Talk:List of England international footballers (alphabetical)

List of England international footballers
I think this article should be expanded to include every player who has represented England, and not just, as is currently, players who have 25+ caps. Any thoughts/objections? GiantSnowman 20:14, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree, should be expanded.  Archibald99   20:31, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I disagree. A complete "list" is better kept as a category. – Elisson • T • C • 20:40, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
 * But a category cannot give more information - for example, we could have date of first cap, age when first cap was won, opponents of first cap; date of last cap, age when last cap was won, opponents of last cap; number of goals, all in a sortable wikitable. GiantSnowman 21:29, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Hmm, I quite like the idea of a football equilavent of List of English Test cricketers, with the information above. That said, the England players category currently contains 824 articles and is no doubt no fully populated. That's a big list, if done properly. So I'm ambivalent. HornetMike 21:45, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I second what HornetMike says - a list of players is a good idea, with caps and appearances etc. included, more than a category can include. Qwghlm 21:23, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
 * A list similar to that for the cricketers would be great. Much more information than can be given in a category, but a huge undertaking (would be happy to help with it though). WikiGull 12:54, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
 * You could use this as a basis; might need to be wary of copyright issues but you cannot really copyright lists of statistics so as long as the format was different from that one it'd be fine, in my opinion. Qwghlm 13:59, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Great, I'll try and start doing something with this. Do we want to agree on the column headings?WikiGull 14:39, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
 * I suggest:

I also think the table should be organised by date of first cap.

Any thoughts? GiantSnowman 15:00, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
 * How about this (with first few lines)

WikiGull 15:35, 2 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I think that the venue and opposition of first/last caps is a bit much (especially for narrower screens) - just the dates will do for now. Also I would get rid of the number column as well; I would just have name, DoB, caps, goals, first cap date, last cap date. Qwghlm 15:44, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Agree - scrap number and venue. GiantSnowman 16:03, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

How about using flags for the opposition then? Adds more information to the table without the wideness problem. Have done it for the first 20 players as below

Let me know what you think - have it stored on a subuser page at the minute. Am happy for that to be the working page until it's a bit more detailed if that helps. WikiGull 16:25, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Looks good to me! GiantSnowman 17:43, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Nice work. However, whilst I see the reasons for just including flags, I think if you took this to FLC I think they'd automatically ask for full names. It's because not all flags are instantly recognisable. HornetMike 00:16, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Update
I have created a new article at List of England international footballers (alphabetical) which I hope is a complete list of England players. I know this is not in a table as envisaged above but at least it's a complete list. As this took me at least 36 hours to complete, I'll leave it to someone else to convert it into a table. Daemonic Kangaroo 13:15, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Congratulations, it looks fantastic! As soon as my exams are over I will have a week and bit of time to waste, so I'll help put it in a table. GiantSnowman 15:21, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

There are a large number of red links on this list. in the Category:England international footballers there are 688 articles, whereas there are 1148 players who have played for England; that leaves 460 players without articles. So it's time to get researching/writing guys! To me, the most surprising omissions are Ralph Coates (formerly of Burnley & Tottenham Hotspur) and David Nish (Derby County). Who can resist the opportunity to create an article about players whose names resonate like Percy de Paravicini or Pelham von Donop, or even James "Tadger" Stewart!. Daemonic Kangaroo 06:22, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Ok, so now this means we have:


 * List of England international footballers
 * List of England players with only one cap
 * List of England international footballers (alphabetical)

Now, this might be a chore, but why not just combine these and use the  class to make sortable tables? Take a look at List of Arsenal F.C. players - using the sortname template you can sort players by surnames in the page with no need for separate duplicate pages. Am willing to put in some of the legwork on this one myself if need be. Qwghlm 10:14, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
 * You're absolutely right; they will need to be merged together, if someone can put in the time to convert the list into a table. Step 1 was to arrive at a complete list of England players which didn't exist previously on Wikipedia. Is there any way that the conversion from list to table can be done without hours of typing? Daemonic Kangaroo 10:34, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I have now converted it into a table (reasonable effortlessly thanks to regular expressions!), available here: User:Qwghlm/List of England international footballers. I'll look into merging cap and goal data in due course. Qwghlm 10:36, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Wow! That was quick - it's great to have someone here with the ability to do such things. I can just about create spreadsheets! Are you happy for me to dive in sometime and start adding the cap and goal data? Indeed, is there any reason why you can't replace the existing list with the contents of your user page? Daemonic Kangaroo 10:45, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm looking into the possibility of automatically parsing the tables from englandfootballonline.com directly and saving the chore of typing in information (1148 players is a lot!) for both you & anyone else here. I've done this sort of thing before (e.g. the league tables in most of Category:Seasons in English football were created automatically) so it shouldn't take too long, give me until the end of the day... Qwghlm 10:49, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

I'll leave you to it for now, esp. as I have a lawn to mow! My only comment is that englandfootballonline.com does not have a separate page for each player which is why I chose to link to englandstats.com. Unfortunately, for some players, e.g. Tinsley Lindley the two sites have different goal stats! Hey ho - I'm being summoned into the garden. Thanks for the input so far. Daemonic Kangaroo 10:56, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

List of England international footballers
Should we get working on this? The one with all of the nationally capped players, at List of England international footballers (alphabetical). Should it be made on this article, or made on List of England international footballers? And we need to decide on a table.. Mattythewhite 11:49, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
 * ...what's the point of the list again..? -- Palffy 12:02, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Whats the point in anything on Wikipedia, really? ... Mattythewhite 12:08, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
 * At least that list is useful, not just a recreation of what would appear in a category. Per its talk page, I think it should encompass all players who have represented the England senior team, not just those with 25 caps or more. - Dudesleeper · Talk 12:22, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

User:Qwghlm did start to build a table at User:Qwghlm/List of England international footballers but seems to have found better things to do! Maybe the sheer size of the task put him off. He has experimented with various forms of table, and FWIW my favourite is the penultimate version |here although I would prefer to include in the table the external links to the profiles at www.englandstats.com as they provide a check on the accuracy of the information, especially for players with similar names, and provide a link that can be incorporated into the player articles. Daemonic Kangaroo 13:18, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
 * I think this should contain every player ever to play for England, and be present on List of England international footballers. GiantSnowman 14:47, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Table
How does this look for a first attempt?

Let me know what you think and I'll see what I can do. Daemonic Kangaroo 16:39, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Good - but perhaps the flag for the opponents should be included. And I'm not sure on having the profile for each player in their column. Perhaps a general reference could be given to englandstats.com? Mattythewhite 16:44, 24 June 2007 (UTC)


 * As far as flags go, I personally think that they're an abomination, and add nothing useful. See also user:HornetMike's comments above. A general reference would not really work, as the englandstats.com site is quite hard to navigate. On a personal note, as I've done all the legwork to identify the individual profiles, I don't want that work to be wasted. Daemonic Kangaroo 16:50, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Okay. Looks good - now all we need is some people who are willing to take on the challenge! Mattythewhite 16:58, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

I've now completed the "A" section and pasted into the article. I have set up a working page at User:Daemonic Kangaroo/England player table - if anyone wants to edit this, feel free to dive in. It will take a lot of careful work to get it all right - does anyone know of a way of speeding it up?

My intention is to create the table on this page and then merge the contents with List of England international footballers and then delete this page. Daemonic Kangaroo 06:10, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Table (version 2)
Unfortunately, the table as envisaged above is unworkable. There is a limit in WP as to how many templates can be used on a page, and this was reached after only about 95 entries (out of 1150); I put the problem up to an admin for help and he suggested using a substitution after the templates were used. This resulted in a page over 700k in size; again for less than 10% of the total entries. Goodness knows what size we would have ended up with, even if would have been possible to edit this.

So - it's back to the drawing board. I've tried changing the date format - whilst I can't say that I actually like it, it does retain the sortability of the date columns. My revised version is this:

Let me know what you think before I plod on with the changes. It's rather dispiriting having to go back and rewrite what I've done so far, but I'd rather rewrite 96 entries than 1000+. Daemonic Kangaroo 06:06, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Splitting
Would anyone object to splitting this table by date of birth? Its rather large Mbisanz (talk) 06:04, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
 * As the whole idea of a sortable table is that it should be sortable on ALL fields, splitting it into separate tables, either by date of birth or letter of the alphabet would destroy its functionality. --Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 13:21, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
 * If that's the only reason for this table, it's quite useless: it's simply too large (my pc takes about TWO MINUTES to completely download it). As a list of all players, splitting it by alphabet is the best possible solution, in my opinion. I've already made a start of the pages A to F. My suggestion is to split this article up in 26 parts (G - Z to be completed), and than delete this page, or maybe keep this as an overview for people with better Internet access. I'm gonna put the completed parts up on the main List of England international footballers page, so they don't get deleted.
 * I have no problems on any of my platforms, both PCs here at work (don't tell the boss) or at home, or on my (wireless-connected) laptop. On dial-up I know it's impossible, but that can't be helped. --Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 15:01, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

On a side-note: if we decide to keep this page: the date of the last match is not displayed correctly. Twerbrou (talk) 14:21, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Please explain. --Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 15:01, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
 * The day of the column "date last match" appears under the year, instead of next to the rest of the monthTwerbrou (talk) 15:23, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I think you'll find that depends on the size of your monitor & the size at which you view the text. Try changing the text size on your browser. --Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 15:48, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Merger?
I note that users Catchpole and Bentley Banana have reverted the list that had been merged from List of England international footballers (alphabetical) and List of England players with only one cap with no real explanation other than comments on Cathcpole's talk page. As the previous discussions seemed to indicate that there was a consensus to merge these 3 articles, I would appreciate other editors' comments/suggestions. --Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 13:07, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree with you that they should be merged. GiantSnowman (talk) 13:09, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes, they should definitely be merged. Revert their edits with extreme prejudice please. – PeeJay 17:35, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I have been asked to expand on my reasoning. The List of England international footballers used to contain a list by number of caps. While I had no objection to this list been expanded to include all English international footballers in alphabetical order, it was no longer possible to order the table by number of caps (when I tried to do so it merely ordered the footballers by first name - this is not very useful). So in my view the article became less useful after the merge than it was before the merge. If 3 articles contain more useful information than can be found in a single article then we should keep the three articles. This makes it easier to distinguish between 'one cap wonders' and players who made a significant contribution to the national team (those with more than 25 caps). As Bentley Banana had mentioned after he updated the article following the Austria game, the date format used in the table was also confusing. So I restored what I felt were the better versions of the 3 articles. I will reiterate that I have no problem with a merger, if it can be done in a way that allows the information in the article to be sorted in a useful manner. Catchpole (talk) 18:05, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Was there no way you could have modified the single article to make it properly sortable? You know, do something constructive instead of destructive. – PeeJay 18:14, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I've just gone to the previous version of the list, clicked on the caps sort button, and it sorts into ascending order of caps, click again and it sorts into descending. Unless there's some browser-dependent problem, or I'm being really stupid, I don't know what you mean by not possible to order by number of caps. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 18:35, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I think my changes were constructive, they made the articles more useful to me. I'll admit to not being an expert on sortable tables, but when I try to repeat Struway's experiment, I get Safari popping up with an unresponsive script warning. I get the same issue when I try it on List of England international footballers (alphabetical). This may just be a problem with very large articles, (when you edit the latter, you get the following message - "This page is 260 kilobytes long. It may be appropriate to split this article into smaller, more specific articles. See Article size"). Catchpole (talk) 18:53, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Oh, so it's cos you're on a Mac! I mean, why else would you be using Safari when you could be using Firefox? Well, the vast majority of us don't use Macs, so I suggest that your edits be reverted, to benefit the majority. – PeeJay 18:57, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I have tried it on IE7 and Firefox and it works. It is a "very" large article though. I think dial-up will groan under the strain. I agree completely with the old version (ie before catchpole reverts), yet I think the size might be an issue. Splitting it in half is not an option though as it will break the sortable table. Woodym555 (talk) 19:02, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
 * The pre-catchpole article is a far better navigational tool because sortable tables are ace. It should be reverted to the way it was.  King of the  North  East  22:30, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Don't really see why we have to have one or the other. There's no point removing the excellent list as set up by Daemonic Kangaroo purely because some people's configuration makes one of the features unusable, while as demand exists for a more restricted set of information why not have that as well? I'd propose (1) that the main list be reverted to the sortable version, as it is complete and useful for a significant number of users, although the size is clearly a problem for some. And (2) as a separate article, a List of England international footballers with 25 caps, as per the current Catchpole version. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 09:06, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes I was thinking about that, but what title? top capped players? Notable players? Woodym555 (talk) 15:35, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Hadn't thought about it :-) There was consensus on the merger to List of England international footballers, and there appears to be consensus that the complete sortable list should be at that name. You could call the other one List of most-capped England international footballers, or List of notable England international footballers, or if all else fails, List of England international footballers with 25 caps. Each to have a hatnote pointing to the other. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 16:56, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

When I merged the three articles I thought that there was a consensus that this was the right thing to do. Consequently I found Bentley Banana's comment on Catchpole's talk page describing it as a "rotten merger" and an "abomination" rather offensive and arrogant. I'm therefore grateful that the consensus here is in favour of the merge. Moving forward, it seems to me that we still only need one list covering all England players (good and bad, major or minor). In view of the size of the list this will always cause problems for those on a dial-up connection - as for Apple Mac users, I'm afraid that I have no knowledge. Perhaps this particular problem as pointed out by Catchpole should be put to a techie for advice. WP must be all-embracing and be equally functional whatever platform is used, although good features should not be thrown away to accommodate lesser used platforms.

At present we have four, possibly five, different articles covering the same ground:
 * List of England international footballers
 * List of England international footballers (alphabetical)
 * List of England players with only one cap
 * England national football team & England national football team
 * England national football team records

All of these will need updating after every England match. The (post-Catchpole) List of England international footballers includes players who have 25 or more caps. Why this particular bar? If the bar was raised to, say, 50 caps this would reduce this particular list to 47 players. This list could then be merged with that in the England team article. Can we agree a final consensus? I can then go ahead and re-merge the articles. --Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 06:16, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I've been asked to contribute - firstly, however I have two apologies to make. Firstly, an apology to Daemonic Kangaroo for my terminology in describing his changes. My wording was rather strong, I accept that and withdraw it wholly. My second apology comes in advance of what I'm about to say, as I'm entirely inept with tables and wikipedia terms and therefore exist here purely as a writer with some reasonable understanding of the England team and what is required on these pages.
 * I would argue most vociferously for the retention of the List of England international footballers page in its reverted form, containing the players with 25 caps or more. I would argue that there is no other way to measure footballers in the international game other than by dint of caps won; doing so by surname or date of birth turns it into a rollcall rather than a list which is defined by actual achievement and notability. Alan A'Court shouldn't be at the top of any list of England players; Peter Shilton should be. It's all about the caps won. Nobody is going to come on wikipedia looking for the information about who would be top of an England list alphabetically, but a new user might use our reference to find out who has won the most caps. This is where this page is too vital to consider merging into something which will change the entire focus of its existence.
 * I have never used nor accessed with List of England players with only one cap and feel that while it's an interesting list, it's not a be-all and end-all list. There is limited notability about such players; we're dealing with novelty rather than anything else. A page which lists everyone who wasn't goo enough to play for England after one solitary go but not those who were sturdy and steady enough to hang around more than 25 times suggests to me a lack of priorities.
 * The England national football team records page has, I confess, become a labour of love to me. I am fiercely proud of how that page has turned out and I think it is as vital a tool as any researcher on England can find, even from official sources (indeed, I've seen evidence of more official sources using statistics which I myself researched entirely for the benefit of this page). I would ask it remains as it is.
 * Lastly, on the subject of the merged page, I would ask that consideration is given to those who choose to keep these pages topical as soon as matches are completed. I had an awful time trying to suss out the dating system, find the players in question etc when faced with an alphabetical list rather than one which relied entirely on achievement and notability. The list of 25 caps or more needs to remain as an independent page; even if the full list of alphabetical players stays separately. To remove the shorter, more easily maintained and digested page says that accessibility for both readers and editors has become too low a priority, and that's where people like me, who just want to keep pages digestible and accessible, are alienated.
 * One final comment aside - my main bugbear with the England pages are with editors who go on the main England national football team page after a match and change just *one* fact, rather than the several which always need changing - details of games, caps and goals updates, manager stats etc. This gets right up my nose as you end up doing someone else's tidying up rather than merely a gentle update which should not take up too much time or sweat.
 * Thanks for reading, apologies for my lack of terminology and my previous comments once more. Bentley Banana (talk) 13:59, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I still think that the sortable table is a far better navigational tool, does anyone know if there is a way to default set it to show the players by number of caps? King of the North  East  03:31, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion was copied from Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Football/Archive 14 in order that users may be aware of previous "merge" discussions. Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 06:04, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Unable to edit this page
The very large page size means that I am unable to edit this page. If someone could make the following edits for me I would be grateful: Many Thanks. --Jameboy (talk) 00:10, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Charlie Perry should be pipe-linked to Charlie Perry (English footballer)
 * The Harry Jones (footballer) listed here is not the one I have created. Please could the Harry Jones in this list be redlinked to (I suggest) Harry Jones (footballer born 1891). If he is ever created as an article I will happily move "my" Harry Jones accordingly (mine was born in 1911).
 * All done. --Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 05:23, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

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