Template talk:Infobox football club/Archive 3

InfoBox Header - F.C. inclusion
I've noticed a minority of club's Infoboxes include F.C. in the Header. The template clearly states that this should be the commonly used short form of the name (i.e. Dundee United, not Dundee United F.C.) and the template's example (Arsenal) leaves off the FC.

The Addition of this F.C. or in certain case "Football club": - can clutter the header - Is unneccesary as the FC is included in the article's title, the first sentence of most articles and is elaborated upon in the "Full Name" line of the Infobox. - Goes against the template's standard style which is to simply display the common name of the club. You wouldnt say I'm going to watch Portsmouth FC versus Blackpool FC" would you? - 95% of infobox headers follow the proper format, but the ramaining 5% erroneously include it. Most of the culprits are in the Scotish and English Leagues. - Lastly - surely placing the FC/Football after the name of the club in the InfoBox header completely negates the need for the "Full name" line of the InfoBox - It would simply be displaying the same information twice within a couple of lines!

The header should follow a standard (which has already been set as stated above), but this is being disputed when I change headers to correctly fall in line with the standard. I checked out the Championship clubs and 22 of the 24 clubs ommitted the FC but when i changed the two that included FC (Blackpool and Burnley), it was unjustifiably objected to and I was told to find consensus on the matter! Certain people werent happy with this change and deny that the Standard Template has any bearing on the matter and refuse to allow me to change certain headers to ommit the FC from their common short name.

I don't know why they can't see that a) If the standard template says something and i'm follwing the rules laid out by the template and strictly speaking not doing anything wrong, that its them that needs to find consensus as they are the people that want something different to whats been stated and don't agree with my edits.

b) Its surely easier to change (ie remove the FC) from a small minority of infoBox Headers so that they follw a standard than change an overwelming majority to actually include FC in the header.

I have stated many of the reasons above as to why I have made the edits but no one has really come up with any good or decent reasons as why I shouldn't other than they dont like me making mass edits and they personally don't like the FC being removed and then proceed to continually revert my edits, so I shall leave this here for a while and see what responses I get.

Regards, Sarumio (talk) 16:28, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

With respect if you are going to accuse other editors of something, at least get your facts 100% right, rather tha stating something that is untrue. As one of the editors who regularly updates the Blackpool F.C. article I can categorically state that you were not "told to find consensus on the matter" on that article whatsoever. The only place that happened was on the footy project, where it was mentioned in general and with no direct relation to the Blackpool F.C. article. And what you call "ujustifiable objected to" was aother user who regularly edits the same article, pointing out that Blackpool is the name of the town, whereas Blackpool FC is the name of the town's football club. Ad "unjustifiably" is merely your opinion and not fact. ♦Tangerines♦ · Talk 19:17, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

As one of the several observers of recent massive unilateral editing of Football templates by Sarumio a few observations. Sorry for the length and for being a bit patronsing in places but I have tried to be fair and address each issue in turn!

One big reason why you have “noticed a minority of club's Infoboxes include F.C. in the Header” is because you seem to have made it your personal mission in life to spend idle hours religiously working through each league major and minor and attempted to remove the F.C. In innumerable cases these changes have been reversed, sometimes several times. Before you commenced on what apears to be no more than an obsessive / compulsive mission of change for the sake of it, there was yes some inconsistency o doubt but at least there was in overall terms a balance between consistency and appropriate local customisation. What has been created is frankly a mess (and an irritated bunch of editors), which will have to be sorted out.

I would not dispute that in places your crude / naive / unilateral approach to changes may have in at least a few cases, by chance rather than design, struck on the a new version of the name which is valid one maybe also in common use by the club/ supporters etc but in many others all that has been put in place of the original heading is at best, just an alternative. None of these changes as far as I can tell were made with consultation on the teams’ talk pages, nor it seems with reference to the Clubs’ official or fans websites so at worst it has left the title which is of less utility than the original.

You say 95% of info boxes contain the ‘correct’ heading (not sure how one arrives at this stat, but I’ll waste not more kbs on this point!). Having probably made most possibly up to 95%(irony!) of these changes yourself this observation may be true but I dispute the word 'correct'. You refer to the template being set as stated above. I’ve checked WikiProject Football/Clubs.

Whether this is what the consensus wants going forward is another matter which is already up for discussion on the Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Football page, however the MofS clearly includes F.C. at the moment. True the template 'here' which has Arsenal on it as an example does not. But unless as in the case of Arsenal the club name has a historical notability or colloquialism or has been appropriately discussed and customised by the regular editors, those who designed the original template must have had in mind a default position to include ‘F.C’. In other words this is not an excuse for a one person 'no FC's here' crusade!

........“Most of the culprits are in the Scottish and English Leagues”

(unusual turn of phrase!) I guess this is because most of your unilateral changes in these divisions have been reversed whilst the diversions you have made into the Welsh and Irish Leagues have been allowed to continue to date unreversed.

Reference is made to the Championship. A quick check of your contributions found that you have underestimated your own enthusiasm for changes in this League. I easily found at least 2/3 more they have changed (although since reverted once or more times). So although an interesting point not really quite as compelling an argument and if one were to look at your Division 1 or 2 changes I I guess I know why these were not mentioned, in evidence!

The only part of the contribution above I can agree with is the final paragraph. I think the answer for you lies in your own words.

…..”they dont like me making mass edits”

So true! As your approach to making edits have been against the spirit of how WP works. The place to discuss a mass change is on the project page not to unilaterally make changes, ignore other editors and treat their comments with disrespect by continually undoing their changes. I regret through your own actions you have lost all credibility, and what's worse when you don't like the answer you just go back to editing unilaterally again, not exactly how it works around here I would suggest.

…..“they personally don't like the FC being removed”

True again! “they” don’t so as there were more disagreeing with you than agreeing suspect until a new consensus is established that’s it.

It’s a real shame that you have gone about making your views about how these pages are designed by 1. making dozens and dozens ( well actually more than this) changes without consultation, 2. not adding a summary comment to their edits ( except when driven to do this), 3. responding to pleas to stop and discuss first on your user page by partial removal of constructive and critical comments and continuing to edit despite this.

However, I am pleased at last you have decided to articulate your ideas and despite being economical with the truth in places. I do congratulate you on eventually coming to your senses rather than resort to vigilantism. If there is any merit in yourr arguments then I am confident the WP community will support these, so far I am yet to be convinced any Template change is urgently required, instead let organic change happen as it is meant to evolve. Meantime all the remains is to revert all these other innapropriate changes! Tmol42 (talk) 21:00, 15 February 2008 (UTC)


 * My point of view is that the infobox header should be the same as the article name, minus any disambigation needed. Therefore, include the F.C., A.F.C. or whatever else. - fchd (talk) 13:53, 17 February 2008 (UTC)


 * For clarification
 * The parameter to which User:Sarumio refers as the infobox Header, and the one which the user has been changing, is the clubname parameter displayed above the club badge, which is described in the template documentation as "[T]he commonly-used name of the club". The template does not, as Sarumio claims in the first paragraph above, "clearly [state] that this should be the commonly used short form of the name". Struway2 (talk) 15:38, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Subsectioning this
I'd say that the Blackpool F.C. example discussed above proves the point that the FC is needed for disambiguation for a large number of clubs. If we agree that (if anyone disagrees with that, please do say so) the question is are we happy with the infoboxes being inconsisent or do we want all of them to include FC/AFC? I have an open mind. --Dweller (talk) 15:13, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Personally I think the header should be the common name of the club, which to my mind generally does not include the FC/AFC..... ChrisTheDude (talk) 15:17, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Dweller, whilst you are entitled to your opinion of course, i don't think its been "proved" that just because a club doesnt have a suffix (other than F.C. like Blackpool), doesnt mean that it needs to be disambiguated from the name of the town. This is a flawed and very weak argument to my mind. The reader of the article will be fully aware that the inormation displayed in the infobox is about the Football club of, for example, Blackpool, not the town. The article's title includes the FC, the infobox displays the full name (as well as information about a football club, not a town) and the FC is again included in the opening line of nearly all football club articles. And clubs like, for example Tottenham Hotspur certainly don;t need the FC included in the infobox header. As ChrisTheDude just stated the common short name of the club does not include the FC suffix (and its the common short name that is required here as stated in the template Manual of Style) Thats the last I'll say on it. Regards. Sarumio (talk) 15:39, 25 February 2008 (UTC)


 * As he says, assuming that the reader takes the time to properly read the article title, they will already be aware that the subject of the piece is Association football-based, so I can't see the need for the full title again in the infobox. A very strange person it is who would skip straight to an infobox to find out what they're reading about.


 * Also, if you compare Biography Infoboxes to the club variety, you will see that, in the former, the article name is not necessarily duplicated in the Infobox Header, e.g. article name Mike Riley (referee) does not call him that in the infobox header. It calls him Mike Riley. Further down, his full name is given as Michael Anthony Riley. So any disambiguation techniques should be discounted from naming conventions for infobox headers, in my opinion. After all, F.C. is only added to ensure no misunderstandings through ambiguity. Three separate components here - article name, known name, and given name.


 * And perhaps a different way of looking at it: (for example) when you say the words "Manchester United", what else would you think of - Manchester United Tramways, Manchester United Fisheries? Would you really expect to have to trot out "F.C." at the end to make your meaning understood? Ref (chew) (do) 15:42, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Well, I'm persuaded. Any good arguments for retaining the FC/F.C. in the infobox header? --Dweller (talk) 15:44, 25 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Hang on a bit. There are far too few opinions here as yet. Give it forty-eight hours, in which time any editors who feel the need may also stand back. This is important enough to warrant as substantial a consensus as can be got, to avoid it rearing its head again within a short time. Thanks. Ref (chew) (do) 15:52, 25 February 2008 (UTC)


 * I don't see why we have to have uniform usage of F.C. in the infobox (or not) across all football articles. Obviously it is important that we include it in the article name, but not in the infobox. I would say that the common names of Manchester United, Sheffield Wednesday, Preston North End etc do not include FC, however there is an argument that teams such as Blackpool FC, Barnsley FC, etc are commonly refered to with the FC, so why can't we just use the names that are most common for each club on an individual basis rather than trying to put square pegs in round holes? Dan1980 (talk | stalk) 17:59, 25 February 2008 (UTC)


 * What Dan1980 said. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 10:34, 26 February 2008 (UTC)


 * All I'm asking is that the infobox heading match the article title. Blank F.C. is the "short name" for Blank Football Club, is it not? - Dudesleeper / Talk  19:37, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Completely agree with Dudesleeper - the F.C. variant is my favourite for the header in the infobox - to match the name of the article (less any disambiguation needed for clubs of the same name). Sarumio is still removing the F.C. where he/she finds them by the way, at least two today. - fchd (talk) 19:50, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes, but Manchester United F.C. is not the short name for Manchester United as discussed above. Dan1980 (talk | stalk) 19:53, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
 * If you're implying it's the common name, then we should change Tottenham's infobox header to Spurs. As for only including F.C. in some infoboxes, that's against the spirit of consistency that we aim for in football articles. Besides, you stated above that "I would say that the common names are..." While your opinion is valued, it's not something we should base our editing on. - Dudesleeper / Talk  20:16, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Of course I'm not implying that we should put Spurs as the header in Tottenham Hotspur's infobox. The guidelines for the template state:
 * "shortname — A commonly-used abbreviated name for the club."
 * "nickname — The club's most common nickname."
 * so clearly we would have Tottenham Hotspur in the shortname field and Spurs in the nickname field.
 * As for having consistency across all football club articles, I agree that it's important for article names, but not for the short name in the infobox. After all, every club is different, so it would be impossible to have total consistency across all club articles. Dan1980 (talk | stalk) 20:30, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
 * When compared to the full "Manchester United Football Club", the F.C. variant IS the short name. Otherwise, why isn't the article actually at Manchester United ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Richard Rundle (talk • contribs)
 * How often do you hear the term "Manchester United F.C." compared to "Manchester United"? The guidelines state "A commonly-used abbreviated name for the club", which is obviously the latter phrase. Dan1980 (talk | stalk) 20:37, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I still don't think the common name/short name of the club includes FC regardless of what the club is called. You can see that the club is preceded by FC by looking at the Full name of the club where it says Blank (Association) Football Club! You dont here people say "Yeah i support Barnsley FC", they say "I support Barnsley", or "Did you see Blank FC beat Blank FC last night?". Again when they read out the classified results no club is read out with FC after its name incase people think that Man Utd were playing the entire town of Barnsley for instance, instead they say "Manchester Utd 2 Barnsley 2" for instance. The short name of any club is just those words that precede the "(Association) Football Club" tag. Sarumio (talk) 21:00, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
 * You dont here (sic) people say "Yeah i support Barnsley FC"
 * Actually you do. Quite often when a club doesn't have a second (and maybe third etc) name such as United or City their fans will refer to them as Blank F.C. rather than just using the name of the town or city where they are based. Dan1980 (talk | stalk) 21:05, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Still can't get my head around why you would ignore the article title when it comes to the infobox. Personal opinions are getting in the way of common sense. Maybe some of the above editors are looking at club logos for guidance. For example, if the next Man United logo (like the one from the 1960s and early '70s) includes F.C. or Football Club, does the infobox get changed to align with it? Seems a tad transient to me. - Dudesleeper / Talk  05:53, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
 * The article title includes FC for disambiguation purposes only. The infobox header is inside the actual article (after the title of the article (and the first line of the text) establishes that FC follows the club's name), so theres no need to re-iterate that a Football club has FC after its name! We've already gathered that much. We want the common name of the club and in almost all circumstances this will not include FC as I've made clear above. Quite where you get the idea that anyone has mentioned a club's logo is lost on me - as far as I know - you're the first one to have mentioned club logos! And you talk of common sense - to include FC in the header is practically displaying the full name of the club, which the infobox contains anyway, below the common name of the club! Displaying information twice is illogical. Sarumio (talk) 09:27, 27 February 2008 (UTC)


 * It was mentioned here actually, by Brollachan, which is why I brought it up. - Dudesleeper / Talk  17:09, 28 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Dudesleeper, I'll repeat my view from earlier to help you see why article titles don't get repeated in the infobox:
 * "'...if you compare Biography Infoboxes to the club variety, you will see that, in the former, the article name is not necessarily duplicated in the Infobox Header, e.g. article name Mike Riley (referee) does not call him that in the infobox header. It calls him Mike Riley. Further down, his full name is given as Michael Anthony Riley. So any disambiguation techniques should be discounted from naming conventions for infobox headers, in my opinion.'"
 * Thanks. Ref (chew) (do) 09:54, 27 February 2008 (UTC)


 * I wasn't aware that F.C. is a disambiguation. It was an abbreviation when I was at school. And if we're talking common sense, someone with an ounce of intelligence wouldn't put (referee) or the like in the infobox header. - Dudesleeper /  Talk  16:28, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

See Template_talk:Infobox_Football_club MickMacNee (talk) 23:24, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Discussion in the right place
Someone corrct me if wrong, but is this discussion even in the right place? I would think this page is for discussion of the template, not what you put in it? From what I've seen, this discussion has been had before on WP:FOOTBALL, as even the inclusion of dots is disputed per club names, and comes down to local usage. I suggest this is moved to wp:football for wider input. MickMacNee (talk) 20:28, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
 * To clarify, I mean discussion about what the common name of a club is, the issue of whether the header is the common name, full name, or a.n. other is of course relevant to the template. MickMacNee (talk) 20:32, 26 February 2008 (UTC)


 * We're discussing specifically the use of the header within the template. Template Talk is never reserved solely for discussion about technical application of the template. The above topic is valid here. But feel free to open it also at WP:FOOTBALL. Ref (chew) (do) 09:54, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Add Category
Category:Football (soccer) clubs established in Gnevin (talk) 21:19, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Not good to do since many articles have more text than just the year in that field. – Elisson • T • C • 11:02, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Crap, your right would need to added a yearfounded or something similar to the box Gnevin (talk) 12:33, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

What code of football ?
As this is an international encyclopedia, and there are many codes of football, shouldn't this template state what type it represents ? Association ? If it is intended to be general, then how about adding a code variable ? Pages displaying this don't seem to bother about telling readers what flavour of football the team plays, yet this sort of info is what the encyclopedia exists for, its not a fanzine. Rcbutcher (talk) 12:05, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Former names
Some clubs changed their names several times in their history, wouldn't it be better to have a field in this infobox for former names? bogdan (talk) 13:13, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I can see some merit in this, I think it would be suitable in some cases but not others. Straightforward renamings like Swansea Town -> Swansea City would be OK, but less simple cases would be better explained in full in the text, like VfB Stuttgart for example, who were formed from a merger of two clubs. Oldelpaso (talk) 18:07, 27 March 2008 (UTC)