of a Catch-22 argument. The game cannot be given adequate coverage with just a paragraph, which is why I created the subpage to handle it in the first place, which is why the article got recreated, and which is why you are here reading this. A decision to nix this article effectively means the game can receive little more than a few sentences in passing within the season review ... and, given its notoriety, it deserves a little more extensive coverage than that. Mancini's Lasagne invite to Harry ^Talk 00:27, 12 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

User talk:Mancini's Sandbox/2003–04/FA Cup Fourth round replay