Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Football/Archive 7

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Detail level in football kits

Discussion here. You are all invited to participate. --Angelo 11:31, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Napoli article name change

The article for Italian club Napoli was recently changed from S.S.C. Napoli to Società Sportiva Calcio Napoli. Is this a "valid" name change? Are we planning on writing out all club names in long form? Bigdottawa 05:07, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Please, no... Punkmorten 06:53, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Punkmorten. A shorter name like SSC Napoli would be best. Qwghlm 07:50, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

I reverted it back to S.S.C. Napoli, since the new article denomination completely clashes with the standard for football club articles. --Angelo 11:29, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

RE: "Referee" football article

I was tempted to edit this, but since I haven't been with Wikipedia for a while I'm unsure where to throw this information. Primarily; Referees are technically registered each year with their respective leagues and the governing body (i.e. Pembrokeshire League and West Wales Football Association) which, allows the governing bodies to allocate them games to be officiated. It's important to note that under this system the referee is considered a representive of the governing body which, reflects on their decisions in matches and so on. Lower level referees (regional leagues and lower) tend to get paid by the home club after each match (this is binding, non-payment will result in the club being fined) also, a referee neglecting his appointment may also be fined by their respective governing body. To my knowledge any referee who hasn't now been registered with their respective football governing body is no longer permitted or allocated matches under the control of the entire governing body so while it's entirely possible for people to be "Qualified" referees if they aren't registered they don't contribute towards the leagues/governing body in the way that registered officials do. --- --Anyway I have quite a bit of information, just don't really know how to go about implementing it into the article, I can be fairly sure of the accuracy for my regional area though (I myself am qualified and registered ^_^) RBlowes 23:51, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Similar note but I'm also a ref (look at the user name who'd have thought it!), I'd also like to help improve mainly bits on refs and the Law section which I personally think lacks some coherence overall (maily because of the way they're scattered accross various pages rather than having a page or pages just for each law), especially considering how important/conroversial parts of it are. I'm not certain how to get started here so could someone help?Name | Talk 00:49, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Standardisation

Throughout many articles there's a various ways of presenting a couple of things, and I'd like to clear it up. Firstly - what should it be? 2006/07 or 2006-07. Although I tend to usual the former generally, I prefer the use of the latter in Wikipedia. It makes sense as well, seeing as the season articles are in that format.

The other thing is in succession boxes. Should it be:

• Watford manager
• Watford F.C. manager
• Watford manager

I prefer the first one, just because it's fairly evident by the point in the article that it's a football article and thus there's not much point in having the F.C. bit. Anyway, thoughts? Anything else that should be standardised? HornetMike 00:01, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

For seasons, I prefer hyphens, it fits in with general Wikipedia style on all things that take place over more than one year (not just football seasons), and also means we avoid associated annoyances with slashes in article titles. As for manager boxes, I definitely prefer the first, then the third, although I can also see a case for e.g.:

• Manchester City manager

But if and only if the list of managers article actually exists (which it does in City's case, but not in Watford's). Qwghlm 00:29, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Oh, that's nice. In which case, I'd support the option you showed (if the list of managers exists) and if not, the first option I proposed. HornetMike 00:38, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Creation of a couple of manager things

I was just wondering what people thought about

a) a category for unemployed football managers

This might prove useful in finding out/remembering what mamagers are currently out of football. There are a number of potential problems re: who might be included though. Do you incude someone who has retired from football management i.e. Niall Quinn. Or people who were managers but are now employed a s coaches/assitant managers i.e. Ray Lewington.

b) a list of the managers in the Premiership and the Football League.

Useful for browsing, I thought. A bit like List of European football managers. Columns in the table: Name, Club, league?, date of birth, date of appointment. I figured sorting it by the latter might be quite interesting, although in all honesty all the other columns who be a decent method of sorting.

Anyway, thoughts? HornetMike 00:16, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

I strongly dislike the idea of "currently unemployed/unattached" categories - they are a pain to keep track of and the word "current" is meaningless to a reader unless it has an "as of" date added to it as well, and categories are a very poor way of keeping track. As for the list, well it could get enormous (every manager of every League club in its entire history?), and it's a bit crufty but I've given up discouraging people from writing more and more endless lists. A list of lists per club would be more manageable and usable, though. Qwghlm 00:40, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Ah, no I meant current managers and only those in the Football League. Thus 92 of them. HornetMike 11:47, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

I like the sound of (b). So would Dario Gradi.  sʟυмɢυм • т • c  20:43, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

RFC: Infobox national football team update

If interested, please comment on a recent change made to national football team template on a new required item -- Template talk:Infobox national football team. Regards. // Laughing Man 03:48, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Merge discussion:Wikipedia:WikiProject Football Transfers, Wikipedia:Italian Football

Both should deleted. Matt86hk talk 19:00, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree, both are created by the same user. Punkmorten 19:22, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Have you notified the people listed on the Italian Football page? Oldelpaso 19:37, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

What should I do??

I want to help by editing the team stubs, can anyone please give me an assignment for this??

Reply to me when anyone finds one Rakuten06 19:35, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

All football club stubs are listed in Category:Football (soccer) club stubs. Oldelpaso 19:40, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Can I ask your opinion, which region is the best for me to edit the stubs?? Rakuten06 19:43, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Well, what are you most familiar with? Do you speak another language? For example, our coverage of South American teams is comparatively weak, but most sources are in Spanish or Portuguese. Oldelpaso 19:50, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm writing English but I don't know another language except ASL (American Sign Language). Rakuten06 19:53, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

The clubs on List of football (soccer) clubs and its daughters all play at the highest level in their country, many on that list are stubs. Or how about North American teams? Outside the MLS teams, a lot of articles contain little information, including several NASL clubs of historical importance e.g. Chicago Sting, Los Angeles Aztecs. Oldelpaso 08:15, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

Maybe I can find stubs in the European region where I love to see the true matches between the teams like Rangers-Celtic (Celtic is my fav team) and also find club stubs for this too, What do you think?? Rakuten06 14:08, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

[dropping indent] I don't really understand what you want us to tell you? – Elisson • Talk 14:14, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

Just contribute anywhere you like, Rakuten. As long as you're editing constructively, it doesn't matter which articles you're working on. HornetMike 22:29, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

English football club stubs split, revisited

There was some discussion of this earlier, and I've followed up with a concrete proposal, here. Please add any comments and suggestions you might have. Alai 03:01, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

WP:FLC

Dunno how you guys do it, but most Wikiprojects like to recieve notification when an article within their scope is nominated to be featured. So, here it is: Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/FIFA World Cup hat-tricks. Just delete this if it isn't common practice here. Cheers, Daniel.Bryant 10:53, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Generally, just adding them to the FAC/FLC section of the WikiProject page (same goes for AfDs, TfDs) rather than the talk page will suffice - those of us who have this page on our watchlist will pick it up. On a related note, I have thought about possibly colour-coding the rows in the table to make the different types of article more distinct for casual readers to find current FACs/FLCs more easily - thoughts? Qwghlm 11:10, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

I most certainly like the idea. I'll whip up an example in my sandbox. Daniel.Bryant 11:22, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Beat you to it. :) Suggestions welcome. Qwghlm 11:29, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

I most certainly like that idea of colour coding for GA's/FA's/FAC's etc. compared to my pitiful segregation-by-colour. Daniel.Bryant 11:31, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. I have updated the project page with the coloured version now. Qwghlm 19:28, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Boudewijn Zenden

After the article improvement drive on the article for Boudewijn Zenden, I felt there was a real improvement, and so put it up for review as a good article. It failed, with the reviewer offering (generally reasonable) objections about the writing. I would like to see this article make to GA status it as a positive fruit of this wikiproject's article improvement drive. However, having done a substantial rewrite myself, I feel I am too involved, and was hoping that perhaps some other members of this project could have a go at addressing the objections and maybe preparing it for resubmission. Robotforaday 12:56, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

I'll give it a go, having made a few edits on the article before. I'll try to address each of the GA comments, but I will need some proper English grammar- and spellchecking (at least). Poulsen 13:29, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Footballers by club

Should players who never played a match for a club (but were on the club's books) be included in the clubs' players category? Some examples are:

• David Seaman
  • Category:Leeds United AFC players
• David Platt
  • Category:Manchester United F.C. players
• Daniel Karbassiyoon
  • Category:Arsenal F.C. players

Please note that the leads of each of the categories differ. The Leeds lead was modified very recently and Seaman was removed from the cat.  sʟυмɢυм • т • c  22:36, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Since Karbassiyoon not only played for, but scored a goal for, Arsenal in a League Cup match [1] I can't see any just reason for removing him for that category. I generally take a fairly liberal interpretation of the by-club categorisation and consider it from an eligibility point of view: if a player was contracted with that club he should count as a player, so I would definitely include Platt and Seaman in their respective categories. Others may wish to dispute this. However, an interesting case to consider is those players that never made an appearance on the pitch but were selected in the squad to appear on the substitutes bench - where do they stand? Qwghlm 00:17, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

I think we need uniformity. Don't really mind what way we go but we definitely need a consensus. I'd probably side with they must have played at least once in a competitive game for the first team. A few players I watch have recently been removed from the Leeds category, then re-entered adn then removed again. They haven't played for Leeds first team Dodge 07:44, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Under such a "must have played a competitive match" rule, that would mean we would have to get rid of any youth or reserve player who has not yet made his debut. For example, Mart Poom has been on Arsenal's books for over a year but as third-choice goalkeeper has not played a first-team match yet, so he would have to be removed from Category:Arsenal F.C. players... Qwghlm 08:36, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Well I'm new here to project football but my opinion, for what its worth, is that we should use the notability rule here. Players should only be categorised by club if they are notable for being with that club - by this, I would consider that both Seaman and Platt should be removed from the Leeds and ManU categories respectively since they're not notable for being at thoseclub (having never played for them).

To resolve the issure raised re youth & reserve players like Poom, I would suggest that players who are currently contracted to a club should be included within the club's players category (as they are notable for being on the club's playing staff) - however if they are subsequently released by the club without ever having played a competitive game they should then be removed from the club's category (as at that point they are notable neither for being on the club's books nor for having played for the club).

--213.208.110.115 09:21, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Oops sorry that was me (my auto login didnt work for some reason!)

--MLD 09:23, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Qwghlm that it should be down to eligibility to have played for a club. I view categories such as this as primarily a way of improving WP articles. For example, I am a Torquay United fan, so if someone adds something about a player who has played for a number of other clubs and then joined Torquay but not played for some reason, then I may be able to help improve the page. If we start to remove them from categories we lose this ability. In the same way, there may be a player that I write about, primarily from a Torquay United perspective, then I add them to another club's category, then I hope that someone who knows more about the other club than me can improve an article that I have started. I view this as what wikipedia is all about, rather than whether or not someone was notable at a particular club or not (which is point of view anyway isn't it) WikiGull 09:33, 11 October 2006 (UTC) (new name for those that knew me as something else!).

I too agree with Qwghlm, a player that has had a contract with the club should be included in the club's category, no matter if he never played a competitive match for the club. – Elisson • T • C • 12:13, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

I have no problem with that, but some category headers need to be changed to indicate this (I like the wording in the Arsenal cat) Dodge 12:36, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

This issue was originally rased from slumglum noticing a discussion between myself and Kingjamie over the leeds category. I removed most of the players as they hadn't even been contracted to the club on professional contracts and only youth contracts (David Seaman is an example of this). I however removed a couple of other players as they hadn't ever appeared on the pitch for leeds and I feel it is pointless them being part of the category when people will go to the category looking for people who have actually played for the club professionally (which is 1st team, no-one includes a players reserve team appearances in their stats). I have altered the wording on the Leeds category to specify 1st team. I also removed the players to try and make the category match with all the linked players names in Leeds United A.F.C. players. MLD's point I feel is the same. --Chappy84 11:29, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Any summary of a player's career will include clubs he was with but didn't make an appearance for, and I don't see that Wikipedia should be any different, even with categories. A category is the best place to find a comprehensive list of every player that's been with a club, and that should include people on 0 appearances. There is a third way, as employed by the former category West Ham United F.C. players that never played for the first team, but I think a full category is tidier and more useful. ArtVandelay13 18:07, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Like Dodge, I'd like to see some kind of policy established for this, whether it matches my opinion or not. My personal view is that if someone is a football player and they are employed by a club, such as Templatia United, even for just a week, they should be considered a Templatia United player. It's not nice to think that a player added to a category for such a reason is removed due to a different interpretation of the category. It is also much easier to add a player, rather than research their statistics to prove that they did or didn't ever make the first team.
I like WikiGull's reason of article growth through categorisation; I have expanded articles to include prose about players' past clubs, having only discovered that they were at the clubs after seeing the category.
As Mart Poom was mentioned; he has never played for the Arsenal first team, yet has a Champions League runners-up medal. If he leaves Arsenal tomorrow, would Uefa categorise him as former Arsenal player?
With regards this discussion we are usually talking about youth players who leave the club to seek opportunies elsewhere. Just a suggestion, but perhaps new categories for the likes of David Platt and Robbie Savage are needed; something like Category:Former Manchester United F.C. youth players?  sʟυмɢυм • т • c  22:07, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Have people stopped commenting on AfDs?

We've got four current AfDs, and very, very few comments or votes from project members. No matter if voting keep or delete, or just adding a comment, it is important that the football interrested community participate in deletion matters to form Wikipedia the way we want to form it. – Elisson • T • C • 20:21, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, I think I just stopped doing so. Part of the reason I think is "AfD fatigue" (we have had a lot recently) - I think many nominations could have been dealt with as speedies or prods first - I've added some instructions to the Nominations section spelling out alternatives to AfD for other editors. Hope it's useful. Qwghlm 12:20, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

KInd of on this topic but I find the new table for AfD on the project page a little too much work. Didn't see anything wrong with the other way. Just a minor gripe, no doubt I'll get used to it. Dodge 12:31, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Is there...?

A list of football clubs by city?

• YES and so...where??
• NO it would be useful...don't you think?

--necronudist 14:24, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

List of top-division football clubs in UEFA countries and List of top-division football clubs in CONMEBOL countries, the most developed lists of that type, list cities. Feel free to convert similar articles (such as List of football clubs in country X) to the same format, but its not the most glamourous of tasks. Oldelpaso 17:19, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

I've just started a List of top-division football clubs in AFC countries article. Seems like we should have one for each FIFA confederation. Jogurney 16:55, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Good work! --necronudist 16:58, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Level of Vandalism on Aston Villa page

The only popular club page I watch is the Aston Villa F.C. page - is the recent level of vandalism there any more than other clubs? Superlinus 17:40, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

The level of vandalism tends to be proportional to the profile of the club, and Villa look to be no exception. More vandalism than say Bolton, but less than Chelsea. Oldelpaso 18:23, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Not too bad, considering - it's certainly less than the vandalism of Arsenal (which has been unusually heavy of late) - I'd happily swap the workload for that page. Qwghlm 23:00, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Third opinion

I'm in something of a slow burning edit war with an anon regarding derogatory nicknames on City of Manchester Stadium. A couple of third party opinions at Talk:City of Manchester Stadium would be helpful, lest I get accused of breaking WP:OWN. Oldelpaso 16:48, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

National team articles

A lot of national team articles are mediocre, often consisting of a recap of recent matches followed by several lists. On the AID, Kingfisherswift suggested a mass improvement of national team articles, which sounds like a good idea. One thing I think we are missing is an aspirational article - if someone wants to improve a club article, there are several FAs to take inspiration from, but this is not the case for national teams. What would the ideal national team article contain?

Things from the club article layout which could be used are the Stadium section (for nations which use a single national stadium), Colours where colours vary from the national flag (e.g. Netherlands) and perhaps a Rivalries section. A supporters section might not be very interesting in a lot of cases. I'm dubious about the inclusion of current squads due to their fluid nature.

Looking at various national team articles, Denmark national football team is perhaps the best (aside from the non-standard United Kingdom national football team). Maybe it would be worth staging a push to get that to FA or GA to serve as a role model for similar articles? Oldelpaso 13:06, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

As you say, we should try to avoid recentism. That means leaving out "current squad" and less focus on recent results. Punkmorten 14:15, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure I agree with removing the current squad. I mean, if we remove it shouldn't we remove all the current squads from domestic teams? Is that recentism too? HornetMike 16:10, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

I think the situation is different at club level. The squad is largly static for each season and setup with their own numbers at the start of it. The national squad only exists for each match and can change rapidly. I equally don't agree with squad lists that note injuries and suspensions because these are also short term situations. josh (talk) 16:44, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. And also agree with Oldelpaso that something should be done to the national teams. Perhaps do something outside of the FAID, working together over a longer period on several of the more important national team articles. – Elisson • T • C • 17:21, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

I like they way the squad is done for Northern Ireland national football team. "The following players have all been called up to the Northern Ireland squad within the last 18 months." Dodge 17:58, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

The technique used in England national football team is even better than that, I think. HornetMike 19:43, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

Ugh, I think that is ugly and takes up too much space (and also needs very regular updating). Player's DoBs do not need to be there, either. I don't think it is too unreasonable to just put the most recent squad in - yes, squads change, but they only change once a month at most and even then there are only a few changes from time to time. To put in every player from the last 18 months would make most pages enormous. Qwghlm 13:42, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Polyglots amongst you may wish to note that several national teams are featured in other languages: Austria in German, Italy in Italian, Germany in Swedish, Australia in Portugese and France in Polish. Oldelpaso 09:22, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

So is Norway in Norwegian, but the same article translated to English failed a good article nomination here... Punkmorten 10:28, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, the only of those articles that would stand a chance under en.wiki's FA process would be the Austrian national team article on de.wiki. – Elisson • T • C • 12:15, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Peter Grant

I moved new Norwich manager Peter Grant from Peter Grant (football) to Peter Grant (footballer) as it's more standard. I've corrected all the double re-directs, apart from one at Peter Grant (Football). I presume it should be deleted, but something in the back of my head says something about deleting content completely and so forth.HornetMike 19:43, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

I just deleted the content & fixed the redirect. There was nothing in the Peter Grant (Football) page that wasn't already in Peter Grant (footballer) - the same anon user contributed to both [2] [3] - so there wasn't anything to merge. I left a note in the edit summary explaining it, I think it should be fine. Qwghlm 13:37, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for that Qwglhm. HornetMike 14:10, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Today's Featured Article suggestion

I have suggested the article Football (soccer) for use on the Main Page as Today's featured article. Please feel free to add your comments here. Kingjamie 20:51, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

Tom Example (football) or Tom Example (footballer) ?

I remember there was a similar discussion for basketball and we decided that (basketball) was "more standard" than others. I think this would be true for football too. By now you all write (footballer), but what if a footballer (= football player for most people) became a manager? Then it must be changed to (football manager), to avoid confusion, or something like. With (football) you can cover all the football world without disambiguation (many people ask me if footballer means "football player" or "someone who works in the football world", and so here is the confusion). --necronudist 09:14, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Football is a very ambiguous term. Punkmorten 09:40, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Generally a football manager will have also been a footballer - and some football managers are much more notable as players than managers (Tony Adams (footballer) for example), so I would just stick with footballer. WikiGull 09:57, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Well, you are sayin' that using a "neutral" term like football is MORE ambigous than the various footballer, football manager, etc. because "generally a football manager has been a footballer" or "generally a football manager is more notable as player than manager"? LOL! I just don't understand why you don't want to resolve this problem... --necronudist 12:14, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

He's saying that Football doens't only apply to soccer. Dodge 13:02, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

I prefer "(footballer)" or "(football manager)" (depending on what they were primarily known as) as opposed to "(football)" as the former illustrates what the person's occupation was. Other articles in different fields tend to use occupation, e.g. Tony Adams (actor) not Tony Adams (drama) or Tony Adams (acting), so it remains consistent with the other articles. But to be honest, it's not a big an issue as you make out, and I won't object if you start moving all these articles to "(football)". Qwghlm 13:28, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

First of all: Dodge, "football" only refers to Association football, others are AMERICAN football, GAELIC football etc... today it's a de facto standard (there was a discussion here that decided to abolish "football (soccer)" in favour of "football"). Second: it's also a consistency problem (maybe a minor problem, however): basketball players, manager etc are archived as (basketball) and football people are archived by football occupation. I think it would be more standard to write football as per basketball. In this way we can also eliminate the controversies I said above. --necronudist 15:56, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

League Cup stats in infoboxes

I spent quite a bit of last night updating Watford's infobox stats, as whoever did them left out all FA Cup/League Cup/Johnstone whatever appearances and goals. Someone's reverted one of them saying League Cup appearances don't count. That's not the case, is it? If so, that's utterly ridiculous. HornetMike 13:06, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Under the rule that was drawn up (not sure who did), infoboxes are meant to contain domestic league appearances only, so no League Cup or FA Cup stats should be included. I also think that it's ridiculous - cup and European matches should be included in a player's stats - they are just as important in their career. Qwghlm 13:23, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Agree! All stats should be included in a players appearances, They're official club matches, so really should include F.A., League and European cup appearances, I haven't changed any to all appearances so far as the info box does state that its the players league appearances correct as of..... It is slightly confusing, especially for players such as Gary Kelly who has made over 500 professional appearances for the club but his info box states only 400-odd. --Chappy84 13:34, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Huh, who made the decision for the infoboxes to be this way? Surely we could reverse it with a good consensus? Daemonic Kangeroo has just posted a very helpful reply on my talk page saying it's something to do with cup games being difficult to confirm as oposed to League stats. I'm not realy sure how this is the case. I use Soccerbase as my stat source, and it catalogues cup games just as well as League games. I don't know what else people use. Club programmes? Surely they include cup games as well? HornetMike 13:44, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

I suspect whoever wrote the original template way back deigned that rule. I think stats on appearances other than league are available in a lot of places - books as well as websites. For those players where we can't get info right now (players from way back in history) we could instead have maybe a supplementary template, e.g. {{leagueappsonly}} which would insert a footnote saying "League appearances only". Qwghlm 13:50, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Soccerbase is great for current players, but for players from the past it's not so useful. For example, as a lifelong Southampton fan, I am trying to write articles on the players from my youth (1960s). Thus I have created an article on Ron Reynolds who is not mentioned on Soccerbase as he ceased playing in 1963. Whilst I can find his full stats whilsta Southampton player from my Southampton reference books, these don't give much in the way of stats whilst at other clubs. I have to fill this gap by using sites such as "Since 1988" [4] which is extremely comprehensive but only includes league stats.

As I said in my note to HornetMike if we are to be consistent then we need to agree on a basis where all the relevant info can be obtained (without having to acquire reference books for every football club!) That's why I prefer to use only league games. If total games is more relevant, this can be explainedin the body of the article.--Daemonic Kangaroo 14:06, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

I use the Sky Sports Football Yearbook for players stats, and that lists league appearances only, so keeping league appearances only in the template makes life easier for me. Only listing league appearances seems to be fairly standard in the world of football stats. Gasheadsteve 15:16, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Is it?! I've never encountered this method before. Anyway, IMO we shouldn't be looking at what's convenient we should be looking at what's comphrehensive. Personally, I'm alright. For Watford Trefor Jones covers all appearances up to 1996, after that Soccerbase kicks in. HornetMike 16:00, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

It's pretty easy for ex-Leeds players, there's an incredibly comprehensive source at www.leedsfans.org.uk, they also have the stats for the player at other clubs during their career if they've been able to find them. The simplest way to change the template would probably be to have a tag at the end stating whether it's just league or league and cup stats, like Qwghlm suggested. I would agree with HornetMike in the fact that most stats I've ever seen include cup as well as league appearances. --Chappy84 16:11, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Looks like more Sky revisionism here - with them having exclusive rights to the FA Premier League they always try to promote it at the expense of other competitions. My copy of Arsenal Who's Who (a pretty much canon list of players) lists stats for all competitions from the club's very beginnings. Although I can see that some statistics outside the league are hard to find, they are by no means totally lost. Qwghlm 17:49, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

I guess it is easy to find for most "major" leagues (English, Scottish, German, French, ...) but cup appearances are harder to find for other, less known, leagues. Generally, only league appearances are shown for i.e. players in the Swedish Allsvenskan in most of the sources I've browsed through. Although I agree those stats should be included if available, and the easiest way to fix it is to use some sort of tag, as already mentioned above. – Elisson • T • C • 17:00, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

It is NOT Sky Sports revisionism to say that generally only League appearances are kept in statistics. As far as I can recall, the Rothmans annual (the sponsor before Sky) gave League appearances only and its generally regarded as the bible by statiticians in the UK. I agree with only providing league appearances in the infobox as it is the only clear consistent figure. Stats for league cup, Inter toto games, minor cups (Anglo-Italian Cup, Zenith Data Sytems Cup, Catalan Cup, etc) are very hard to come by. League appearances generally aren't. Dodge 13:55, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

I think the statistics should be as complete as possible. For English clubs they aren't usually too hard to find (I own no less than three publications containing full data for Manchester City players, for example). It is places like Brazil where statistics get confusing, due to a labyrinthine structure that changes frequently (or if you are cynical, whenever a big club is on the brink of relegation). Oldelpaso 17:47, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

I think if we can come to some agreed standard on what competitions should be included, then we don't have to worry about the problems that Seidodge outlines. Domestic leagues, cups and league cups are usually included in stats by professional statisticians, while minor competitions such as the Intertoto, Anglo-Italian or ZDS Cups generally aren't. Admittedly this is a Euro-centric view - I am no expert in the intricacies of e.g. Brazilian league football, but someone else here might be able to provide information. Qwghlm 18:49, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Qwghlm here, I believe all appearances with English/Scotland clubs are easy enough to find. It's outside of England/Scotland that it gets a bit tricky. Still we can differentiate with tags... HornetMike 22:30, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Seems more people than not think that we should include the FA, League and European stats if available, it's def a good idea to have a tag so that people know exactly whats included. --Chappy84 10:32, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

So where are we going with this? I don't personally have the knowledge as to creating tags, but I imagine it wouldn't be too hard for someone to do.HornetMike 20:34, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Manual of style

While browsing the Category:2006-07 domestic football (soccer) leagues i noted there's no consistency re naming conventions. Danish Superliga 2006-07 uses "-" instead of "/" used in La Liga - 2006/2007 and a few others. Any suggestions or comments? -- Szvest 21:57, 15 October 2006 (UTC) ^{Wiki me up ®}

I think we have agreed a while ago on using "-" instead of "/" in article titles. – Elisson • T • C • 22:16, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

It was touched on in the Standardisation discussion section above. I prefer "-", definitely. Qwghlm 22:40, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

And here earlier this year. – Elisson • T • C • 22:52, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Any concensus or decision to move them to "-" have been taken? -- Szvest 23:31, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Zbigniew Małkowski

Can a few of you add this to your watchlists? He is the current Hibs goalie, who had a stinker yesterday and his article is paying the price today. Thanks. --Guinnog 11:52, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Let's get all our 20 EPL club articles to GA status!

Although I am not a member of this WikiProject, I have read many articles on EPL clubs, and I find them to be of outstanding quality. I believe that most of them deserve at least Good Article status.

I am a member of the Good Articles WikiProject, and I believe that both WikiProjects would benefit if I succeed in my mission: that is to get all the articles on the 20 EPL clubs to at least GA status.

Currently, three articles on EPL clubs have achieved FA status: Arsenal F.C., Everton F.C. and Manchester City F.C.. Two articles on EPL clubs have achieved GA status: Chelsea F.C. (nominated by me) and Liverpool F.C.

Therefore, we have 15 articles to get to GA status or better. I checked the talk pages of the articles, and 2 of them - Reading F.C. and Watford F.C. - are rated B-class articles. The remaining 13 do not have a rating.

Please try and rate all the 13 articles by Sunday night (Singapore time). By Sunday night, please tell me which articles you think already meet GA standards, so I can nominate them. I usually nominate articles in batches of 3 or 4.

--J.L.W.S. The Special One 15:07, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Few of the other current FA Premier League clubs (what is this EPL you speak of? ;-) ) are close to GA level. Lack of references is the biggest problem, followed by the plethora of lists that plague several of them, and a general trend of recentism. I don't think lack of references stops an article being B-Class, so they are probably all B-Class. Oldelpaso 17:32, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Lack of references, listcruft, recentism, and too much history while completely missing out important stuff such as supporters, crest/colours and stadium are the biggest problems. But as Oldelpaso says, I think all PL clubs are good enough to be B-Class. Will assess them shortly. – Elisson • T • C • 18:11, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

As you are aware of these problems, please try to address them. I suggest you agree on a common structure for all the articles as well (e.g. stadium, history, crest, supporters, rivalries, lists). It should be easy to determine which articles are sufficiently referenced once you have assessed all the remaining 13 articles.

Please nominate a list of 3-4 articles which are sufficiently referenced (or almost-sufficiently referenced) to me by Sunday night (Singapore time) so I can nominate these articles. Note that an article will take about a week to be reviewed; this should be adequate time to find more references for an article which is almost sufficiently-referenced. In addition, if an article is very close to meeting the criteria, but minor clarifications or improvements are neccesary, a reviewer may place the article "on hold", which will give you an extra week to address the concerns. In such cases, GA functions as a mini-PR by a single reviewer. --J.L.W.S. The Special One 13:14, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, who put you in charge? If you're so keen to get these articles to GA status then lead by example and start by working on them yourself. Don't ask us to do all the hard work assessing and reviewing them, just so that you can then put your name on their GA nomination. Qwghlm 13:44, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

In a WikiProject, different people work on different tasks. Some write articles, some copyedit articles, some assess articles, some promote the project, etc. My task in the Good Articles WikiProject is spotting and nominating articles which already meet the criteria, and encouraging others to do so.

The assessment will help you identify articles which already meet the GA criteria, or are very close to doing so, but are not GAs. Such articles should be nominated for GA because they deserve it. As you are members of WikiProject Football, while I am not, I believe you will be more qualified than I am to assess articles and address issues.

If a reviewer places an article on hold, and I can help address any issues the reviewer raises, I will do so, to help the article achieve GA status. However, there are several articles which I am actively working to improve to GA status. --J.L.W.S. The Special One 12:06, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

I've heard it said that the reward for a job well done on Wikipedia is another three jobs, but this is ridiculous. Apologies if you regard this lot as insufficient to meet your quota. If you look at some of the links in the box on the right of this page you might note that we agreed on a common stucture for club articles more than a year ago, and if you look at Special:Contributions for any of the people who have replied, plenty of examples of addressing problems with football articles will become evident. Oldelpaso 19:38, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

I don't regard this WikiProject's current FAs/GAs as insufficient. This WikiProject has done lots of great work; keep it up!

Since you have agreed on a common structure, ensure that all your articles on clubs follow that structure. --J.L.W.S. The Special One 12:06, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

I actually think our efforts are better spent getting a (proper) national team to at least GA and preferable FA status; there are enough club articles at that quality right now. Alternatively, an FA on a lower league side (or even a non-league side) would be more of an achievement. Qwghlm 18:36, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

An article on a lower-league side, Sheffield Wednesday F.C., has achieved FA status.

As articles on clubs in the first tier of major leagues will attract more readers, making such articles GAs would be more beneficial to the project than making less-read articles on lesser-known clubs GAs. In addition, there will be more available sources on clubs in the first tier of major leagues, so it will be easier for these articles to meet the referencing requirements of the Good Article criteria.

Although I am currently focusing on EPL-club articles, once we succeed in making most of the articles on EPL clubs GAs, we can move on to articles on clubs in other major leagues, such as Serie A, and as you suggested, national teams. Not every article can become an FA, so GA is a way to encourage and ensure uniform standards. --J.L.W.S. The Special One 13:14, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

I believe working on a broad range of articles - clubs, national teams, biographies, stadiums, competitions - would be a better way of demonstrating this Wikiproject's abilities, than concentrating on such a restricted set of very similar articles. Qwghlm 13:50, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree completely. I dislike the way some here only care about how English football articles look. There's 1000s of articles on football in other countries that needs improving. I'd rather have every article be 'decent' than have 1 or 2 featured articles and 50-60 GA Dodge 14:55, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Of course, working on a broad range of articles would be beneficial to the project. I am not focusing only on articles on EPL clubs; I am only focusing on articles on EPL clubs for a start. After more articles on EPL clubs achieve GA status, we can work on articles on clubs in other leagues, national teams, etc.

However, we should place more emphasis on articles which are likely to attract more readers. This is why I have chosen to start with articles on EPL clubs.

As mentioned earlier, this is more about awarding the GA badge to articles which already meet the criteria, or are very close to doing so; rather than about getting stubs to GA status.

I would consider "decent" to be at least B-class to GA. --J.L.W.S. The Special One 12:06, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Watford F.C. is "my" article. It's probably one of the better football articles, but blimey it needs a lot of work before it's anywhere near GA status. It requires me looking up stats, reading a whole history of Watford and writing up a good summary of it, researching old grounds, kits, creasts, colours. It's a lot of work. HornetMike 22:34, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Completely agree with you, HornetMike. I too have put in cosiderable amounts of work into the page, including player articles, but it just seems to keep going - nothing before 1977. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Also, has anyone else noticed that pretty much all player articles are the same layout, but the teams ones are almost all completely different? Not really a bad thing - it varies the setup of pages, makes it more interesting - but confusing. Makes you think. Kingfisherswift 15:54, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Plesase vote for TFD for Template:Romania Squad Euro 2000

If fail to delete, it will have many Euro TP. Matt86hk talk 00:24, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Probable hoax

The article Marcos Arelio Bognano definitely contains a lot of false information - the bit about a career at Arsenal and Liverpool certainly is. Can anyone confirm whether any of this article is true - if not I will send it to AfD as a hoax. Qwghlm 19:08, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

99,9% hoax --necronudist 19:33, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Turkish Manager of the Year

A known vandal has edited some information to Turkcell Super League, the article on the Turkish premier league. What he has added is probably nonsense, but some factchecking by someone who knows Turkish football is necessary. He has changed the name of the winner of last year's Turkish Manager of the Year title from Erik Gerets (Galatasaray) to Ertuğrul Sağlam (Kayserispor). Is this nonsense or not? Aecis ^{Dancing to electro-pop like a robot from 1984.} 10:41, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Looks like nonsense, Gerets was Manager of the Year according to [5] (pdf) Oldelpaso 18:12, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Football templates

With the general move towards fb start and fb end templates coupled with the standard colour scheme, I'm after adjusting the following templates Template:National football (soccer) super cups, Template:National football (soccer) cups and Template:National football (soccer) league cups. I've included the fb start and fb end bits within the templates. Would it be better to do it the other way ?

I would also like to say that all the football articles etc should move to a standard template system. This colour template and style is already being used by English, Italian, French and International articles. I just think that having each league use the same would be more please on the eye.Niall123 16:47, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

You've completely missed the point with fb start and fb end if you include them within the templates. :) The meaning of those two tags are to group several navigational templates together on articles, by placing them between the same tags in the article. By placing them in the template itself, they can't be grouped with other templates. Read Wikipedia:WikiProject Football/Templates for more information. If you don't understand it all, ask here and I'll answer as quick as possible. – Elisson • T • C • 18:04, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

OK. I've done both the Super Cup and League Cup templates properly. Give me a while to do the Cup one. There's a fair bit to be done there. Niall123 18:38, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Good work so far! – Elisson • T • C • 19:15, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

That's all 3 done. Just back to my original point. These fb start and fb end are being used differently everywhere. I used them in the Italian pages and I use them on the front of the page. On the Premier League though they are being used as sub-templates with the fb start and fb end being used in the master template. Added on to this, there are a lot of templates out there that don't match up to these standard templates. From what I could see, they only work so far with Premier League, Serie A, Scotish Football, Portugese Football, Belgian Football and Swedish Football. Niall123 19:31, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Football Derbies

Someone has submitted a page on 'The West London Derby'. It focuses on this derby being contested by Chelsea and Fulham. Does anyone else find this a bit fantasical? I'd say historically there's no such thing as The West London Derby, only west London derbies contested variously by Chelsea, Fulham and QPR. I've added a discussion to the actual page. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 86.142.78.138 (talk • contribs) 19:12, October 20, 2006.

My trusty friend in London informs me that Chelsea and Fulham is correct. Their stadiums are only a couple of miles apart. - Dudesleeper 18:22, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

In fact both stadiums are in Fulham (even Stamford Bridge). Doesn't mean that this is a valid football rivalry, especially considering the lenght of time Fulham were out of the top flight. Niall123 19:33, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

There isn't a particularly strong rivalry between the two teams. Matches between the two may be mentioned in passing as a west London derby in the same way that any match between two London teams might be termed a London derby, but its not really "The West London Derby", there isn't the intense buildup and high passion associated with a derby match. That the article itself describes it as one of the lesser known local derbies is telling. Oldelpaso 17:15, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

There is definitely a rivalry between Fulham and Chelsea, perhaps more of it perceived on the Fulham side of the divide, and not as passionate as the rivalry between Arsenal and Spurs, but there still is one - after Fulham beat Chelsea for the first time in 20 years, there was a pitch invasion - that doesn't happen that often these days. Qwghlm 14:04, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm not saying there isn't a rivalry between Chelsea and Fulham. I'm just saying there's no such thing as THE West London Derby. For an encyclopedia article what our friends say, no matter how trusty, is irrelevant. Think back about 10 years to when QPR were good and in the Premiership, Chelsea were okay and in the Premiership and Fulham were rubbish and weren't. Would you have said then and for the 30 years prior to that "The West London Derby" was about Fulham v Chelsea? Phil.

Fernando Torres

Something needs to be done about this article. Every tom dick and harry are going into it, adding more and more transfer speculation. In fact, just about anything said in the British tabloids has been added to the list. I cut away about half the waffle 2 months ago and summarised it, but now its just as bad as ever. Such speculation (especially from British tabloids) has no place in such an article Niall123 11:32, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Timeline of English football

I've removed the Contents from this article as it had a link to every year, and added links to decades, if anyone feels this is incorrect please feel free to revert it. I simply felt a Contents over 100 lines long before you got to the article was a bit ridiculous. Chappy84 15:09, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Templates for deletion#Template:Original Premier League clubs

The above proposed deletion may require further agreement or not by people before any action is taken on this : {{Original Premier League clubs}}

--Chappy84 16:53, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Imminent AFD

I'm about to nominate Mickaël Le Mener, Delis Ahou, Alexandre Rosay, Julien Sourice, Emmanuel Bourgaud, Guy Moussi, Mahamat Saleh, Julien Sola, Abdoulaye Soumaré, Carlos Madiokoka and Jamel Zahiri for deletion as footballers who have never played in a fully professional league (as required by our biography guidelines). Last time I nominated French third tier players (see here) I received some objections, since this was a "significant enough league" (!). But this time let the sensible voices be heard - at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mickaël Le Mener. Punkmorten 07:40, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Also can we have sensible voices on Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ben Sahar, before they close it. It's hanging on because of a few idiots who seem to pop up on a few Afds at the minute and keep regardless of WP:BIO. HornetMike 08:56, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mark Wilberforce

I've created an AFD for Mark Wilberforce as even though he was at Leeds, he never played in the first team in any league or cup matches and is now in the Conference North for Scarborough which is obviously not a fully professional league. See here for the nomination Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mark Wilberforce. --Chappy84 09:50, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Can I ask people stop adding AfDs on the talk page? Just add it to the table in the main page - that's what it's there for. No point cluttering this talk page as well. Thanks. Qwghlm 11:36, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Probable vandalism

Could someone have a look at Scott Sinclair. A user has added "and had formed a prolific strike partnership with Lilly Clare in Bristol Rovers Youth Team.", which I'm 99.999% sure is nonsense - especially as the same IP vandalised Roman Abramovich and Bristol Rovers F.C. - but I thought I'd better get a second opinion before reverting just in case. Gasheadsteve 12:21, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Looks like Punkmorten has reverted it now. Thanks for that. Gasheadsteve 13:38, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

League of Wales

Should the entry entitled League of Wales be changed to Welsh Premiership as that is the official name of the top division in the Principality? Blogdroed 16:24, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Change to Infoboxes

I propose that the professional clubs section be changed to senior clubs to allow info boxes to be included in articles about footballers who were still amateurs throughout most of their career. This applies, for example, to Spain where football did not go professional until the late 1920s. Djln--Djln 22:00, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Agree with this. Also useful for some Irish players who started off as Amateur or Semi Pro Dodge 10:20, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

This seems a sensible idea and I agree with it. Qwghlm 21:39, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Very sensible suggestion WikiGull 12:41, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

IFA and FAI international football teams

Hi. I'm having a debate with another user about the best way to use Categories in relation to the somewhat unusual history of the Ireland international football teams teams (main articles Ireland national football team (IFA), Northern Ireland national football team and Republic of Ireland national football team). Discussion is at Category talk:Football in Ireland#IFA and FAI international teams if anyone cares to read and/or contribute. Thanks. jnestorius^(talk) 01:22, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Naming of Football Stadiums

Just wondering what is the standard on such. For instance, the San Siro is officially the Giuseppe Meazza and the article is named as such. But the Nou Camp is actually called "Estadi del Futbol Club Barcelona" and yet it's articles name is the Nou Camp. Just wondering but shouldn't we be doing it one or the other. My personal preference would be to use the most used name. Niall123 23:28, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

I can see a problem with this. Some stadia are named after the surrounding areas, e.g. the Boleyn Ground and Arsenal Stadium are more usually known as "Upton Park" and "Highbury", but there already exist articles with those titles, about the geographic areas. I would generally go with the rule that the common name should be used, but if it clashes with the name of another place or structure, then using some form of the official name is an acceptable alternative. Qwghlm 14:18, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Anyone object of the moving of Stadio Giuseppe Meazza to San Siro, Stadio Luigi Ferraris to Marassi and Stadio Renzo Barbera to La Favorita on the basis that these are the commonly used names for these stadiums on the president of the Nou Camp article ? Niall123 11:33, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Oriundo...

created! Check it if you can. --necronudist 13:55, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps using a table would look nice? Punkmorten 14:01, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm totally dumb with tables...sorry. --necronudist 14:08, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Premier League team season reviews

The, er, tireless AlexWilkes (talk · contribs) has been busy creating a series of "2005-06 reviews" for FA Premier League clubs (e.g. Arsenal season review 2005-06, Aston Villa season review 2005-06) which are in (IMHO) very poorly written, full of speculation and his own personal commentary as well as being an unnecessary duplication of material already found in e.g. History of Arsenal F.C. or Aston Villa F.C.#History. They have been prodded then deprodded. So suggestions please - nominate for deletion (my preferred option)? Merge into larger articles? Cleanup? Thoughts welcome. Qwghlm 09:35, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

I think tiresome may be a better description! He's now started on the same for 2004-05 so if something's going to be done it should be done quickly. Personally I agree with the above deletion suggestion (or at least merge anything new, which I doubt, into existing articles and then delete) WikiGull 13:07, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Stop the loonie quick and get those articles afded, I say! HornetMike 13:14, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

I was going to say that I have nothing against these articles in principle, but then I read the Liverpool season review 2005-06. Ew! What an awful article! I'd vote to delete them. aLii 13:28, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Panic nominate for AfD! – Elisson • T • C • 13:30, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Can an admin put a temporary (half a day) block on him while we decide what to do? Failing to respond to comments left on his talk page is probable just cause. Qwghlm 13:36, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Actually I spoke too soon - he decided to contribute but then retracted it moments later. Qwghlm 13:51, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, I don't think he has done anything that merits a block. Not even declining to respond to comments on his talk page would be reason enough. – Elisson • T • C • 15:34, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

I would say they're all definate Afd's. there's no point in them long-term, they're simply recentism. --Chappy84 13:54, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

I think we should set up guidelines on how to treat season reports for individual clubs. We had a short discussion on this before somewhere, and IIRC, I proposed that in case people really need to have that sort of article, then we should minimize the number of articles by grouping seasons into lumps of five or ten, that is, for example having Arsenal F.C. seasons 1980-89, Arsenal F.C. seasons 1990-99, and so on. That would also make the articles sort of an even more detailed division of History of Arsenal F.C. instead of just a series of disorganized pages that noone will actually make complete. – Elisson • T • C • 15:34, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Most club history articles are not long enough to need splitting off into daughter articles anyway. I think a good rule of thumb would be to keep the daughter articles as large as possible, and to only split them into two or three articles, covering major eras in a club's history, rather than ten articles for each decade - which is rather an arbitrary system of division.

Furthermore if a club's history does have daughter articles (e.g. History of Template F.C. (1945-1970)) then the main History of Template F.C. article should just become a disambig page between the various parts - a summary of the history would already be present in Template F.C.#History, and it makes no sense to have three levels of pages covering the same topic. Qwghlm 15:44, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

I don't really mean that the decade seasonal articles should have even more prose than the "History of ..." articles, but rather contain what people seem to like to add, which is full match results, squad, lineups, player transfers, and other non-prose material (although I realise now that I did not make that clear enough as the originally discussed articles were plain prose). Such info doesn't really fit very well into the history articles but as some people seem to want it, bundle it in decadewise articles, and slap a {{see also}} with links to proper "information" articles in sections of the history article. – Elisson • T • C • 16:31, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Hmm, didn't see this discussion. Actually I came here since I wanted to tell you that I've nominated these articles for deletion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Arsenal season review 2005-06.jaco♫plane 16:04, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

• I am happy with the concept of organic growth - you start with the club article then split off a history article when there is enough material then resplit as the material dictates. This is the way that Wikipedia grows. I don't think that we should be prescriptive as to how the splits should be organised; that is a matter for the Talk page of each article. Season by season reviews are common in many sports see 2006 Miami Dolphins season, Middlesex County Cricket Club in 2005 (there is one for each county) and so on. A view probably should be taken on the articles in Category:Dundee United F.C. seasons, also. BlueValour 16:35, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Squad restrictions

As far as I can see, there hasn't been any mention of squad restrictions (i.e., the number of substitutes/substitutions permitted, non-EU players permitted, etc.) throughout the different leagues and cup competitions of the world. I'm not that familiar with these rules myself, so I was wondering if anyone would be willing to provide the necessary information? - Dudesleeper 17:20, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Greek Football Seasons

I noticed that Greek Football seasons before 2005 is not created yet, and 2005-06 and 2006-07 seasons need to be cleaned up, I only wished that Greek Football seasons will look like English football seasons, so I need help on creating new articles of pre-2005 greek football seasons. Rakuten06 19:14, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

List of English Football League managers by date of appointment

Following this discussion I created List of English Football League managers by date of appointment. I think it needs a better lead, and possibly needs to be moved to a better page name, but otherwise it's ripe for FLC canditure. I've created a to do list on the talk page for the few things that are missing.

Seeing as it was quite a big project and I'm bound to have made a mistake somewhere I'd appreciate it if people could just random things. So yeah, that's all really. HornetMike 19:33, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Looks good by my eyes (though that's not saying much). I appreciate the effort you put into the list. - Dudesleeper 19:44, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Great job! BlueValour 03:09, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

I would suggest that since this list is going to be pretty large, to me it makes to sense to create a template that includes your major table headings? Then it will be very easy to change to formating instead of editing the monster sized table :) In any case, good job on this so far. // Laughing Man 15:32, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

It's done now. I deliberately limited the criteria in the name so it only included managers from the top 4 leagues. Otherwise it gets a bit sprawling. HornetMike

External links on Torino F.C.

An IP user is continuously adding a link to a Google-automated English translation of an Italian fans' website into the Torino FC article. I don't think it could be notable in any sort, but I'm not going to revert it since I would break the three revert rule. Tell me what to do. --Angelo 14:47, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Break it. If you are scared in making good actions the problem isn't yours. --necronudist 16:39, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Errr? That's a very bad advice. I've already reverted the addition, BTW. – Elisson • T • C • 16:45, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree. Stick to WP:3RR even though I think using it in cases like this is overzealous. With any luck, you can wait a week and the anon user will have forgotten all about it and you can remove the link then with little extra trouble. You might also want to raise the issue on Talk:Torino F.C. and gain consensus there, to give your reversions a reasonable foundation. Qwghlm 16:51, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

The 3RR, NN, NPOV are bad ideas. Not the vandalism revertion. This is one of the n problems of Jimbopedia. --necronudist 16:53, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

What? NN and NPOV are bad ideas? We are building an encyclopedia here, and not a playground. – Elisson • T • C • 17:15, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Using the standard spam templates ({{spam}}, {{spam2}} etc) usually gets the message across. Oldelpaso 18:30, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

International squad templates

International squad templates are simply getting out of hand. World Cup templates I could live with, but now theres Asia Cup, European Championship, Confederation Cup.. simply over the top. Player articles are becoming swallowed up by them.. I think something should be deicded here on the wikiproject. -- Mattythewhite 17:13, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

• Delete them! Punkmorten 19:56, 3 November 2006 (UTC) (seriously, they clutter articles and set a bad precedent).
• Keep World cup and the winners, runners-up and semi finalists of Euro, asia cup etc. Delete the rest. к1иgf1$н£я5ω1fт 20:11, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
  • I support the idea we should just keep winning squads. But there's not much we can do, we've been consistently outvoted on this on Tfds. HornetMike 20:18, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
    • I'm not sure I'm following you here, Romania Squad Euro 2000 was recently deleted. Punkmorten 21:18, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Oh really? Good-o. Every time I've seen squad templates up for Tfd they've survived.HornetMike 21:58, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, I think we should keep every WC template, and ONLY winners and MAYBE runners-up in regional competitions (European Championship etc). None for Confederation Cup and similar. --necronudist 22:01, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree we should delete them all. But if we do not succeed in deleting these (again) then I would at least suggest a redesign. One of my biggest bugbears is the size of these things, as well as the enforced spacing in between them. If we did some cleverness like we have with club navboxes with templates such as {{fb start}} and {{fb end}}, we could merge the boxes together. Coupled with a smaller font size, and we could get for e.g. Thierry Henry:

Which I think is a lot more acceptable and takes up much less space. What do others think? Qwghlm 11:23, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Eureka! --necronudist 11:28, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

I've !voted delete in each of the TfDs so far (and would do so again), but if they end up being kept, this looks infinitely preferable. Oldelpaso 11:36, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

That template looks fine but you'll have to fine tune each template so that you have the correct squads for each player. Niall123 13:09, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

We could even merge them completely with the other templates using {{fb start}} and {{fb end}}. This makes the templates narrower and thus "higher", but on the other hand we could add one of those flashy [hide] / [show] thingies and make the hidden position the default. – Elisson • T • C • 13:45, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

I did a collapsable template for previous squads already but a lot of people didn't like the idea. In fact I had changed all the Italy templates to the format below. I personally like them as they use up so little space.

{{World Cup Squads}} Niall123 14:03, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm not a massive fan of the collapsible boxes, for usability and accessiblity reasons. I think a merge with {{fb start}} and {{fb end}} is a good idea, though. Qwghlm 21:17, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Talking of fb start and fb end, here is the collapsable template using {{fbc start}} and {{fbc end}}

{{World Cup Squads}} {{World Cup Squads}}

User:Niall123

On the comment above about "winning squads only" - I think it depends a lot on the nation. For Australia, neither the squad in 1974 or 2006 came anywhere near winning, but both squads are hugely notable - they are the only two times Australia has qualified. The same goes for other nations whose teams have only qualified once or twice - so it would need to be a per country decision.. -- Chuq 05:40, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Club squad Template

Recently User:Rossoneri3 add club logo to all Serie A tp, and the tp became higher. And the image not applied to fair use . Matt86hk tc 15:08, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm in the process of reverting them and have left a message on his talk page. You can revert them too you know ;-) Oldelpaso 15:21, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Aaaagh they're everywhere! Just removed logos from all the templates for Scottish Premier League clubs. Oldelpaso 12:14, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Naming Policy of Club's article

F.C. to FC

Did anyone get anywhere with the admin/bot request to move all football clubs from Example F.C./Example A.F.C to Example FC/Example AFC? Yorkshire Phoenix 13:33, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm bumping this. I for one am tired of the dots in Norwegian club names. Punkmorten 13:13, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Proper naming of commonly named football clubs

Is there a standard methodology for naming articles with frequently used football club names such as Al-Ahli, Al-Jaish and Al-Hilal? I have seen a few methods in use such as adding the city name (e.g., Al-Ahli Doha) and adding the nation name (e.g., Al-Ahli (UAE)), but none are used universally. Given that Libya has at least two clubs named Al-Ahli (Al Ahly Benghazi and Al Ahly Tripoli), maybe use of the nation name is insufficient?

I think it would be helpful to develop a standard methodology if there isn't one already in place. There are already 7 articles for clubs named Al-Ahli, 3 for Al-Hilal, and several others for clubs that share names like Al-Qadisia, Al-Jaish and Al-Shorta.

Thank you. Jogurney 15:20, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

I don't think there is a consistent naming scheme. For what it's worth, I think disambiguation by city rather than country is definitely the way forward, as the Libyan examples show, as it is precise and consistent with existing articles. Qwghlm 15:58, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

As an additional note, there is a similar city-level disambiguation already in place for Liverpool FC (Montevideo). Qwghlm 16:00, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

On a side note, we need disambiguation pages for all these clubs, like for instance Al-Nasr (disambiguation) and Al-Ittihad (disambiguation). Punkmorten 08:03, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for the input. I've been adding disambiguation pages and hope to get them finished soon. Jogurney 16:55, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Full name of club

Should Real Madrid to Real Madrid C.F. ? no dots or even CF? The other Spanish not use full name, such as Real Racing Club. The Uruguayan clubs were not full name but Argentine and Brazilian club do, expect Uruguay. Matt86hk talk 12:36, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

My view is that FC and CF should be avoided. The only exception should be when it is uses to disambigute, e.g Barcelona and FC Barcelona. Otherwise adding adding CF is pointless. Club is most commonly referred to as as Real Madrid. Check the what links here section for the number of links. Djln--Djln 22:08, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

The club's official names include these FC's and such-forth, therefore the articles should use the official name. Look at the Real Madrid official badge, and many many other football club badges (see FC Barcelona, Chelsea or Liverpool's badge), they all include FC, AFC, CF or whatever the appendix for that club is on their badge as it's part of their name. I think they should be included, The Galatasaray article was recently moved to Galatasaray S.K. as that's it's full name. I think the articles should include them as they're part of the clubs name. --Chappy84 22:20, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

I don't think looking at the logo is a perfect solution; Arsenal and Man Utd don't have any suffix on their badge, Atlético Madrid and Wolves don't even have the club name. I should point out that User:Everton has been changing a lot of Spanish club article titles recently, so it seems most do now have the full name. When non-English-named clubs are involved it becomes difficult. Personally I can't decide between full ceremonial name and just the plain common name that an Anglophone would use. e.g. Espérance Sportive Troyes Aube Champagne and Association Sportive Nancy-Lorraine seem right but they're not as practical as Troyes AC and AS Nancy for remembering or (speaking as an editor) wikilinking. A reader may find that seeing the full club name is a lot more practical, although this should be included in the club infobox regardless of the article name.  sʟυмɢυм • т • c  23:08, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Agree with slumgum. --necronudist 08:21, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, don't think my point came across correctly, I was trying to say that they should include the suffix, e.g. FC (or CF in real madrid's case) but obviously writing say Leeds United Association Football Club is a bit too much, I was trying to say it should be something like Leeds United AFC instead of just Leeds United and so forth, so in the case of AS Nancy I would think it should be AS Nancy-Lorraine. Although obviously having other versions of the name forward to the correct page is a good idea. That's just my opinion anyway. --Chappy84 08:29, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree. Slumgum misses the point. We should use abbreviations like FC, CF, FK, PFC and so on in all cases. Troyes should be ES Troyes AC, obviously. Punkmorten 08:50, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

A general guideline, that is easy to follow and that has some sort of "authority", is to use the same name that uefa.com uses on their club pages (only available for top-level clubs though). Troyes AC should be on ES Troyes Aube Champagne ([6]) and AS Nancy on AS Nancy-Lorraine ([7]). And of course Real Madrid should be at Real Madrid CF ([8]). – Elisson • T • C • 11:53, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Worse thing in lower FIFA ranking countries likes Category:South African football clubs. Matt86hk talk 14:15, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes, but most of the "standards" found at uefa.com can be applied to other countries as well. A quick look at the SA clubs tells me that most, if not all of them should have an "FC" in the article name. South Africa is no problem really, it is much worse with other African and many of the Asian clubs, as info on them are very hard to find, and if found, generally in a language you do not understand. – Elisson • T • C • 14:49, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

on short form, i think use FC, AC, AS, CD, CF is better, the Template:Fc is useful. Matt86hk talk 14:35, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

The entry for Porthamdog has them as Porthmadog FC but the official name of the club is C.P.D. Porthmadog i.e. it's in Welsh, the club doen't have an official title in English. Blogdroed 11:02, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Definitely agree with Matthew_hk on using FC as initials, else article titles get very long very quickly. As for Porthmadog, perhaps the article should be moved to the Welsh title and Porthmadog F.C. becomes a redirect?

AFC vs A.F.C.

Hi. I don't know much about the history of this debate, but I've been helping out with page moves. We recently moved Leeds United A.F.C. to Leeds United AFC, with people citing consensus from this project. Others noted that there were still such articles as Sunderland A.F.C. and Workington A.F.C., so I went ahead and moved both of those to "AFC" titles. Both were moved back, with the reverters citing "no consensus" as the reason. Is there, or isn't there, a consensus to be consistent about AFC vs A.F.C.? -GTBacchus^(talk) 21:32, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Personally, AFC (and FC, CF, CD etc) looks much neater, and is easier on the linkage. So consensus here Superlinus 21:59, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

I don't know if consensus has been reached on this issue, but seeing as the official Sunderland site spells it Sunderland AFC, I don't see why Wikipedia shouldn't. As SuperLinus says, it looks neater and is easier, but that doesn't mean it is always right. Fore example the official F.C. Copenhagen site spells that club name with full stops, so that would seem appropriate in their specific case. Poulsen 22:04, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Is it better to follow each club's preferred format, or to follow a consistent format in all our AFC articles? -GTBacchus^(talk) 23:34, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Be consistent. For starters, clubs can change the full stops as and when they please - would it mean we have to rename them every time they change them? What if a club is inconsistent in how they use full stops? Qwghlm 00:16, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Most clubs have PR and merchandise departments who are in charge of streamlining their image, and the name of the club is a part of that. I think it's safe to assume that official papers of a club bear the same club name. You can always imagine individual inconsistencies and typos, but as far as a homepage goes, I would imagine the static content has been proofread. It isn't always possible to find the exact club naming conventions on the home pages, but I wouldn't mind if the article naming was in accordance with the official line of the club, whether it be with or without full stops. Poulsen 01:37, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

That might apply for the likes of Manchester United but not for the hundreds of smaller clubs who cannot afford it. We should not put such faith in club's copywriters and instead rely on Wikipedia's own conventions for initialisms (look at how articles such as BBC, NASA or indeed FIFA all do not use full stops in them). Qwghlm 08:37, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

You don't have to be "the likes of Manchester United" in the PR department, to spell your club name properly on your official homepage. The club's own copywriters/webmasters are the ones closest to the club and is much more authoritative than any band of random people passing judgement on Wikipedia. But I can see how a common Wikipedia standard might be a good thing for further editing efforts. That BBC, NASA and FIFA all are without full stops is irrelevant as I see it, as these entities spell their names without full stops themselves. Poulsen 12:18, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

In many cases the producers of a website are not those closest to a club - for example many English clubs subcontract their websites out to Premium TV (e.g.) rather than produce it in-house. This is a minor question of style, not verifiablity or NPOV, so we do not need to defer to a club's particular preference. Qwghlm 12:32, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Let me rephrase it then - they are closer to the club than us random people at Wikipedia, and as I said, much more authoritative (than us). I like the argument for a common naming standard as the nicest and easiest way to go in view of future editing, but saying we at Wikipedia should defer from the official spelling because the clubs might or might not be inconsistent in naming themselves, is pretty speculative. Poulsen 13:40, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Note that UEFA's official page on FCK uses no dots. – Elisson • T • C • 16:17, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

UEFA is a secondary source. FCK is the primary source of information on FCK. Poulsen 12:32, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

I came to think about WP:RS: "In general, Wikipedia articles should rely on reliable secondary sources." Punkmorten 12:53, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Yes, but please look at the entire paragraph in WP:RS. The sources are listed according to (potential) reliability and thereby authority; primary, secondary, and tertiary. "Wikipedia articles may use primary sources only if they have been published by a reliable publisher [...] and may use them only to make purely descriptive claims", which is why we unpublished people should use secondary sources in general. However, a name is a descriptive claim, so the primary source has authority. As I see it, we standardize the naming convention on full stops for our own editing pleasure, and citing "UEFA's (or BBC's, or ...) authoritative claim on full stops" seems a tacked-on excuse to me. Poulsen 14:17, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Then apply WP:NCA sentence There is no consistent rule about periods—in general, avoid them, unless the preferred usage is otherwise (for example, U.S., but UK). The preferred usage, as far as I can tell from looking at the most popular Danish newspapers, the Swedish newspapers, as well as BBC and Uefa, is to use no periods. I haven't found one single news source that uses periods. Searching on google for "F.C. København" and going through the first 100 or so results, return a large majority of hits without periods. – Elisson • T • C • 14:37, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

I think we can throw quite a few WP guidelines around, each one more bendable than the other. Fore example WP:GOOGLE; "the Google test checks popular usage, not correctness." Searching through secondary sources still doesn't say so much, compared to the primary source(s). I would still claim that when the official team, kit sponsor, and stadium home pages spell it with full stops, then that is the official line of the club. The media have just standardized their way of referring to the club to the easiest way, just like I hope we will. Poulsen 17:53, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

The places I've found where this question has been discussed before are here, here and here. -GTBacchus^(talk) 01:39, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

At least the Norwegian clubs should be moved from F.K. to FK and so on - will a bot take care of this? Punkmorten 07:40, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Maybe. If you make a request at WP:BOTREQ, someone might pick it up, but they might want to see evidence of consensus first. How many Norwegian clubs are we talking about? -GTBacchus^(talk) 07:46, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, all of them, I've never seen any Norwegian club use dots. Some like Alta IF might use dots in their badge, but not elsewhere [9]. I have no idea why the dots were put there in the first place. Unfortunately, there is no consensus about this issue, simply because no-one seems to care. I have tried to address the issue in this forum and at the Norwegian notice-board before, to no avail. Punkmorten 08:12, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

I think the best solution is to go through, one country at a time, take all the clubs for that country to WP:RM at once, let the discussion happen in one place, and then do the moves, with or without bot assistance. I'm pretty familiar with WP:RM, and far less so with football. Shall we list the Norwegian clubs as a batch move there? -GTBacchus^(talk) 08:27, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Do all the clubs at once. I don't see the point in wasting time by doing it by nationality. Qwghlm 08:37, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

This discussion is why I suggested doing it by nationality. If we can get consensus to do the same thing with all of them, I'm certainly for that. -GTBacchus^(talk) 08:45, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

For the sake of consistency across the whole of Wikipedia I think to do all at once is best. Qwghlm 09:29, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Ok, so all football clubs move from titles with full stops to titles without? If that gets listed at WP:RM, where should the accompanying survey be? Here? With links on the talk page of every article that's subject to move? -GTBacchus^(talk) 09:44, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Weird - just coming to this argument late but having also just requested a move of A.F.C. Wimbledon to AFC Wimbledon (actually a revert of a previous move the other way!). The page was originally moved without any discussion about it. Should a discussion have been held on it I would have suggested that the page remain at AFC and not be moved to A.F.C. for the following reasons:

• • Firstly, all English acronyms are commonly printed without full-stops.
  • AFC Wimbledon do not use full-stops on the club's website [10], or on my season ticket.
  • The press most commonly spell the club's name without full stops, eg South London Press[11].

I have no idea why it was seen fit to move the page in the first place. Please see here to add to the discussion. -- MLD · T · C · @:  14:32, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

I don't understand... why should we remove all full stops? I know this is an English wikipedia but you know, in Italy we use full stops (nobody will ever write AC Milan) in Spain don't. FC Barcelona is correct, A.C. Milan is correct, why should we create (invent?) a standard...? Standards exists and they are: in Italy use dots, in Spain don't use etc... It's like sayin' "ok, every name should be write in English standard, no-more Michelangelo or Raffaello". It sounds a little fascist...like Louis Armstrong who became "Luigi Fortebraccio". FC Barcelona is correct, F.C. Barcelona is wrong, A.C. Milan is correct, AC Milan is wrong. Simple. Or not? --necronudist 14:44, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Note that UEFA's official page on Milan uses no dots. – Elisson • T • C • 16:17, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Necronudist, your point is erroneous - we're talking about punctuation, not actually rewording the title to the English translation. It's not as if we're proposing change the Milan article to FC Milan. Also, if you're going to get worked up about this, you should also get worked up about the articles for Chinese, Japanese, Israeli etc. clubs whose articles are all titled using the Roman alphabet rather than their native script. Qwghlm 16:30, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

UEFA uses no slavic accents, so let's remove'em on the players' pages. However, I'm just sayin' that AC Milan is an error as in Italy we use dots and has no sense to create a standard ad-hoc as there are many different standards accepted in each country. Another Italian example: SPAL is usually written without dots but its official name is S.P.A.L. (Società Polisportiva Ars et Labor) and it's definitively an error to write SPAL or Spal (as in Italian wikipedia) also if you don't wanna use dots. However, it's not important/vital for me... I'm just sayin' my opinion. I will not destroy wikipedia servers if you'll decide to remove dots :-) --necronudist 17:07, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

That point is erroneous as well, necronudist. It is not like UEFA has left out the dots for the same reason they left out some of the more complicated Slavic accents. And I don't see your other point about SPAL? You say it is an error to write SPAL or Spal, while the actual website of the club shows (1) a club badge with text "SPAL", (2) a site header with text "Spal", and (3) a contact address with text "SPAL". Besides that, the actual article on the Italian Wikipedia is at "SPAL", so I guess at least some Italians prefers no dots. – Elisson • T • C • 19:07, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

necronudist, if "A.C. Milan" is more common in Italy, then the article should be at "A.C. Milan". However in England, "FC" and "AFC" are far more common so for English clubs only the pages should be kept at "<clubname> FC" or "AFC <clubname>". I would be in favour of a country by country approach. -- MLD · T · C · @:  17:46, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

I strongly oppose a country by country approach. It will only make things even more complicated. What if the usage differs between the clubs of the country? As seen above, in Denmark, FCK prefers "F.C." on their website while for example Brøndby prefers plain "IF" on theirs. How to do then? Club by club approach? Won't be possible to do for the tens of thousands of football club articles we have. I say, move everything to titles without any punctuation. If it is good enough for UEFA, it is good enough for Wikipedia. – Elisson • T • C • 19:07, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Sincerely I don't care about the UEFA site on this matters. UEFA has adopted his own standard, like you wanna do now here. Maybe dots were difficult to manage in their databases like the slavic accents... I don't know, however there isn't an European standard. I don't care neither about the SPAL site, SPAL is an acronym (hope it's the right word) and so it must be written as S.P.A.L. also if it's commonly used SPAL, even in the logo (many Italian football teams don't have dots in their logos..but this doesn't mean anything, we're not emblem-fanatics as in England, unfortunately). I think that a country by country decision is the only (and the best) solution. Otherwise you can blind your eyes and shoot. You'll do things quickly but wrong --necronudist 19:34, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Looking at what UEFA (etc.) use as their naming conventions gives us a starting point here, but they shouldn't be taken as gospel. We know what the clubs are named — this isn't an argument about that. We are merely discussing setting a naming convention for them. This reminds me of an argument I once had about album titles (See Wikipedia:Naming conventions#Album titles and band names). The argument was about whether we should use "Bridge Over Troubled Water" or "Bridge over Troubled Water". A minor point, but similar to what is being discussed here. I think we can almost all agree that FC is superior to F.C., past discussions on this page have come to that conclusion, but the problem has been finding anyone willing to put in the required work to move all the pages! aLii 13:37, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Ok, so I strongly oppose the creation of a standard for clubs naming. Instead, I'm in favour of a country-by-country approach. --necronudist 13:52, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Your argument for that being what? As I've already said, a country by country approach is not possible as standards differ inside each country as well. – Elisson • T • C • 14:04, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

My argument is that there can't be a unique standard as I said above, but I think at the end we'll do what Elisson want, as always. Hail to the King. --necronudist 15:11, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Civility isn't your cup of tea, is it? I will just ignore what you say until stop being sarcastic. I guess you would rather see a Wikipedia without a Football WikiProject at all. – Elisson • T • C • 19:46, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Everytime with those Wikipedia policies.. There's a life out there, man. A life that doesn't follow ridicolous wikipedia policies. And stop hiding behind those policies, man, be serious sometimes. You and your friends. I'm just a contributor who don't care about ridicolous wikipedia policies and simply work hard in creating valid (hope) articles. You're nothing more than a lawyer. Hope you'll ban me one day, 'cause here who works hard is smashed and lawyers are glorified. --necronudist 20:15, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

I would hope that if there was one place Wikipedia policies would be followed, it's Wikipedia. The policies are there for a reason - to stop everybody going off and doing their own thing, leading to edit wars and public confusion. If you can't contribute in a civil manner, and cry every time you don't get your own way, I suggest you stop bothering Superlinus 20:43, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

You understood everything uh? How sick. I don't need your "you don't like nazism? Go away!" wise words. How boring, man. --necronudist 12:45, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Necronudist, please stop being incivil to other users, or I will have to report your behaviour on WP:AN/I. I don't want that so could you please start acting civil? – Elisson • T • C • 14:41, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

No, I won't. Take care of your nazipedia, men. Bye. --necronudist 14:59, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

In case you still read, the report on you is found here. – Elisson • T • C • 15:38, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

The life outside of here doesn't have to follow Wikipedia policy, you're completely correct there. But while you're here, you are supposed to, just like you are supposed to follow rules and guidelines for whatever place (real or on the internet) you spend your time at/in. If you do not follow policies here at Wikipedia, you'll sooner or later find yourself in a position where you will have to choose between following policies, or get banned for not following them. I will not ban you as long as I am involved in any sort of discussion with you, but there are other admins who might. Consider Wikipedia a workplace (unpaid...), and the policies the rules of the workplace. Even if you are doing your job, you might find yourself fired because of your bad behaviour. Works the same way both IRL and here. – Elisson • T • C • 20:58, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

I prefer doing good jobs instead of following stupid wikipedia policies, I'm just one of the few that remember what wikipedia SHOULD be. However, I appreciate your wise words. P.S.: I don't have bad behaviours, I've never called asshole or motherfucker anyone. I'm not a stupid MTV generation teenager. --necronudist 22:22, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

I can't see the conflict between making good edits to Wikipedia and being civil at the same time. And I can't see this discussion leading to something more. Just follow policies and try to follow guidelines. That's all. – Elisson • T • C • 23:09, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

I totally agree with aLii. Let's simply see this as an editorial step towards a common standard for all football articles. Just like this WikiProject proposes to do. Poulsen 17:53, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

My proposal: let's use the name with whom a club prefers to be identified. Should there be no agreeing denomination, let's use the commonest one, giving a relevant importance to the corresponding name the UEFA actually uses. No standards, no unique policies, and no country-by-country policies, but just a few "liberal" guidelines. --Angelo 20:09, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Voting?

Using fullname is too long, likes Association de la Jeunesse Auxerroise, most people would against that. Only the abbreviation is worth to discuss. Likes:

• AC = Associazione Calcio
• AFC = Athletics and Football Club
• AS = Associazione Sportiva
• CA = Club Atlético
• CD = Club Deportivo
• CF = Club de Fútbol
• FC = Football Club
• RCD = Real Club Deportivo
• SSC = Società Sportiva Calcio
• US/UC = Unione Sportiva/Unione Calcio

Except very notable comon name Likes Real Madrid, Deportivo La Coruña, Celta Vigo And consideration of disambiguation, normally i suggest have CF/FC and no dots. The Template:Fc can easily to change and the move can using bots. - Matthew_hk tc 08:59, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

(a) Voting is evil and (b) We haven't finished discussing yet, so let's hold off for now, shall we? Qwghlm 09:27, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

There should be no exception for "very notable comon name". Why on earth? Who decides what is a common name? Punkmorten 09:52, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Of course there should be expceptions for common names, infact it is wikipedia policy to use the most common name. As for who decides such things, well it's you, us, the media, society. There's no need to get pedantic, it's only a few article names. aLii 10:08, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Active Part In...

I know we have a "Current sport event" template, but have been musing whether Wiki needs a "This team are currently participating in Competition X, Y, Z" - for example the FA Cup, Leage Cup, European cups etc. A kind of "status board" at the top of each article. Does such a thing exist; or should it? doktorb _words^deeds 11:11, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Definitely not - it's borderline cruft, and Wikipedia is not a news service. It would also create yet more workload for us, as would have to continually maintain it. The thought of putting it at the top particularly fills me with dread - it would be ugly and a semi-permanent feature: the {{currentevent}} template is only intended to be used temporarily - most football teams compete nine months of the year, every year, on the other hand. Qwghlm 11:34, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Agree with Qwghlm except for the "cruft" term, too nerdy and ridicolous. --necronudist 12:22, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Fine - that's as certain an answer as I was going to get =). And there is nothing wrong with "cruft" as a term in any context; I'm starting to use it in everyday speech :) doktorb _words^deeds 13:26, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Josh Moor

Could someone who knows please inject some facts into the Josh Moor article please? There is a dispute over whether he exists and/or is notable. Thankyou. --Scott Davis ^Talk 22:19, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Where is the dispute? All I can see is editing against each other in the article space. Try discussing it on the talk page of the article, and you should quickly realize it is a hoax article. Poulsen 22:39, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Reserve / Youth teams

Question: I have a discussion with another editor over Eintracht Frankfurt U23. I had redirected it to Eintracht Frankfurt, he wants to keep the article as it is. I would like some input from the people here to know a) if this particular youth/reserve team is notable (main claim to notability seems to be that they play in the highest amateur division), and b) if reserve teams of major teams in general are notable enough for their own article. I would like to keep those two questions separate, if possible. (I asked this on the notability subpage first, but they suggested I put it here for a broader input). Fram 06:18, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

I'll answer those in reverse order. I don't believe any reserve or youth teams should have a separate page, the exception being if they compete in a professional league like e.g. FC Barcelona B. But opinion is mixed in Wikipedia and the AfD for Liverpool F.C. Reserves failed due to no consensus.

Onto your first question, going under the guideline above, I don't think Eintracht's reserve team should be there. But as long as the community as a whole cannot agree on whether to delete such pages, then you're probably going to face an uphill struggle in continually redirecting it. My advice would be to let it be (as I have with Arsenal F.C. Reserves, which I maintain to make sure it doesn't suck, even though I disagree with its existence). Qwghlm 12:15, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

User:Resp and Club Deportivo Olimpia

Keep an eye on User:Resp. He has defaced the Club Deportivo Olimpia Òpage on three occasions. I happened to come across the vandalism by accident. Just letting you know. Patken4 22:34, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

User:Gavincmbll

This user has defaced the Welsh national team, Cardiff City, FAW and Manchester United pages in the last two months. Blogdroed 23:39, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Change on Template:Infobox Football club

User:SndrAndrss, who has a history of not reading, or not giving a damn, what people write to him on his talk page, has been adding parameters to the above linked template during the last 24 hours. As there, judging by previous discussions, is a broad consensus that the infobox is good as it is and that no more parameters should be added, I've reverted his additions telling him to discuss them on the talk page instead, before adding them. As he seems to not care about that, re-adding the parameters over and over, I've used all my three reverts and would like some help with this, also, I'd advice members of the project to add a few of the most important and most commonly used templates to their watchlist, to help spot problems the moment they arrive, and not when they are seen in an article. – Elisson • T • C • 10:34, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

I've added it to my watchlist temporarily. If the user continues to do it they should be blocked under WP:3RR and for not engaging in discussion. Qwghlm 13:02, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Good. I warned him earlier that he may be blocked for breaking 3RR as well as for failing to answer comments. – Elisson • T • C • 14:29, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

FIFA U-17 World Cup

Can i perform the sub-article of FIFA U-17 World Cup like other football tournament, add scorer using "footballbox" and some cleanup? I'm not very sure about this, can someone give answer? --Aleenf1 12:31, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Notable former players

User:BaldClarke has removed all the flags and splitted players between Italian and Foreigners on Juventus F.C. (his edit vs old version), as well as he previously did on A.S. Roma. I do not support his way of thinking, but since I don't want to edit things without any kind of support, I ask you what you think about. --Angelo 20:53, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Agreed, it's totally ridiculous - see my my comments when someone tried doing the same on Arsenal F.C.. It make much more sense to group players by era than by nationality. Qwghlm 22:28, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

The old version makes more sense that what he's altered it to, I'd agree with you reverting it. --Chappy84 22:37, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

I think I will follow Qwghlm's suggestion to group players by era. At least for Juve. Not a team I particularly love, by the way, but this is Wikipedia too :) --Angelo 22:51, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

I am very happy nobody noted that the players were already divided by nationality (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Juventus_F.C.&oldid=87589182), and that I simply removed the redundant flags.--BaldClarke 19:09, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

I've fixed up the "notable players" section on both AS Roma and Juventus FC articles. But now, User:BaldClarke changed his approach: indeed, he removed all Italian flags, defining them "redundant". Your opinion? --Angelo 13:17, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for warning me that there was a discussion about my edits in a page different from the ones I edited; if it is possible, I would be grateful if you warn me before you take a decision and not after, next time.

As regards my new "approach", if you have a list of players divided by nationality (see here - and note that someone else did that division), it is redundant to repeat the flag for each player: if Lampros Choutos is listed under "Greece", putting the Greek flag next to him is, in fact, redundant.

May I suggest you to read WP:FLAGS? I know it is an essay and not a policy, but it addresses the matter well.--BaldClarke 19:09, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Notability

Notable?

Someone recently created Graham Simpson (chairman). I just wondered what people thought about notability on him. What hasn't been included in the article there is the fact that Simpson founded the travel company Simply Travel (which he sold for large profit) and now owns Simpson Travel. He was also an actor, appearing in Blakes Seven amongst other things. HornetMike 12:34, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Chairmanship of a Premier League club is definitely notable in itself IMHO though others might disagree; his other exploits would make him definitely cross the threshold no matter what your POV, add them in! Qwghlm 13:38, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Although perhaps Graham Simpson (businessman) would be a more accurate title, as his occupation rather than his hierarchical position. Qwghlm 13:39, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Agree with Qwghlm. Chairmen of football club regularly change and although the sole purpose of hiim being here may be his football connections, I think the article needs to talk about him as a whole Dodge 13:45, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

While you're at it, move Graham Simpson to Graham Simpson (musician) (most of the incoming links are thanks to that Roxy Music template) and then turn it into a disambiguation page. Qwghlm 13:52, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

OK, that's all done. What I don't understand though is how to check for double re-directs. Are there any? HornetMike 23:39, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

The "What links here" page is your friend. [12] In this case there are none; I have already edited {{Roxy Music}} (which got rid of most of them), but there are some others left to fix... Qwghlm 00:19, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Aha, I see. Working on it.HornetMike 00:42, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

4th flight footballers

I have found some categories for players who have played in 4th flight football teams in England (and have not moved higher). Seeing as the guideline is for top flight football, does anybody mind if I went and speedied them? Blnguyen | BLabberiNg 06:30, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm not clear on what you mean. What guideline are you talking about? And what do you propose speedying - the players or the categories? Qwghlm 07:46, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Notability (people) says that sports players should be in the top flight to get inclusion. It seems we have lots of people who are 4-5th flight and fall well below the bar. So, yeah, the player bios. Blnguyen | BLabberiNg 07:50, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

The notability rule actually states they have to play in "a fully professional league" - Football League Two (the 4th flight in England) is a fully professional league, so under the rules as they stand, they should stay. I personally think someone who only played a couple of times for a 4th-flight side doesn't really meet any sort of level of notability, and may well agree with many of your proposed deletions, but they don't fit under the rules as they stand. Qwghlm 08:49, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

These articles definitely shouldn't be speedied - they aren't CSD A7 candidates. AfD would most likely result in a variety of opinions, some take Wikipedia:Notability (people) to mean one appearance makes a player notable, whereas my personal opinion is that it infers that players should be kept if they have had a significant career as a professional i.e. regular first team football for a number of seasons. Of course, WP:BIO is a guideline rather than a rule or policy, the main question is whether an article of any substance can be written using credible sources - and if the work of User:Kingjamie and User:Englishrose in taking Adam Boyd from cleanup to GA is anything to go by, it can definitely be done for a player who has played mainly in the lower leagues. Oldelpaso 20:21, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Notability of football players

After having seen how the several football players deletion reviews are going, I think it's come the time to improve the current criterions behind these kind of articles. I've started a discussion here, now please join and tell your opinion too. Thanks. --Angelo 22:06, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

We certainly need a more precise standard. The problem is that 'playing for' is not defined and has been taken to be a single game which is not very meaningful. Further being in a squad, which can be 40 players big, has been devalued. Some articles have been created on the back of a single Carling Cup appearance which is also not meaningful when the top clubs field full reserve sides for these games.

I suggest the threshold could be:

• Played at least 6 games for a club in a fully professional league or in the the main cup competiton of the country for such a club.

I don't share your view about the "fully professional league". As I already said, even Serie C2 is considered a fully professional league here in Italy. In my opinion, Serie A, or Serie B at most, would be enough, but in the latter case we should consider a much more restrictive constraint than just "six matches". And about the "main cup competition of the country", take a look at the teams which took part in the 2006/2007 Italian Cup, keep in mind most of the teams play this competition with their backup players, then you'll understand why I don't agree about that part of your proposal. --Angelo 22:41, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree with you!!! However, my proposal is what I think will get through, not what I would ideally like to see, and at least deals with the Squad/Carling Cup issues. BTW the Cup qualification only applies for players in clubs for whom league games would make them eligiable. BlueValour 01:25, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

BTW, Angelo needs to put a message on the talk page of WP:BIO pointing interested folk here. (See the message I placed on WP:CORP for the English club notability for example). BlueValour 22:23, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Actually, I think WP:BIO would be the right place where to discuss this topic, since we're talking about a possible change in a notability criteria which does not simply refer to football; indeed, the inclusion criteria talks generically about 'sportspeople'. That's why I did things this way. --Angelo 22:36, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Not necessary provided that you place a note on WP:BIO as suggested above; they will delegate to here; just use my form of words on WP:CORP. However, we are talking just about football, extending to all sportspeople would just bog things down and nothing would get done. Stick to football and we can get a specific guideline like we did with notability of clubs. BlueValour 01:25, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

I support the idea for a number of games for notability, with a number from 5-10 as a qualifier. There's player articles like Francino Francis lying about the place which are simply not worthy of being in an encyclopedia. HornetMike 01:00, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure a specific number is the way to go, what is appropriate for football may not be appropriate for other sports, and creating football only criteria would be instruction creep. Also, the amount of citeable sources is more important than the number of appearances; verifiabilty (policy) is of higher value than notability (guideline). 5-10 games will often result in only trivial coverage, but could receive plenty. I'd prefer wording making reference to the amount of time playing at professional level, something which implies a career at professional level rather than the odd appearance here and there. Oldelpaso 14:39, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

I don't really see why including fotballers under the current notability criteria is a problem, fair enough if this were a paper encylopedia, but it's not. Even a player who's played one league game for a Football League Two side is of potential interest to thousands of people (particularly when the article can be built up to show what else happened in their post-professional careers, most of you must have been to a game and seen a player remembered by many fans for simply not being good enough, so is notable for that reason)- contrast this with the articles on on small housing estates etc which I feel are of interest to very few. Anyway, to reiterate the point I came here to make, I don't see why it needs changing, though I agree with oldelpaso that it's what the article looks like or could look like that needs to be kept in mind. WikiGull 09:56, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Eheheh WikiGull, welcome in the NN,D world. I totally agree with you. But, you know this is Jimbopedia, the encylopedia everyone can vandalize. --necronudist 11:17, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Firstly I think that arbitrary game limits are a poor idea, because they are just that, arbitrary. Secondly I think that demanding that they've had "a career" is unworkable as plenty of players burst onto the scene and are instantly notable, even in the lower echelons. Also "players" like Ali Dia are notable. I personally made a page for Nabil El Zhar, who hasn't even played a professional game, but definitely will unless some terrible unforseen consequence arrives, which again would make him notable. Personally I think that the FIFA.com reference makes him notable. aLii 13:57, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

I completely opppose a minimum limit on a number of appearances sufficient for notability. I agree with aLii that any arbitrary limit is completely unworkable (why would a hypothetical player who has played 4 times for, say, Manchester Utd or Real Madrid any less notable than a player who has made 5 appearances for, I don't know, Accrington Stanley?!!). I would also oppose the suggestion for an equivalent limit on the amount of time at professional level. I agree with WikiGull that the current criteria work fine.

If there is an appetite for change then I would suggest that, as both WikiGull and Oldelpaso have alluded to, the emphasis should be on the quality (or potential quality) of the article itself, rather than any criteria based on stats. A full, verifiable and interesting article about a player who played a mere handfull of pro-games for a run-of-the-mill Division 4 outfit before turning out for many of the big non-league clubs, doing a spot of coaching here and there and going on to do x and y after football... etc. would be significantly more worthy of inclusion than much of the content elsewhere in Wiki.

-- MLD · T · C · @:  15:57, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

There's no "quality" to improve in articles about one-minute-played-in-life players. That's why I strongly support deep changings to the current notability criterion, which absurdly allow footballers who played just one minute in a Serie C2 match to "deserve" an article here. Not every guy in a football team is notable to stay here in Wikipedia, and players with experience only in third division and youth teams are not. --Angelo 16:15, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Rather than have one-size-fits-all criterion for a player (or indeed sportsperson), perhaps it's better to come up with a set of conditions that, if a player fulfils any one, they can be considered inherently notable (along the same lines as WP:WEB). We can thus raise the barrier from "ever been a professional" to something much higher, but have several different qualities a player may be able to fulfil. Some would be obvious (e.g. played an international match for their country) and others more debatable - e.g. how many matches in a professional league they have played. On that latter point, perhaps a sliding scale of sorts could be introduced, e.g. if any of the following are satisfied:

• 10 matches in continental competition
• 50 matches in domestic top-flight league competition
• 100 matches in domestic professional competition beneath the top flight

These are all open to discussion - I'm just making some suggestions here. The main point is that a single criterion is never going to be agreed upon. Note also that I use the word inherently - players can be notable through other means, some unique players (e.g. Ali Dia mentioned above) who have achieved notability (or notoriety) through other means would still be admissable outside the criteria, but on a case-by-case basis. This would be a more intelligent and sensitive to various circumstances unique to different places and times. Qwghlm 00:58, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

I don't agree, but I think it's reasonable. --necronudist 10:29, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Professional leagues

With the current WP:BIO guidelines, it's important to know which football leagues are fully professional. I therefore request a list or category called "Fully professional football (soccer) leagues". Anyone interested in creating it? Punkmorten 12:56, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

If I'm correctly interpreting why you want this, you'd also need to know which clubs were in these leagues at certain times (for example, the numerous clubs in the mostly professional Conference National who were until recently Football League clubs). WikiGull 11:50, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes, that's quite tricky. But with the current guidelines we have to know it. Punkmorten 12:01, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

But how do you propose to use it if you don't have the complete information? I can't see how that can work. WikiGull 12:15, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

There's a pdf on the UEFA site [13] which lists the number of professional players in each UEFA country, which can be used as a very rough approximation of how far down the pyramid professionalism goes. Oldelpaso 10:24, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Albania has 660 professionals? And a top league of 10 teams? Let's say each squad has 25 players, that would make 26 full squads of professionals. In other words, well into the Albanian Third Division. And I don't even dare to calculate this for Armenia, with 1,337 professionals and a top league of 9 teams. Punkmorten 11:06, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

I don't think the definitions in that pdf are very clear. The wording "non-amateurs" could mean semi-professionals as well as fully professionals, right? And I wonder if the number of non-amateurs is calculated for all players in the national leagues, no matter nationality, or if they are calculated for all players of that nationality, no matter which country they play in. Some more info on the matter would be delightful before jumping to any conclusions. Poulsen 10:53, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Notability proposal

I've worked on an alternative, reasonable, notability proposal. This is it:

1. Current and past national team players, at the A, Olympic and U-21 level
2. Players who regularly played at the first team level in any national top division
3. Players who regularly played at the first team level in lower divisions where a wide consensus about their notability is singularly found
4. Players who collected at least 50 appearances in any national top division and/or lower division where a wide consensus about its notability is singularly found
5. Players who took part in at least a continental competition match
6. Players who clearly gained news at least at the national level for either playing or non-playing reasons

Actually, since in my opinion there's no well-known way to determine whether playing in a given division is notable or not, let's decide by ourselves. Tell me your opinion. --Angelo 05:41, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Don't see the need to change it myself, now if it were a paper encyclopedia fair enough. Lots of discussion on this above, you might be best moving it up there. WikiGull 18:24, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Firstly I don't see anything particularly terrible with the current rule, and if anything I'd vote to make it more lax and include more youth players on Wikipedia, as people who follow football are generally interested in such things. If I'm watching a random football match and the commentator says something about a young kid being on the bench and perhaps coming on to make a full debut I'd like to be able to look him up on Wikipedia and find out what there is to know.

Secondly "regularly" means nothing to me. Is twice in a week good enough? 50 appearances is ridiculously high, and as I've already mentioned we shouldn't start making these arbitrary limits. Infact all your rules are arbitrary. According to your rules Lionel Messi could have been argued to have been unnotable while playing in and winning the 2005 FIFA World Youth Championship (U-20 level), which came after he had made his debut with Barcelona. He still hasn't played (anywhere near) 50 league games, lol.

I think it is safe to say that these proposed rules can easily be argued into the ground, and again I'll say that I'd like to see a proposal where more players become notable. Any player that has ever taken part in a televised game at any level should be noteable in my opinion. E.g. schoolboy internationals, FA Cup 1st round, etc. There is no good reason for them not to have an article here if there's something worth saying about them. aLii 09:47, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Messi would be clearly notable for (5) and (6). My rules work, in my opinion. Then, you think any played who appeared in a televised game is notable? Well, in Italy, each Saturday, a TV station (RAI Sport Satellite) airs a football league match from Serie D, an amateur league in Italy featuring over 150 clubs. Your idea is simply terrific, you see. --Angelo 13:15, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

If they're on TV why shouldn't I be able to find out about them? Is that not "gaining news" at a national level? aLii 14:44, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

So, you mean that if 22 unknown amateur players involved in a Terza Categoria league match are casually featured on a national TV show, aired even at 2 am, they're notable. Well, maybe I would be a deletionist, but this is absolutely nonsense. --Angelo 16:56, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

If their league is so completely non-notable then why does anyone care to put it on tv? It's nonsense to claim such a match isn't notable in my book. aLii 18:00, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Flags

There has been much debate on the Wales national football team pages re. the flags used next to squad players' clubs. Cardiff, Swansea and Wrexham currently have English flags yet these are Welsh clubs. They are members of the Football Association of WALES - any disciplinary matters eg yellow or red cards (even when they occur in the Football League or FA Cup) are dealt with by the Football Association of WALES. The argument put forward is that they play in the English league, but this is irrelevant to me - it's called the Football League not the English Football League. FC Vaduz who play in the Swiss Leagues, AC San Marino who play in the Italian lower leagues or Derry City who play in the Irish Republic are not displayed with flags from other counties so why should the Welsh clubs? I STRONGLY OBJECT to having an English flag next to these proud WELSH clubs. Blogdroed 12:50, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm English and I strongly agree! WikiGull 13:34, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Agree as well, but please try to keep a neutral POV, writing "to these proud WELSH clubs" doesn't give any more strength to your argument, but rather makes you look like a POV pusher. Just a tip. – Elisson • T • C • 13:44, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

I don't see any compelling need to use flags in this case anyway as they don't add that much information (see Wikipedia:Don't overuse flags). If this does not get settled I suggest just removing them completely. Qwghlm 13:54, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

If the teams are currently members of Football Associate of Wales, then the flag should definitely be the flag of Wales. // Laughing Man 15:27, 15 November 2006 (UTC)::

I agree with Qwghlm, remove the flags. They're not needed. HornetMike 15:48, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Personally I think there is a good argument for displaying the English flag. It's not like they can represent Wales in European competition, or they'd qualify every year. They would have to represent the English league and can only qualify through English competitions. Unless perhaps they can't qualify for European competitions at all? While it is obvious that they are Welsh clubs, it is equally obvious that they are much more heavily tied to the English game. Being members of the Welsh FA is a strange anomaly. Of course removing all the flags removes the problem ;) aLii 15:49, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

cheers for the tip Elisson, although if I didn't have a point of view, surely I wouldn't have raised the subject ;) aLii - these clubs couldn't represent England in Europe as they are Welsh clubs - this is the reasoning behind a recent move to appeal to Uefa to be let back into the Welsh Cup - whilst playing in the football league, these three clubs are the only clubs in Europe not allowed a route into Uefa competition! Yes I know they could always join the Welsh Premiership, but that's another argument for another thread ;) Blogdroed 16:07, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Interesting. I'm sure that if Cardiff managed to finish in the top four in the Premiership the situation would come to a head. As it stands I guess it doesn't matter either way whether the Welsh clubs can qualify for Europe or not... aLii 18:01, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

In this years UEFA cup article, Derry City had a ROI flag with a note to explain they were a Norn Iron team. I'd do the same for Wrexham, Cardiff etc. - an English flag but with a Welsh flag in a note. They play in the English League system - it does not matter that they are Welsh as they are not representing the Welsh Leagues. Berwick would be the same logic - Scottish flag as they represent the Scottish Leagues. doktorb _words^deeds 12:45, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but Wrexham Cardiff and Swansea aren't 'representing' anyone ... they are Welsh clubs, in fact the FA have made it jknow that they would not nominate a Welsh club to represent them in Europe should the unlikely happen and either of the three win the FA Cup or finish high enough in the Premier League Blogdroed 12:07, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Irish football expertise needed

Anyone here know much about the structure of football in the Republic of Ireland? A user has created Siemens Rebels F.C., but the league they play in, the Cork Nite Leagues has no wiki article (as I write) and no article links to that club (apart from itself). Alas I'm no expert on Irish club football, so before I nominate it for deletion on grounds of non-notability, can someone clarify? Qwghlm 14:35, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

From the website linked to, it looks like a Sunday League sort of thing. ArtVandelay13 16:44, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Indeed. A Google search brings up 2 results, neither of which relate to the team, and there's no mention of them on the FAI website, which suggests they do not compete at any sort of senior level. I think that's enough to go to AfD on. Qwghlm 17:22, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

I went ahead and speedied the team and two players under WP:CSD criteria A7, "does not assert the importance or significance of its subject". – Elisson • T • C • 17:50, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

You might want to delete the duplicate Siemens Rebels F.C (without the second full stop) as well... Qwghlm 19:53, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

American football

Is there an American football wikiproject/ task force?

Depends on who's asking. - Dudesleeper 02:40, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

XYZ CrVo 02:42, 17 November 2006 (UTC) is asking

There doesn't appear to be. I'm sure there would be some interest in the idea if you were to put it forward in the relevant talk channels. - Dudesleeper 03:06, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

There is a Wikipedia:WikiProject National Football League, which might be helpful. Err, disregard that as I suppose you mean a project on football (soccer) in USA, and not a project on American football? – Elisson • T • C • 17:14, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

USL

The USL (United Soccer Leagues) needs expansion. I suggest incorporating it in this project.XYZ CrVo 02:41, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

I added {{football}} to the talk page so it adds the article to the appropriate categories. You can also add the appropriate template to the article page as well to get some more attention, as well posting about it here. You should be bold and start expanding the article yourself though if you can! // Laughing Man 20:55, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Olympic Medals

FIFA's rules (p43) for the Olympic Football Tournament say that only players who played during the tournament are eligible for a medal; non-playing squad members in medal-winning teams only receiive a diploma. Should we be removing the medal boxes from these players where the info can be found? (And updating other honours lists). I think we should, or at the very least there should be a note. ArtVandelay13 05:06, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

War Cancellation

There is an issue with the English football seasons template. If surrounding the years where the league was cancelled for the world wars then there are still links to the seasons that never happened. I thought maybe a page could be made about war cancellations and the links could re-direct to this. Would people agree or have other ideas? At the moment it looks like the seasons actually happened but no-one has made an article about them. SenorKristobbal 17:03, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Football certainly did happen during the World Wars, with competitions like the Football League War Cup. Even those these matches are not classified as official, it would be wrong to give the impression no football took place. I think these seasons should have their own pages and details of the results of these competitions (a good source might be RSSSF). Could be quite fun making these pages, actually. I don't mind giving them a start (after all I was the one who filled in all the league tables and competition winners for most English seasons in the period 1889-1975). Qwghlm 17:11, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Yeah I was just thinking of it as official competition but your idea sounds good. SenorKristobbal 19:21, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Done the seasons for World War I (1915-1919) last night, will get cracking with the WW2 season in due course. Qwghlm 12:57, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Non-World Cup squad TP

The TPs were spreading, and someone directly add the squad into article, likes Jorge Andrade, Rahim Zafer Matthew_hk tc 15:16, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

As Willie200 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) did. Matthew_hk tc 13:23, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

On Ergün Penbe [14], Ömer Çatkıç[15], Nihat Kahveci, [16] and Volkan Arslan [17] Matthew_hk tc 11:44, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Football in Australia - naming conventions

I would like to invite all interested editors to have a read of Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Football in Australia) and offer improvements or suggestions on the talk page. Please do not comment about it on this page - I am hoping to centralise discussion in one place! -- Chuq 10:30, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Grammar question

Just to make sure before I make the moves, shouldn't Category:Lists of footballers by national teams be at Category:Lists of footballers by national team? Note the s after "team". – Elisson • T • C • 19:22, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I had noticed this too. Nominate it as speedy, it isn't worth a whole CfR. Qwghlm 20:30, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Moved and deleted. – Elisson • T • C • 20:44, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Of course, I forget you are an administrator. :) Qwghlm 20:53, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Ashley Young

Watford's Ashley Young is currently located at Ashley Young (footballer). The reason being, Ashley Young is one of numerous aliases of American porn star Kitty Yung. What does everyone think about moving Young's page onto Ashley Young and stop it being a disam page? Looking at Yung's page it doesn't suggest she's used "Ashley Young" particularly often. HornetMike 14:34, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

I think a move to Ashley Young makes sense rather than this disimbig page Kingjamie 21:45, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Indeed. Take it to WP:RM and I think you'll gain support. Qwghlm 00:46, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

I have (here) Kingjamie 20:29, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Oh, good-o. I forgot about this! HornetMike 21:11, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Stablepedia

Beginning cross-post.

See Wikipedia talk:Version 1.0 Editorial Team#Stablepedia. If you wish to comment, please comment there. ★MESSEDROCKER★ 02:32, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

End cross-post. Please do not comment more in this section.

IRC channel started

I and Daniel.Bryant started an IRC channel on Freenode, #wikipedia-wpf, for discussion and collaboration regarding football. If you haven't used IRC before or just haven't been on any Wikipedia channels before, help is available at Wikipedia:IRC channels. The channel is not supposed to replace this talk page in any way, but is only to serve as a place to quickly find a Wikipedian interrested in football that is online, or to just chat about stuff that should not clutter this talk page. Feel free to join! – Elisson • T • C • 03:55, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Argentine footballers in Europe

I have been thinking about creating a new set of categories, in order to make a convenient and comprehensive source of information on Argentine footballers to have played in particular countries.

I am thinking of structuring it something like this:

• Cat:Argentine football (soccer) players in Europe
  • Cat:Argentine football (soccer) players in England
  • Cat:Argentine football (soccer) players in Italy
  • Cat:Argentine football (soccer) players in Spain

etc

Alternatively if anyone is really opposed to the idea of creating more categories, it could be done as a series of lists. I think categories would make the information much more accessible rather than putting a see also and a (or several) link(s) on every player page. Im sure the Argentines in Italy and in Spain categories would contain at least 50 players if not 100.

If nobody is opposed to the idea I'll get started on setting it up and categorising the existing Argentine footballers.

I think there is scope for the same kind of thing for Brazilian footballers too, since Argentina and Brazil seem to export more top class footballers than any other country.

King of the North East 12:23, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

I strongly oppose as if we do that with Argentine players we will have to do it with potentially every combination of nationality and league in the world. A similar category for Hungarian footballers in Spain was deleted. Many footballers have over 10 categories as it is and adding another means of taxonomy on top would make things worse. Qwghlm 17:42, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Qwghlm. It opens a door to far too many categories, although I do understand the reasons for you wanting to do this. HornetMike 18:16, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Oppose from me as well. Think 200 nationalities. In the worst case (each nation has had at least one player in all other nations), that means 200*200=40000 new categories. And realistically speaking, we would probably still get more than 3000 new categories (200 nationalities that has had players in an average of perhaps 15 nations each). Not maintainable, and we really do not need more "player" categories of various kinds. – Elisson • T • C • 18:36, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

I oppose as well. And let's get rid of Category:Non-German football players in Germany while we're at it - although it "only" creates potential for 200 unnecessary categories. Punkmorten 20:41, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

I see why you all oppose the idea, but I was just thinking that it would make it easy to find any Argentines to have played in a particular country as compared to looking through every Argentine player. I only proposed it as a means of making the specific information more readily available. Regards King of the North East 23:27, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

I think creating something likes List of Portuguese footballers abroad. Matthew_hk tc 11:23, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Well that was a pretty indiscriminate list. Punkmorten 17:14, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree that it looks like an indescriminate list that is why I think that categories are the most practical and discriminating solution, but there is a hefty amount of opposition to creating new categories. Maybe a caveat that whoever wants to create an X footballers in Y category, must first find at least 50 individuals to populate it before it can be set up. This would prevent the forseen glut of Ecuadorian footballers in Russia type categories.King of the North East 20:01, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Individual squad articles

See Sheffield United F.C. squad - do we really want separate articles for team squads now? Surely it's enough with both inclusion in the main Sheffield United article as well as a template.. Punkmorten 22:54, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

In a word, no. That article is merely a combination of the squadlist from the team article and minor details from each player's article. Somewhat pointless in my opinion. Oldelpaso 22:59, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Definitely, delete it. There is also e.g. Sheffield Wednesday F.C. squad, which should be deleted along with it. Qwghlm 23:32, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Pointless, in my opinion. AFd it. HornetMike 23:32, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

On AFD now. Punkmorten 22:15, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

There is Bayern Munich Junior Team, A.C. Milan squad. Munich one i requested to remove youth sector squad lists (except II team), and Milan one i suggest remove Berretti team (under 19) squad and change to Primavera team articles. Matthew_hk tc 12:30, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

I have a somewhat related question. See Colombia at the 1998 FIFA World Cup. Since when did we create articles for individual squads in World Cup campaigns? Do we want this? (this particular article is poorly written as well, but that's a different case). Punkmorten 22:15, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Someone created Gloucester City A.F.C. squad. More than just a table, but... What to do? Punkmorten 22:19, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Comment - The contents of this article were merged with the main Gloucester City A.F.C. article in January 2006 - see discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Gloucester City footballers. User:Gasheadsteve demerged it again recently.

Then should we merge it back..? Punkmorten 15:48, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

In this case, I think the article should stay demerged. The Club's own article is extremely long and detailed already. Unlike Sheffield United F.C. squad and Sheffield Wednesday F.C. squad, the players are not noteworthy enough to warrant their own articles. This approach seems like a fair compromise for non-league clubs' players.Daemonic Kangaroo 16:27, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

I split the squad details off from the main Gloucester City A.F.C. article because it was huge (somewhere in the region of 70kb). I thought the squad was worthy of it's own article given the amount of detail included. Gasheadsteve 19:27, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

I would be in favour of deleting this at an AfD. The bulk of the players concerned wouldn't meet criteria for having this information on their own page, so I see no reason why it stands as a "squad" article. It's simply information (lots of it) about non-notable athletes. - fchd 19:46, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Emile Heskey

I know Heskey is a popular figure of ridicule amonst fans. But some of the vandalism is getting behind the joke some of it clearly unfunny and racist. It also happens too often with people changing nearly enough the full article to this dribble. Please can we have some protection on this page to at least prevent unregistered users from editing it? Unsy770 21:42, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

You can ask at requests for protection although to be honest the volume of blatant vandalism (1-2 incidents this past week) is not as high enough to warrant protection, IMO. What it does need, however, is a rigorous removal of the weasel words, POV and original research. Qwghlm 23:22, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Histories of non league clubs

I've been doing a fair bit of work on the page for [Carshalton Athletic] over the last few days and it has brought to mind a problem for some of the non league clubs that, whilst having long histories, there are difficulties in providing hard enough sources for these histories. Recent history is coverable via local press reporting but older history is far more likely to be produced by either the club concerned (either website or book) or a supporter's fan site. If we accept levels 1-10 of the NLS as inherently notable does it make it acceptable to use less hard sources to verify older information as this is unlikely to be contentious? Vicard 01:01, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

I thought I replied to this already, but I must have closed the tab before saving... Anyway, club's official histories and fansites are, in my view, acceptable as references, at least for coverage of non-controversial events. For controversial events... well it differs from case to case, but I would perhaps (a) mention and maybe even quote the source used in the text itself (allowing the reader to make up their mind about the veracity of the claim) or (b) seek out the alternative POV and cite that as well, to provide balance. But it depends on the event and how well-researched or (un)biased the reference is. If there any specific issues in Carshalton Athletic (which looks a well-written article, lack of wikilinks apart) then feel free to ask about them here. Qwghlm 19:44, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Norton Athletic F.C

Hi, I am not a member of this project, but the article I linked to needs some serious help, quickly. Thanks! J Milburn 18:23, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Err, well it needs to be deleted. HornetMike 18:54, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, the fact I couldn't even find it at FCHD suggests a severe lack of notability. I've tagged it for speedy deletion. Qwghlm 19:01, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

S.L. Benfica

Someone want to rewrite S.L. Benfica, but whole section of football squad etc. remove (temp?), Would someone help to rewrite it or fix it? Matthew_hk tc 04:39, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

I've copied some of the wikified content from the history of the Benfica article, which at least has wikilinks, a bit better grammar, and images. I've also restructured it a bit. Poulsen 09:24, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Bush Bucks

It seems like the South African team Bush Bucks has become liquidated. [18] Does this mean they have become defunct? I would be thankful if someone could update the article to reflect this. Punkmorten 10:54, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Cleanup KFC Uerdingen 05

I have been trying to cleanup some sneaky vandalism in KFC Uerdingen 05 where like in Bayer Leverkusen random names get included (usually by an IP starting 217.230.xxx.xxx). But the contributions of 217.230.59.59 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) appear to be more complex as he has included names of real footballers and changed their articles as well. It will need someone with a more detailed knowledge to unravel truth from vandalism. Can I leave that in the capable hands of your WikiProject. Agathoclea 13:18, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Input is wanted regarding {{Infobox Football club}}

Input regarding the addition of new parameters to {{Infobox Football club}} is wanted on the template's talk page. – Elisson • T • C • 14:33, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Brazilian footballer names

Is there an established guideline regarding naming articles on Brazilian footballers, or is it a case-by-case basis? I ask because Blgeoverlord (talk • contribs) has recently moved a number of articles on players from their playing names to their full names (e.g., Robinho to Robson de Souza, Zé Roberto to José Roberto da Silva Junior, etc. - see logs). --Muchness 18:11, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

No, no policy I'm aware of. Bit dubious about it being at their full names, seeing as absolutely no-one knows Robinho as Robson de Souza. It's like moving George Orwell to Eric Blair. HornetMike 02:07, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

The guideline Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names) advises using the name by which someone is most commonly known i.e. Robinho etc in this situation. Oldelpaso 15:48, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

I would say that using full names for Brazilian footballers is useful in the cases where more than one player is commonly known by the same name for example: Serginho, Serginho and Serginho. I dont really see the point in changing to full names unless there are other notable players sharing the same nickname.King of the North East 19:20, 18 December 2006 (UTC)