Talk:List of West Ham United F.C. players

Merger proposal
I propose that West Ham United F.C. appearance records be merged with West Ham United F.C. goal records in order to create one article entitled West Ham United F.C. statistics, in line with Liverpool F.C. statistics and Manchester United F.C. statistics. Why have two articles on related subjects when you could just have one? - PeeJay 18:14, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Sounds sensible to me. Oldelpaso 18:47, 27 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Can't see a problem as separate articles. Especially as page could get rather large. Hammer1980 17:12, 4 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Not if you cut it down a bit. Does the article really need to list the top 100 appearance makers? Surely the top 10 or top 20 would be more appropriate? - PeeJay 17:29, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Anyone got anything further to add to this discussion? Personally, I think that if these articles have any aspirations to reaching GA or FA standard, they really need to be merged together. A change in the colour scheme wouldn't go amiss either. – PeeJay 09:34, 9 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I think a merge would be in order. I'm all for keeping related stuff together.
 * A major problem with this page is all the flags. Have found that it makes articles slow to load and therefore amend (maybe it's my computer?). A few in an article is OK, but dozens of them?--Egghead06 (talk) 11:10, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Like I suggested above, the best solution would be to decrease the number of players in each list. Perhaps instead of the top 100 first class appearance makers, reduce it to the top 20 or so. Same for the goalscorers. – PeeJay 11:31, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

I suggest a counter-proposal to merge to West Ham United F.C. players in line with other Category:Lists of footballers by club. The West Ham United F.C. statistics proposal should be one for a wider range of records as included on the two pages linked above. Peanut4 (talk) 19:19, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Either way, the two articles in question stick out like a sore thumb when compared to the sets of articles in other clubs' categories. – PeeJay 16:39, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
 * This proposal is getting rather long in the tooth now, having started in August 2007. My opinion is that, rather than merge the two articles, the "appearance records" should be moved to List of West Ham United F.C. players and the "goal records" should be moved to West Ham United F.C. statistics thus making them consistent with most other clubs. Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 16:49, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Agree with Daemonic. Peanut4 (talk) 19:19, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Improvements to the article
I suggest that Southern League games are included in the main list of appearances, as these are regarded as notable e.g. if you look at Syd Puddefoot's entry at westhamstats then his SL apps are included in the total. I would exclude wartime apps as these are not generally included in these club lists. This would allow the current second section to be deleted. Also, most of these club lists tend to use a cut-off point of games played rather than Top 100, so I propose the first section be expanded to capture all players who have made 100+ senior games for the club. The columns would need changing - they could be amended to something like League (inc FL and SL), FAC and Other, then Total. Eldumpo (talk) 14:39, 17 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Fully agree with the first. Southern League games just as important as Football League, afterall in that time there was no FL. Have no issue with the second suggestion other than (and I'm not sure if it's that important) any stats become highly reliant on a single source; ie Westhamstats.info.--Egghead06 (talk) 07:29, 18 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your response. I have removed those players from the second list who played less than 100 senior games (excluding war matches) and will aim to move the others to the (renamed) main list. I presume your reference to "second suggestion" relates to having the main list capturing 100+ senior games, in which case, collating the stats by different competitions would actually help in allowing other sources. This is because Football League stats could then be inserted/checked based on Neil Brown site or Michael Joyce book, and for more recent players Soccerbase. I note I was the one who added the westhamstats ref to the article. Were there any alternative sources you used? Eldumpo (talk) 10:14, 18 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I have now changed the columns to show Lge Apps/FAC Apps/LC Apps/Other Apps/Total Apps/Total Goals. I have started moving the entries from the first column to the penultimate one, although more need to be done. Eldumpo (talk) 18:40, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Direct links to references
Further to changes outlined above I have not included a References column for the revised table. This is because westhamstats can easily be navigated to find stats on a player by name, without having the extra load time from all the references being included in the article. As only 3 names were directly referenced I thought this was reasonable, as opposed to overwriting loads of existing refs. Eldumpo (talk) 18:52, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Competition notability, ranking and flags/nationality
I thought it worth having a discussion/consideration of what competitions are deemed notable for inclusion in the stats. I assume westhamstats has been used as the basis of stats figures to date, but I have noticed that it includes appearances in tournaments that may not be regarded as notable e.g. Carlton Cole's stats include 2 Friendly appearances and these are currently included in our list. Another competition where it is more arguable that it is notable is the Tennent Caledonian Cup - see my question on this at the Manchester City talk page. Also, I note that Billy Bonds stats include the "Aberdeen Tournament", which I had not heard of before. I propose that a section be added to the article similar to that at List of Doncaster Rovers F.C. players to make it clear which competitions are to be included, and I will have a go at drafting this for the West Ham article shortly. Regards. Eldumpo (talk) 08:59, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I have now amended the intro and added an explanation section, which indicates what are regarded as notable competitions (and thus to be included in the player stats). You can see the TC Cup is not currently included. Let me know if you have any views on the competitions I've chosen. I have moved 3 of the players from the secondary list to the main list - note that I have marked with a dash any competitions that they could not have played in (as opposed to showing as "0"), as this is more accurate for the reader. Now that the list has changed from being a Top 100 I wonder if it is worthwhile keeping the rank column, as it may not be that useful to show who the #142 player is etc. Maybe an alternative would be to just rank for the top 20 or something? Finally, I have not added flags for the players I have copied over, as it is not clear what the flags are representing. You can see I have not made any of the above changes for those players who were alresady on the list. Let me know if you have any thoughts on this. Regards. Eldumpo (talk) 10:13, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Ranking top 20 good idea - beyond that can't see that anyone would find that interesting or useful. Personally I don't like flags - they confuse people between place of birth and country represented but would be OK with the idea of flags for international players if you think they are OK. As for the tournaments which count for games played - my own view is that any FL, PL or SL games + UEFA European games + FA and League cup would be about it. Aberdeen Tournament, Makita Trophy, Watneys Cup, Full Members and the awful Anglo-Italian Cup plus meaningless pre-season friendlies (now called the SBOBET Cup I believe!) would be out. Rob Greens, Noble's and Cole's figures all include friendlies at the mo. By the way, some of the stats include those for the 1939-40 season started but not finished. Any views or common ways of dealing with this season?    --Egghead06 (talk) 15:23, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
 * OK, we can proceed with only keeping ranking figures for Top 20. I'm not a fan of flags and my suggestion was based on what was already there. I think for now it would be better if the column is removed, and an International column could potentially be re-added in future. Re the list of notable competitions, I think the FMC and 1990s Anglo-Italian were fully organised Football League competitions and thus notable. Yes, the Watney was a pre-season event although it was one of the first sponsored events, so gained quite a bit of coverage e.g. Rothmans line-ups. The Texaco also got quite a bit of coverage, and you can see from the Wikipedia articles, that it's predecessors eventually became the Football League Trophy. I don't know much about the Anglo-Italian League Cup, although the west ham stats site shows a reasonable attendance. For further background you can see some other list sites that include some of these events e.g. List of Stoke City F.C. players, List of Manchester City F.C. players - not articles where I came up with the list of competitions. Any further thoughts? Eldumpo (talk) 17:30, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
 * To sum then (I think); Pre-season friendlies are out (including the Makita Trophy) but the Watneys is in. All other appearances count. Ranking 1-20 only, no flags yet but may be revisited. Players with 100 or more appearances are on the list?--Egghead06 (talk) 04:59, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

Top appearance makers by season
I think this section should be deleted from the article, as it is not included at most of these player list pages. If it was felt useful to track top appearances by season a suitable column could be added to List of West Ham United F.C. seasons. Eldumpo (talk) 17:01, 21 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Would be a shame to lose this info and think it should be somewhere. Not sure of the reasoning behind deleting it. I.e. Because other player list articles don't have it. Why don't they? Could they? Anyway think it should be put somewhere and adding another column to another list article with all the unwieldy issues with editing such lists might not be the best solution.--Egghead06 (talk) 04:21, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
 * The list is titled and introduced as a list of notable players. The season appearances section is different and effectively amounts to List of West Ham United F.C. highest appearances by season. I can see why the information should not be straight deleted. Anyway, that was my thought. Clearly no changes would be made without consensus. Eldumpo (talk) 22:25, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Southern Professional Floodlit Cup
As a follow-up to the above conversaton about competition notability, I notice that that Southern Professional Floodlit Cup (or Southern Floodlight Cup as it's referred to in most sources) is not included. Should it be? This was the forerunner to the Football League Cup and I was under the impression that it was a recognised pro/first team competition. Nzd  (talk)  13:51, 15 October 2017 (UTC)

West Ham United's England Internationals section
For this section would it be a good idea to add a column with number of England appearances for each player when they were with West Ham? So for Rio Ferdinand as an example - 81 appearances are displayed but the list doesn't reflect that only 10 of these were whilst he was at West Ham? England Football Online has all these stats and is a reliable source so I'm happy to make the updates unless anyone has a counter view ColchesterSid (talk) 10:49, 23 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Good idea. Happy to support such an addition.--Egghead06 (talk) 11:46, 23 March 2023 (UTC)