Talk:West Ham United F.C. Under-21s and Academy

For a June 2005 deletion debate over this page see Votes for deletion/The Academy of Football

I have moved the following from the old VfD page because it's still relevant. --Mintie 22:40, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Questions: What other "The Academy of Football" is there? How many other clubs are known as "The Academy of Football"? --Unfocused 00:39, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * The most obvious club that comes to mind is Crewe Alexandra.--Skully Collins 09:37, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

As Jermain Defoe came through the Charlton Athletic academy and was purchased by West ham when he was old enough (16) in much the same way as Walcott was for Arsenal from Southampton. Isn't it a bit much to be claiming him as a product of "the academy"? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Captvimes (talk • contribs) 17:18, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Request to delete this page. It's pointless, out of date and has no relevance to football. Just West Ham United fans bigging themselves up and there academy. There are plenty more academies with better players now. Middlesbrough, Aston Villa, QPR and Arsenal to name a few. 81.207.80.75 17:38, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Merge Proposal
I propose that West Ham United F.C. Reserves and West Ham United F.C. Under-23s be merged into The Academy of Football, with the article also ideally renamed to West Ham United F.C. Under-23s and Academy or similar to reflect both aspects of its content. With due respect to the club's past, the 'Academy of Football' term has a historical significance as explained in the article but I see no reason this cannot be part of the same page as the current events surrounding West Ham's underage squads.

The Under-23 (formerly reserve) side is one team within the academy setup. The West Ham Reserves article was recently renamed from West Ham Academy and I believe before that it was West Ham Reserves and Academy but the reasons for doing so were not explained in any talk pages etc that I could find.

Other than The Academy, the articles are also fairly weak in terms of external sources and a combined article would provide a stronger basis for demonstrating their notability for being retained in the encyclopedia. Recent discussions at WP:FOOTY have indicated that reserve and/or youth team articles which are unconvincing in terms of notability or verifiability may be considered for deletion - see here (or here if archived). I don't support any blanket removal of youth/reserve articles but I think one to cover the whole system for each club would show a more credible argument for being kept.

Merging the articles would also follow the more common model used in respect of English clubs - current exceptions being Reading (1) / (2), Southampton (1) (2), Charlton (1) / (2), Spurs (1) / (2) and Arsenal (1) / (2) which will also have this merge suggestion applied. It would probably make it easier for interested editors to keep the current information updated if they are monitoring the same article rather than there being three articles containing overlapping information (WP:OVERLAP) being maintained separately.

PS I nominated one article to 'remain' and two to 'go' purely on the basis of which had existed longer. My intention was not to offend any editors by suggesting the article they created/maintain should be deleted due to being inferior to any other, just that I don't think any more than one article on this topic is necessary.Crowsus (talk) 12:38, 25 February 2017 (UTC)


 * I have also created a discussion on WP:FOOTY regarding these mergers here if anyone wants to make general points, counter-arguments etc. Thanks.Crowsus (talk) 13:41, 25 February 2017 (UTC)


 * just a heads up for politeness as I have seen WHU is one of your specialist areas. Having received no objections, I am hoping to get the mergers done in the week or two if I I have time to do it right. I will probably start with the Hammers as it is looks the most complicated. So if you have any problems with the idea or want to tidy up any of the articles pre-merge (or even do the merge itself if you want to be in control of it), please get in touch or just go ahead. Ta. Crowsus (talk) 09:26, 20 October 2017 (UTC)
 * No issue with the merges regarding West Ham, but thank you for giving me a ping. Koncorde (talk) 14:58, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

Merge now done! Crowsus (talk) 15:45, 12 November 2017 (UTC)

'Feeder club' addition
Not only is the section on 'Feeder club' unsourced, but that's not even what the term means. A feeder club provides players to a specific higher level club with either a formal agreement in place or a geographical proximity that makes such moves logical and frequent, whereas it is a 'selling club' that develops and moves them on to various higher bidders. The latter is still potentially a derogatory term when normally the lower order are the ones selling clubs and the top of the tree do the buying - West Ham supporters would historically consider theirs to be a big club so to describe them as Sellers is likely to antagonise them. But it's still not what feeder club means. However since there's no sources, I'm not changing feeder to seller either. If anyone is interested in this section remaining, please add references in the near future. Crowsus (talk) 17:00, 16 August 2018 (UTC)
 * It's been there as long as I can remember I think (hence the outdated examples, which I have just very hastily updated). To be fair, I think some of my WH books make mention of this (although I'm not sure if they use that term). I'd be OK with it being removed/moved here until I or someone else can make it into something appropriately sourced. Nzd   (talk)  17:11, 16 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Fair enough, thanks. I've find a couple of 'selling club' refs which illustrate the points, I'll add them now. Crowsus (talk) 20:38, 16 August 2018 (UTC)