Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates/Manchester United F.C./archive5

More stuff by Jappalang

I am not going to "vote" in any way, but when I glanced through the article, these are my thoughts that made me think that perhaps these could be done now or later after the FAC (successful or not); after all, an FA is not always the perfect product.

• The last paragraph of the Ferguson years reads too much like a quick record of events than a surmised view of achievements and notable happenings. Information of all colours pass too fast to register what exactly is happening to the club in this period. There seems to be no "glue" to hold the various bits and pieces together. Reading the current section feels more to me like a rattling of statistics (this happened, that happened, he left, he scored, he was sold, etc). I think what could be done is to reorganise the paragraphs into themes, such as league performance, off-the-field achievements, etc. In Fergie's time, United has transformed itself into a power in English and European football, become an international brand, emerge sometimes as part of a media circus (Beckham is the biggest culprit here), etc. The paragraphs should be summaries around these themes, using descriptions of events to support/illustrate them.

In general, this seems to apply a bit to the other parts of History... what exactly was United going through in those periods as judged by "football scholars"? Were they declining? In a bit of a rut? Did events off the field affect their performance in a major way? What did certain cup or league victories mean for the club? Were the teams of that period considered strong or weak? Instead of stringing a list of results, perhaps several years worth of victories and losses have been evaluated by those "scholars" into a performance evaluation?

• Has this book, Manchester United: A Thematic Study by David L. Andrews, Routledge 2004, been consulted?

It covers from the mystique of Matt Busby, to Manchester's United "winning" strategies on and off field, its involvement in Asia, George Best, Posh and Becks, fan identity, various fanbases (American, Scandanavian, small town vs city slickers), the rivalry with Liverpool, and the American ownership. That is a lot and the book seems to take an academic approach to the subject. A short read of what is available on Google notes the following exclusions from the article:

• The "unofficial" popularity of the team, i.e. the black market, counterfeiters, unlicensed vendors (and perhaps the club's handling of this). Basically, it lends support to the club's popularity (sales of the illegal stuff are huge on their own).

• In 1999, the team has seized 2 million pounds worth of counterfeit goods.
• The registration of the club crest as a trademark was a move to cut down unlicensed third-party products (and taking place between 1970 and 85, the club was one of the earliest to do so, Nick Toms' essay in Law and sport in contemporary society by Steve Greenfield and Guy Osborn, marks the period of registration; the essay is also another piece that deals with off-field aspects of the club.

• The FA has brought Manchester United (among others) to court in 2002 for unfair price fixing of the club's replica shirts.

• In Fear and Loathing in World Football by Gary Armstrong and Richard Giulianotti, Carlton Brick explores the "ABU" (for those not in the know, Anything/one/body But United) faction, suggesting reasons for their hatred.

I have not seen mention of ABU in this article, even though the "popularist" sentiment of this move is evident in countries where MUFC supporters abound (at least 15 books have covered this populist movement in some degree,[1] and it would be curious why it is excluded from the main article's Support section).

That is it so far. Jappalang (talk) 22:38, 19 July 2010 (UTC)