Talk:List of German football champions

Collaboration
NapHit, please take some time to chat with the rest of the folks about how this page should shape up. The article as it stands gives a fairly concise and readable overview of the German football championship and places the thing within the broad context of the complex history of the game in the country. The East German championship deserves its own page, but the one liner provides a summary and can help direct the reader to the expanded article. Wiggy! (talk) 18:22, 5 January 2009 (UTC)
 * The lead at the moment is way too long it is supposed to be three or four small paragraphs. The info about the two finals is only needed as notes, it does not need to be this long winded. NapHit (talk) 18:33, 5 January 2009 (UTC)
 * But it reads so nice and smooth ... and as a whole summarizes the thing neatly. Busting it up is like reading one of the magazine articles where you get skipped from page to page to page. How about taking an adding approach and let everybody digest the material before deciding to whittle it down prematurely? Wiggy! (talk) 18:39, 5 January 2009 (UTC)
 * It is too long maybe you could condense it down a bit, I'll admit it is an improvement on my lead. I am just going through it at the moment to try and tidy it up a little, just a few nit picky things hopefully we can et this list to featured standard. And I definitely think the 1904 bit could be a note, it is definitely not too long, I'll add it as a note for the time being and leave in the lead as well, until people respond to this. NapHit (talk) 18:44, 5 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree that the lede is a bit on the long side compared with several other FLs. But as Wiggy said, it reads quite nicely, and I have not seen anyone (but you)state that it is too long. I'd like to have the 1904 and 1922 championships included due to their uniqueness. I think that as a note this uniqueness factor is diminished. Madcynic (talk) 18:51, 5 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Have a look at the articles English football champions, Italian football champions, French football champions, and List of Spanish football champions by way of comparison. Several different approaches. I'm leaning towards thinking the complex history of the game in Germany lends itself to a somewhat expanded approach, especially when trying to introduce a novice to the game's history there. Wiggy! (talk) 18:56, 5 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Ok I see your point, maybe some should be put into a history sub section, just to bring the lead down a bit. NapHit (talk) 19:11, 5 January 2009 (UTC)
 * If it's alright I think this is what I'm going to do it will make the article look a lot nicer and more clearer. NapHit (talk) 19:20, 5 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Yeah, on looking at the thing and also reviewing the FL criteria, that sounds like a reasonable approach. Basically we'd end up with "sub-leads" (?) for each section corresponding to an historical era. That would also allow for some discussion of the pre-1903 championships staged largely in Berlin that were predecessors to the overall national title.
 * Note also that in the 1920-30s there were separate national titles for established faith-sponsored, academic, and worker's leagues ... ow. Their importance would have to be weighed, but I suspect there might be some note, because several of the clubs from these leagues went on to become important in general domestic competition after those leagues were dismantled under the Third Reich. A situation maybe analagous to dealing with the East German championship.
 * Messy, but part of the fascination of the game in Germany. Wiggy! (talk) 19:32, 5 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Well you add what you feel is necessary, and I'll copyedit it afterwards, also could you provide the venues (as in stadiums) for the championships from 1903 to 1962, as you said you had a source.
 * I'm intending to recast the thing. Its drifted too far away from a concise overview. Information about promotion/relegation in the Bundesliga doesn't belong - this is about the national championship and it doesn't suit to narrowly contrue that as the Bundesliga winner when we can have a more complete article that covers the entire history of the championship. In its current format the article does not have the easy readability and flow it had earlier. I will add appropriate sources. Wiggy! (talk) 00:44, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Latest cut
I have reduced the lead in to a basic minimum to serve as an introduction in accordance with FL criteria, separating out the information about missing championships.

That material has been removed to below the table of contents in its own expanded section covering undeclared and alternate national championships. The section explaining the presense of non-German clubs in the German national final follows that. I believe that this approach also complies with FL criteria, but the whole lot may be larger than it should be - thats up for discussion.

I have taken the bulk of this material from Grüne, Hardy (1996). Vom Kronprinzen bis zur Bundesliga. Kassel: AGON Sportverlag ISBN 3-928562-85-1, which focuses on German championship competition from the 1890s through to 1963. I have deliberately focused on putting together the prose of the article and will cite it shortly. I am trying to develop the general flow/readability of the article before going to the effort of pinning citations all over it.

In addition I have tried to maintain a uniformity of style, using the acronym DFB (i.e. DFB vs. German Football Association) and the form World War I/II versus First/Second World War as this is the common usage on en:Wikipedia based on the article name and some archived discussion in the related military history project (it came up once before for me so I checked it out).

Note that in using acronyms such as DFB it is accepted style/practise to provide the acronym and its extended form once (i.e. DFB (Deutscher Fußball Bund) and then to freely use the acronym thereafter. I have included the English language equivalent as part of the expanded acronym. Note that the term DFV (Deutscher Fußball-Verband) is translated as German Football Federation not East German Football Federation. This reflects a deliberate and concious usage by East German/Soviet authorites who in a Cold War context did not wish to concede the term "German" to the West (a footnote?). Yes, I know Bund and Verband mean roughly the same thing association/federation/union, but have picked up on the English translations used in the related en:Wikipedia articles.

I have tried to present the material so that it of interest both to the uninitiated who have little knowledge of the history of the game in Germany as well as those who have some experience/exposeure. Material about the Bundesliga, 2. Bundesliga, relegation/promotion, etc. has been removed as it is not directly related to the main topic of the article and deflects its focus. That material is more properly available in the articles on those leagues.

What else? There is a red link that will need to be fixed up (East German football champions) and the citations to insert.


 * Recreated the old part about East German football champions from this article in the new article East German football champions. It's not particulary beautyful, but I guess it will do for the time being. This does not mean that I think it's right to have the East German champions in a seperate article, but frankly I don't believe they will find a home here any more. Regards, OdinFK (talk) 09:59, 6 January 2009 (UTC)


 * It may work depending on the size of the thing. We'' just keep chipping away and see what shapes up. Content is good. Wiggy! (talk) 12:53, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

There may be some merit in dividing up the tables something along these lines, which represent significant periods in the German game;


 * Early German football: (1903-1932)
 * Gauliga: Germany under the Third Reich (1933-1945)
 * Oberliga: Postwar to the Bundesliga (1946-1963)
 * Bundesliga: (1963 to date)
 * East Germany: (1946-1990)

Each table could have a short preamble or introduction outlining the basic historical condition of the game at the time to place the information in context. Okay, brain's fried. time for a break. Wiggy! (talk) 04:16, 6 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Good idea about splitting the table. I shall lend you my moral support. ;-) Madcynic (talk) 12:58, 6 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Quite close to the "original" version. I support that, too, for the reason mentioned. OdinFK (talk) 13:16, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

First national champions in East Germany
SG Planitz won the first championship in the eastern zone, but were not first national champions, as there was no East Germany in 1948. They were supposed to take part in the championship playoffs, but were denied a travel permit. Madcynic (talk) 15:08, 6 January 2009 (UTC)
 * You're right. Part of the nuance of the history of the game in Germany. Haven't progressed past the Gauliga era yet, but will deal with your point along the way. Wiggy! (talk) 17:30, 6 January 2009 (UTC)
 * And then there's the Saarland ... Wiggy! (talk) 00:16, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Recent move to "List"
The article was moved without any discussion to its current name under the pretext of Stand-alone lists. I don't think, it qualifies as a stand-alone list and should be moved back to its original name. Whats the general opinion? EA210269 (talk) 06:55, 8 June 2009 (UTC)


 * As a preface I find it quite insolent to shove pages around without discussion, when it is obvious that several people think it makes sense to have the page at that precise spot. That said and not wanting to point fingers (any more than that anyway) I thought several times about this move. I came to no real conclusion and now I think the concept is somewhat bugged for an ambitious list that doesn't meet FL criteria yet. The problem being that a good list should include some prose, too. A very good List-class-article quite naturally will have some more prose, making the stand-alone part of the definition seem out of place. Maybe I'm wrong, but I guess the naming convention should (as of WP not me) be applied to all List-class articles if possible. The move to List of German football champions makes sense then. Also in this area there are some FLs like List of English football champions, List of Italian football champions, List of Danish football champions. Notice somehting? They all use "List of" in their name and they are FLs so they must be right, right? Probably not, but then if you don't know yourself it might not be the worst idea to take a look at the way featured content handles things. In the end I still don't know what the course of action should be, but I have a slight tendency to think the article is now probably where it should be. OdinFK (talk) 07:21, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

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