Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/1992–93 Gillingham F.C. season/archive1

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by Gog the Mild via FACBot (talk) 13 February 2022 [1].

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1992–93 Gillingham F.C. season

Nominator(s): ChrisTheDude (talk) 18:15, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

After seven successful nominations, here's another article about a season from the history of English football (soccer) club Gillingham F.C. for your consideration. After working on a number of articles about seasons in which the club experienced success, I decided to torture myself by writing about arguably the club's worst season in my lifetime, when they came within a hair's breadth of finishing bottom of the entire Football League. Happy days.....

As ever, feedback will be most gratefully received and most promptly acted upon -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 18:15, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

• Image review—pass (t · c) buidhe 21:24, 9 January 2022 (UTC)
• Comment by Oldelpaso The unanswered question that arises from reading the article is "Why were they so bad that year?" The club had finished mid-table in the preceding season but lost their top scorer, what were the expectations beforehand? Its not an easy one to source (not least because Brian Moore's Head.. won't count as a reliable source), but I'm wondering if things from local press would be available, or if one of the nationals ran a preview of the division. While wary that too much narrative building could veer into original research, I wonder if something from the time of the sacking might ascribe some reasons for the decline.
• The image of Plainmoor could do with rotating to make the pitch level. Oldelpaso (talk) 16:21, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

@Oldelpaso: - I've changed the image of Plainmoor for one which probably more accurately reflects what it looked like at the time and has a more level pitch. I've added in details of a season preview which I found in The Times and which somewhat surprisingly said the team were in with a shout of promotion. I've also added a quote from Richardson at the time of his sacking saying why in his opinion the team failed so catastrophically at achieving this...... -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 16:49, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

Comment I believe I have addressed the above points, but Oldelpaso has not edited since making them...... -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 20:55, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

CommentsSupport by FrB.TG

Trying to expand my horizons as a reviewer.

• "David Crown was the team's top goalscorer, with 5 goals in the Football League and a total of 9 in all competitions" - shouldn't 5 and 9 be written in words?
• "At the start of the season, Damien Richardson was the club's manager, a post he had held since April 1989." There needs to be a {{nbsp}} between April and 1989, per MOS:NBSP.
• "Ron Hillyard, like Richardson a former Gillingham player, was assistant manager." Since "a former Grillingham player" is a parenthesis, a comma needs to precede "a former".
• "during the summer of 1992" simply could become "during summer 1992".
• "after being unable to fulfil their first game of the season they resigned from the Football League" - since you have put the dependent adverbial clause before the independent clause, there needs to be a comma before "they resigned".
• "The team prepared for the new season with a number of friendly matches, including a testimonial match for Bill "Buster" Collins, who had been with the club in a variety of roles since the early 1960s including a long spell as youth team manager." Perhaps try to be consistent with the placement of a comma before "including" especially in the same sentence. Or better use a synonym for one to avoid repetition here.
• "Gillingham had originally been scheduled to play Maidstone on Boxing Day, but due to the latter team's withdrawal from the League, Gillingham instead re-arranged a game against Bury which had previously been scheduled for late January;[32] Gillingham lost 4–1 in a match in which their opponents wore Gillingham's second-choice kit in the second half after the referee decided that the two team's colours were too similar.[33]" This is an incredibly long sentence. I suggest replacing the semi-colon with a full stop.
• "Gillingham began March with two defeats, including a 2–0 loss away to Barnet in which" and "Two games later, the team achieved another victory against Lincoln City, in which" - a fairly minor point, but be consistent with the comma before "in which".
• This can be ignored as this is personal taste but I think you could use the more common "mainly due to" than "due mainly to".

Notwithstanding these minor queries, a fairly enjoyable read. FrB.TG (talk) 20:26, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

@FrB.TG: - many thanks for your review. I have made these changes -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 20:53, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

Support on prose. Excellently written. If you have the time and inclination, I would appreciate some feedback on my newly-nominated FAC for a British actress. FrB.TG (talk) 22:33, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

Support by Amakuru

Background and preseason

• "the division in which Gillingham had played since 1989 was renamed from the Fourth Division to the Third Division" - I almost think this doesn't matter, but isn't this technically inaccurate? As I understood it at the time, there wasn't a renaming, but rather the three top divisions of the Football League remained the same, with the fourth abolished, and every time that wasn't promoted or relegated was shunted up by one division. Thus technically second-tier winners Crystal Palace won the same First Division title which Leeds United had won as first-tier champions the previous season. And in fact, the Championship of today is still legally the successor to what for decades was the top flight.
• "brought a United team" - I think it's usually preferable not to use a contraction like "United", even where it's obvious what's meant, as in this case. Theoretically it could also mean Maidstone United, whom you mentioned earlier, although quite why Steve Bruce would arrive with a bus-full of Maidstone players is beyond me!

Third Division

• "would prove to be" - two occurrences of this phrase in one paragraph, perhaps reword one.
• "the first 13 Third Division games of the season" - maybe "thirteen" rather than "13", given that we talk of "three games" and "six ... matches" in the next sentence.
• "by now fallen to the bottom of the table" - I wonder if "by then" would work better, since it's not really "now"
• "would only win one of the next ten league games" - better to just say "won only one of their next ten league games" or similar, rather than another "would"
• "The defeat meant that Gillingham had gone through an entire season without winning a league game away from home for the first time in the club's history" - parsing this sentence was a little difficult; maybe add a comma after "away from home" or something?

Cup matches

• "the non-League team nearly achieved a draw" - it might be worth saying a sentence or two about the goals... I initially assumed they were holding on for a 0-0, but it seems it was actually 2-2 by the time the winner went in.

Aftermath

• "joined Dagenham & Redbridge" - maybe add "of the XXX division" for extra context
• "who had only played one game" - I might be making this up, but it feels like "who had played only one game" would be better syntax

That's about it. Lead all looks fine. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 18:20, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

@Amakuru: - many thanks for your review. See what you make of these changes :-) -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 19:33, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

@Amakuru: - can I check if you are now happy to support, or if there are any outstanding issues? Cheers! -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 12:10, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

Oh yes, apologies for not circling back here. All looks good now, thanks. Supporting.  — Amakuru (talk) 17:09, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

Support from Truflip99

Great read about an unremarkable topic. Couldn't really find any issues apart from maybe punctuation. Pointed them out below. --truflip99 (talk) 18:20, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

• "no team containing [David] Crown and [Steve] Lovell is likely to go short of goals." -- MOS:LQ?
• "I've lost my job on a matter of principle - teaching kids to play attractive football... -- MOS:LQ, MOS:ENDASH?

@Truflip99: - all done (assuming I have interpreted correctly :-)) -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 08:13, 29 January 2022 (UTC)

Sure did! --truflip99 (talk) 16:37, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

CommentsSupport from Mike Christie

Support. I made a couple of minor copyedits, but can't find anything to complain about. Nice work. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 09:27, 29 January 2022 (UTC)

Support from Edwininlondon

I could not find anything nitpicky in the prose, but looking at the sources:

• #15 needs a page number I think
• #23 does not seem to cover "Defeat at home to Crewe Alexandra"
• ISBN formatting seems inconsistent, hyphen-wise
• spotcheck: 3 19 28 30 35 36 44 47 70 72 73 all fine

That's it from me. Edwininlondon (talk) 13:36, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

Many thanks for your review Edwin. Ref 15 relates to a book which does not have numbered pages. I added an additional ref against the Crewe sentence -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 13:40, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

All fine. I Support on prose and source review. Nice work, as always. Edwininlondon (talk) 18:37, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

Note to co-ordinators

@FAC coordinators: - can you confirm if it's OK to start another FAC? Thanks! -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 09:06, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

Sure, go ahead. (t · c) buidhe 09:09, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

• Closing note: This candidate has been promoted, but there may be a delay in bot processing of the close. Please see WP:FAC/ar, and leave the {{featured article candidates}} template in place on the talk page until the bot goes through. Gog the Mild (talk) 16:43, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.