User talk:League Octopus/Archive 2

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 * SPL Uudenmaan piiri (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver)
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 * SPL Itä-Suomen piiri (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver)
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 * SPL Keski-Pohjanmaan piiri (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver)
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 * SPL Satakunnan piiri (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver)
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 * SPL Tampereen piiri (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver)
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 * SPL Turun piiri (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver)
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SPL Viipurin piiri
Greetings. First of all, thanks for your great work with Finnish football in Wikipedia. An Englishman writing about Finnish football – that’s truly something! :-) Regarding SPL Viipurin piiri I’d like to correct though that the district didn’t exactly cease to exist after the wars, but rather it first relocated it’s headquarters to Lappeenranta in 1940 and then changed it’s name to Saimaan piiri in 1945. Decades later in 1994 Saimaa merged with Kymenlaakso to form the current Kaakkois-Suomen piiri. The latter two are probably best to keep as separate articles, but do you think we could cover Viipuri and Saimaa in a single article? I have the district’s 50 year (1924–1974) anniversary book Narukerästä nahkakuulaan to back this up and to use as a source. I could make the changes and also include some other interesting tidbits from the book. –Kooma (talk) 12:03, 4 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Dear Kooma.  Many thanks for your kind comments.  My apologies for the errors re SPL Viipurin piiri - I had not identified the organisation's move to Lappeenranta in 1940 and the subsequent name change to SPL Saimaan piiri.  By all means update and add content as a single article using the anniversary book.  That would be great!  The most difficult issue is how to title the revised article?  I would suggest "SPL Viipurin piiri - SPL Saimaan piiri" but I will leave that one to you.  On a personal note I would be interested to know if the Narukerästä nahkakuulaan makes reference to a football club in Terijoki.
 * Kind regards - (Finnish Gas (Finnish Gas 16:46, 4 January 2012 (UTC))).


 * No worries, I’m from the region and didn’t know much about the phases of the district until I spotted this book in an antiquarian bookshop. There’s also a book about the Kymenlaakso district, but that I haven’t found yet. Unfortunately the districts don’t seem to be very big on documenting the history on their websites... Anyway, I was thinking of titling the article ”SPL Saimaan piiri” as that was the name for most of the district’s history. IMO it’s simiral to a club changing it’s name as the districts are organized under what we call a rekisteröity yhdistys.


 * Regarding Terijoki. The book has a year-by-year list of member clubs, and it mentions a club called Kuokkalan Rajaveikot (alternatively Raja-Veikot, ”Border Fellows” or something along those lines in English) joining in 1933. Kuokkala, nowadays known as Repino, was a village and a train station in the municipality of Terijoki. The only mention of the club that I can find in the history section of the book is from 1936. Maakuntasarja (3rd tier) started that year, and the Kuokkala club took part in some kind of a qualification tournament before the actual series. They finished in top two of their section which also included Viipurin Ilves and Viipurin Pallokerho, then won Lappeenrannan Urheilu-Miehet from the other section, but were finally dropped from the competition in another match against Ilves (this Ilves, btw, nowadays operates in Tampere as Ilves-Kissat).


 * I suppose the list of clubs would have some historical value, so I’ll include it in the article as well. I won’t have time to edit the article tonight, but I’ll see to it tomorrow. –Kooma (talk) 20:03, 4 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks Kooma. I look forward to seeing your new content. Additions to the club list are also very interesting in a historical context - stored in Wikipedia for posterity hopefully!  I had identified "Rajaveikot (Kuokkala)" from the www.jukkajoutsi.com website but did not establish that the club came from Terijoki.  I am trying to put all the old available league tables in Wikipedia including the Maakuntasarja (3rd tier) - it is a big project and will take me a long time.   In the future if there is enough interest I may start a Finnish football task force - similar to the Swedish football task force - time will tell.
 * Kind regards - Finnish Gas (Finnish Gas 20:29, 4 January 2012 (UTC)).


 * Hi again, and apologies as I almost forgot about this. The improved SPL Saimaan piiri article is now up. There's still a lot to be expanded and it tends to lean on the more succesful Vyborg days, but it's a start. The grammar probably sucks so feel free to correct it. :-) Meanwhile, I found a book about the sports of the ”ceded Karelia” (by Arponen, see the Saimaa references) which has a small section about the SPL Karjalan piiri. I'll be expanding that article as well, hopefully in a more timely fashion.


 * Back to Terijoki, I also found out that a club called Terijoen Urheilijat used to play football among other sports. Here’s an old newspaper which mentions (page 8) that in the late 1920s it was one of the leading clubs of the district in football and even managed to beat Sudet. Not sure which district that refers though as the 50 year anniversary book of the FA’s Viipuri / Saimaa district has no recollection of the club. On page 9 of the newspaper there’s a photo of the Terijoen Urheilijat team. Also, on page 8 there’s a photo of ”Terijoen sk:n jalkapallojoukkue”, a White Guard team apparently, which competed in some military competitions. –Kooma (talk) 17:50, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

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 * 2003 Kakkonen - Finnish League Division 2 (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver)
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The new navbox
Great job man, the new solution is much better as it makes it easier to navigate even when it doesn't take up much space. Keep it up. --Reckless182 (talk) 11:44, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Finnish Football
Hi,

and many thanks for your message.

Off hand I can just say the following:

Finnish Cup and Finnish League Cup are in my opinion perfectly good names for articles in English. Adding any Finnish will not make the subject matter any clearer to anyone, so I would urge you to stick to these names, which I believe are the ones that have been in use in Wikipedia.

The various “leagues”, however, are an entirely different matter. I do share your view that the Finnish name of a particular “sarja” (‘series’, literally), as we call them in Finnish (not “liiga” ‘league’), is not appropriate in English, because it doesn’t give anyone outside our language area any kind of clue as to what is in the article, not even that is about some sports, let alone football.

I might argue for some kind of hybrid names, but it is difficult to say off hand what they should be. That might depend on the history of the Finnish football system, and I’m not the expert on that. I may be that the structure and most of the league names have been constant since whenever, but I can’t be sure about that.

You may be aware of the match fixing scandal in Finland, which was again in the papers today, I think. It might have a bearing on these questions (see below).

“Veikkaus” means some sort of betting (“minä veikkaan” should more appropriately be translated as ‘I surmise’ or ‘I think (this (whatever) will happen)’, but it came to mean also predicting match results in the system that is run by Veikkaus), and I have thought for quite some time that “Veikkausliiga” as the title of a Wikipedia article is not appropriate, at least on the following grounds:


 * We are not an advertising bureau or agency, and we should not be promoting a company (such as Veikkaus) that sponsors a particular league. I think this is the case with e.g. The Championship and the Football Conference in England, and also the League Cup.
 * Regardless of the fact whether the top flight has been called “Mestaruussarja” or “SM-sarja” or “Futisliiga” or “Veikkausliiga”, what has been settled in it is the Finnish championship, and since whenever, who had the right to participate in the European Cup. The change from “SM-sarja” to “Futisliiga” appears not have been as dramatic as what you had in England, and thus in my opinion a total change in the names of Wikipedia articles is not very well grounded.
 * Sponsorships change, and if I remember correctly, Veikkaus was at least considering withdrawing from the sponsorship relation with the league, due to our match fixing scandal. I don’t know the latest on that, however. So it is possible that the same organisation will continue with a different name, but Wikipedia articles on the same thing should optimally always have the same name.

I took a look at the Finnish football league system, and the English names would seem quite appropriate to me. (I mean the ones that appear in the article, not what is in the code left of the symbol |.

Looking at that article, my initial proposal would be the following:

{|
 * valign="top" width=0%|

But as I said, I don’t really know much of anything about things in the more distant history, such as having to do with Maakuntasarja (‘Provincial series’ or (‘Provincial league’)

I do go to the Finnish Sports Museum from time to time, and we even have a bit of cooperation, I mean I’ve helped them out a bit, but mostly it’s them that help me, such as compiling Mixu’s statistics, which I did. But I’m off to warmer continents soon, and I won’t have a chance to go there until late May or early June. But it might be possible for me to bring this exchange of ideas to the attention of their football expert. But even so, I probably won’t get any feedback from them until I’m back in this country. But I do think that they would not be indifferent about what is in Wikipedia on Finnish sports. (Actually, I know this for a fact from my encounters with them. Of course, they are doing original research, which is a priority over things such as Wikipedia.)

Anyway, while I’m at it, could I ask for your opinion on the things that I’ve done in Wikipedia on English football? I’ve had some complaints, but I tend to think that most people might not have the same difficulties with the articles I’ve edited. I think the most relevant criticism is that the tables are too wide and the maps tend to cover some of the tables. Some of my critics say that I’ve introduced errors, but I think they fail to distinguish between the following two things:


 * Error in fact
 * Fault in design

The fact that these people cannot view all the contents that are coded into the page, in my opinion, does not constitute an error in fact. Rather it is a reflection of the fact that their hardware is not optimal to the contents that are presented in the code. But this is, in my opinion, just an unfortunate coincidence, and you can’t please all the people all the time. Especially if you’re thinking about people with 11" screens (I know someone who thought that was just optimal for his purposes), or iPhones. You just cannot think that everything will work perfectly when you insist on having a small screen for all of your purposes.

I’ve tried to address the concerns of one person, in that I moved the maps to the end of the article.


 * 1969–70 Football League

I thought I’d do similar changes, but adding a “Stadia and locations” section. I began with the first season of the league, but I wanted to turn the table into a template, which I did save in Wikipedia, but I could not figure out how to add the necessary and relevant category, so I haven’t actually implemented the changes to this article yet. Perhaps you might be able to help me?

If you look at the article 1921–22 Football League, somebody turned the tables into templates, which I think is a very welcome development, and I would like apply this to other articles as well, but I have this one problem I don’t seem to be able to solve.

Anyway, changing all the 100 or so articles, i.e. putting the maps last, is quite a job, and I don’t really have much time to devote to this work. I’ve recently been doing topscorers listings, and this is also quite a big job. The one listing I put into the 1969–70 Football League contains more than 1,000 pieces of information. And this will be repeated for all subsequent seasons that don’t have these statistics.

By the way, I just looked at Mikkelin Kissat. How much of the Finnish language do you know? I’m not doubting your abilities, just curious about how much Finnish stuff you might be able to incorporate into English Wikipedia.

Yours sincerely, Apanuggpak (talk) 23:02, 23 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Many thanks for your detailed and prompt response. I will add the Finnish content of your message to the  Talk Page of the WikiProject Football/Finland task force article.  This will enable others to also enjoy your informed comments.  I really like your initial proposals.  However, I do have some concerns about the use of brackets in titles but note that Article titles allows brackets in certain circumstances - to avoid duplicate titles.  At the moment I will give others the opportunity to participate in the debate.


 * I certainly have had quiet reservations about the Veikkaus element of Veikkausliiga - for a number of years in the late 1970s I received the weekly betting paper Veikkaus Lotto (when it was very cheap)!


 * My big Finnish football project is to provide comprehensive coverage of league tables of the top 3 or 4 tiers back to 1930. I have copies of the Jalkapallokirja back to 1975 (1974 tables).  The big gap in coverage is that the last III divisioona tables appeared in the 1995 publication (1994 tables).  They appear again next as Kolmonen on the internet in 2000 but coverage was patchy.  There is the void in coverage for 1995-99. Would the Finnish Sports Museum have this type of information?  My proposed starting point is to visit the Finnish Football Association offices this summer.


 * You have a big problem sorting out a suitable format for the English Football League seasons. It is a shame when the tables are too wide and the maps cover some of the tables. To come up with a suitable solution for somebody using a 11" screen or iPhone seems an impossible task.  For a rule of thumb response - I dislike maps at the end of an article as in 1969–70 Football League - they look brilliant when they sit near the league table as in 1921–22 Football League.  My solution would be to shrink the Results Matrix to make room for the map.  I do not think that many people really look at the Results Matrix and they tend to be a statistical nicety.


 * Just a thought - has the use of drop down boxes been considered? If there is a "techy solution" it could overcome some of the layout problems which currently exist.


 * My main gripe if I was pushed is the lack of an info box in the top right hand corner - this would greatly assist navigation and use.


 * Some great work has been undertaken and I do not really like making criticisms.


 * My Finnish is very limited - but there is a common language in formatting brief football pages. I would like to ensure that every Finnish club down to Nelonen (and lower if they have entered the Finnish Cup) have their own short Wikipedia page.  I propose to use the same format that I have used in Sweden where I have prepared or reformatted in the region of 800 pages - Category:Football clubs in Sweden and Category:Seasons in Swedish football competitions.  I cannot speak any Swedish!!


 * Pyhäinhäväistys has made a lot of additions to the Mikkelin Kissat article. My Finland project will probably take a number of years.


 * One final point - I have set up the WikiProject Football/Finland task force to try to encourage good practice. For the Group to be viable it needs to have 3 or 4 members to start with.  Is it possible for me to add your name to the participants.  I just need a bit of advice now and again.


 * Kind regards (Finnish Gas (Finnish Gas 12:28, 24 February 2012 (UTC)).


 * Hi,


 * I’m very pleased to receive another message from you and to see that there is at least someone out there who seems to appreciate my efforts concerning English football.


 * I think I have a few thoughts to add now. First of all my proposals. You’re correct about the brackets (I grew up used to the term “parentheses”), and as you can guess, I’ve come across a fair number of those. For example in the name of one of the topscorers in the infobox of the 1969–70 Football League article, some Jones I think it was. But the main thing is that there should be some graphic element between the English bit in the title and the Finnish bit. For example as in below:




 * valign="top" width=0%|

Or perhaps you can come up with some other symbol or string of symbols or characters or whatever. Just something that visually separates the two languages there.

I wondered for a while what you meant when you said that these decisions have a bearing on articles I have contributed to, but then it dawned upon me that you must have meant the articles on Jari, Sami and Mixu (I think there are no more than these three). What I thought is that it would be important, and certainly handy, if what the reader sees in the statistics is things like Kolmonen. The code behind the link could have the real name to the left of the character “|”, and Kolmonen to the right of it. This way the wikitables would remain manageable, and even if English speakers would not readily understand this, it would be a non-ambiguous way of presenting this info to the readers, and they would find out what it means by clicking on the link and going to the article in question. I would say that I would strongly recommend adopting a practice like this.

One thing to understand is that the word “sarja” literally means a series, such as in the Summit Series in ice hockey. Only the winners of the Mestaruussarja type of sarjas (remember,  is pronounced as [y]) were ever champions in Finland. If you played in some lower kind of sarja, and you won it, you were just winners, but not champions. This is something that Mixu had to explain to us when he guided Cowdenbeath to the championship of the Scottish Third Division. So if it is the case that in the British Isles the word “league” always goes together with the idea that the winners are champions, then in my opinion one should not use the word “league” when you are talking about pre-Veikkausliiga (or actually pre-Futisliiga) sarja-type of competitions. I don’t know if this has some bearing on what you are doing (possibly it will have), but this is an interesting bit of British/Irish football culture that was introduced to us only rather recently. But I won’t be able to tell you whether the winner of, say Kolmonen, will call themselves champions these days. I have some doubts about that.

Now that I’m looking at your user page and your description of the tasks you have taken upon yourself (which is quite impressive), I think this pondering about the words “league” and “sarja” might be of interest to you.

Anyway, as I mentioned I’ve done some cooperation with some very knowledgeable people over here: Vesa Tikander of the Museum, and Markku Kasila, who is the statistics wizard over here. (Even Vesa relies on him, and he is, of course, one of the compilers of the book Pelimiehet. He lives in Valkeakoski, which seems to be a familiar name (and place) to you. (My grandma was from Sääksmäki, the “parent parish” of Valkeakoski, and I’ve always had a soft spot for FC Haka because of that.) These two people would certainly have good ideas about naming the various divisions or whatnot in Finnish football. I might be able to engage them and get some input from them over e-mail, even from the southern hemisphere (provided I remember to take their contact info with me). I’m inclined to believe that they would have access to the sarja tables you are missing. I suspect that they would even be printed in the magazine Veikkaaja. Although I’m not familiar with its history, I must say. And I don’t know if much betting (I mean veikkaaminen — surmising (?)) has been going on with regard to Kolmonen.

So if you’re coming over, I think the Museum would be your first priority. They have a photocopying machine which also does TIFF or PDF documents and sends then to you chosen e-mail address. I’ve used that quite a bit, and I’m afraid I’ve ruined one of their Rothmans books doing so. You might also try to get into contact with Markku Kasila.

Then if I move over to my own “work”. I understood that you would have feelings of regret if the infoboxes were done away with (which is something that a milder critic of mine suggested as a possibility. But in my experience this does not seem to be a problem as they never cover any of the tables or result grids. This had lead me to think that there is some fundamental difference between the infobox and map templates. Perhaps a solution could be to change the template of the map so that it would never go over any other content, but that it would truly “float right”, as it should be doing.

I’m afraid I don’t have any idea of what “drop boxes” are and how they work.

I personally feel that the expanded tables are interesting and worthwhile. As I remember from the 70s and 80s, this is how the tables were presented even in Helsingin Sanomat, Ilta-Sanomat and the like, so that those who were making bets would be informed about the performances of the various teams home and away. I keep all the articles as Word documents on my computer, just in case some nutball decides to delete my work… And if that ever happened, I thought I’d create articles entitled 1969–70 Football League full statistics and so on.

I think I told one of my critics that there are always articles like 1969–70 in English football, where they will find concise tables that should be possible to view with less difficulties. But I have the feeling that they are not happy with this suggestion.

Have you ever considered doing expanded tables for the Finnish seasons? I think you might have to calculate things yourself to a large extent, unless Veikkaus Lotto has them. (Did you hang on to your copies?)

Do you have an idea yet when you might be visiting Finland next summer? Are you familiar with the fact that half the country is on vacation after Juhannus (‘Midsummer’ — literally St. John’s Day). I should be more or less here for the first half of what we call summer, that is, until mid-July. If you come during the first half of our summer, perhaps we might be able to meet each other? Do you have many friends or acquaintances in Finland?

And yes, I suppose you could add me to the Finland task force, although I probably won’t be able to do anything very substantial. But I might be able to help here and there, especially in matters of translation, even from the southern hemisphere, I think, though only occasionally.

Incidentally, do you know what pyhäinhäväistys means — ‘sarcilege’. Our people have some pretty funny names in Wikipedia, like Soppakanuuna ‘soup cannon’. My name is actually a name that the Yup'ik people gave me in Alaska.

Yours sincerely, Apanuggpak (talk) 21:47, 24 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Hi again. My apologies for the delay in replying - my Wikipedia work loses out at weekends to football and domestic commitments. I will be in contact again next week.  Kind regards  (Finnish Gas (Finnish Gas 11:24, 26 February 2012 (UTC)).


 * Hi again. Just a short reply this time as I have done very little Wikipedia work on articles over the last few days and have loss that current sense of achievement.


 * Again I like your proposals "1938 Finnish Division 3 — Maakuntasarja" etc but am concerned how they relate to Naming conventions (use English) and Article titles. It is an issue that needs to be addressed quickly by our WikiProject Football/Finland task force.  I think that we possibly might make a case that Finland is a special case as most people would have little understanding of page titles like Maakuntasarja, Ykkönen etc. and therefore the incorpation of English within the title can be justified.  There is also the issue of categorisation as if "Finnish" comes in the title after the year all the Finnish articles should sit together in the category listings.  By the way thanks for the tip about not using the word "League" for divisions below the Mestaruussarja.


 * My sincere appreciation for the details and contacts at the Finnish Sports Museum. I have now looked at their website and can see Jalkapallokirja catalogued year on year.  I will visit there in late July / early August. Thanks!  I also hope that they have copies of the Finnish District Football Associations anniversary publications.  I do not know the book Pelimiehet and will look up that one with interest.


 * Re English football - for me info boxes are a core requirement and should be included on every page - even if it is just a small box that enables one to navigate from one year to the next. It would be nice to see a solution where the template of the map could never obliterate existing content. I do not like expanded tables personally although I accept their statictical requirements.
 * Hi,


 * I’m very pleased to receive another message from you and to see that there is at least someone out there who seems to appreciate my efforts concerning English football.


 * I think I have a few thoughts to add now. First of all my proposals. You’re correct about the brackets (I grew up used to the term “parentheses”), and as you can guess, I’ve come across a fair number of those. For example in the name of one of the topscorers in the infobox of the 1969–70 Football League article, some Jones I think it was. But the main thing is that there should be some graphic element between the English bit in the title and the Finnish bit. For example as in below:




 * valign="top" width=0%|

Or perhaps you can come up with some other symbol or string of symbols or characters or whatever. Just something that visually separates the two languages there.

I wondered for a while what you meant when you said that these decisions have a bearing on articles I have contributed to, but then it dawned upon me that you must have meant the articles on Jari, Sami and Mixu (I think there are no more than these three). What I thought is that it would be important, and certainly handy, if what the reader sees in the statistics is things like Kolmonen. The code behind the link could have the real name to the left of the character “|”, and Kolmonen to the right of it. This way the wikitables would remain manageable, and even if English speakers would not readily understand this, it would be a non-ambiguous way of presenting this info to the readers, and they would find out what it means by clicking on the link and going to the article in question. I would say that I would strongly recommend adopting a practice like this.

One thing to understand is that the word “sarja” literally means a series, such as in the Summit Series in ice hockey. Only the winners of the Mestaruussarja type of sarjas (remember,  is pronounced as [y]) were ever champions in Finland. If you played in some lower kind of sarja, and you won it, you were just winners, but not champions. This is something that Mixu had to explain to us when he guided Cowdenbeath to the championship of the Scottish Third Division. So if it is the case that in the British Isles the word “league” always goes together with the idea that the winners are champions, then in my opinion one should not use the word “league” when you are talking about pre-Veikkausliiga (or actually pre-Futisliiga) sarja-type of competitions. I don’t know if this has some bearing on what you are doing (possibly it will have), but this is an interesting bit of British/Irish football culture that was introduced to us only rather recently. But I won’t be able to tell you whether the winner of, say Kolmonen, will call themselves champions these days. I have some doubts about that.

Now that I’m looking at your user page and your description of the tasks you have taken upon yourself (which is quite impressive), I think this pondering about the words “league” and “sarja” might be of interest to you.

Anyway, as I mentioned I’ve done some cooperation with some very knowledgeable people over here: Vesa Tikander of the Museum, and Markku Kasila, who is the statistics wizard over here. (Even Vesa relies on him, and he is, of course, one of the compilers of the book Pelimiehet. He lives in Valkeakoski, which seems to be a familiar name (and place) to you. (My grandma was from Sääksmäki, the “parent parish” of Valkeakoski, and I’ve always had a soft spot for FC Haka because of that.) These two people would certainly have good ideas about naming the various divisions or whatnot in Finnish football. I might be able to engage them and get some input from them over e-mail, even from the southern hemisphere (provided I remember to take their contact info with me). I’m inclined to believe that they would have access to the sarja tables you are missing. I suspect that they would even be printed in the magazine Veikkaaja. Although I’m not familiar with its history, I must say. And I don’t know if much betting (I mean veikkaaminen — surmising (?)) has been going on with regard to Kolmonen.

So if you’re coming over, I think the Museum would be your first priority. They have a photocopying machine which also does TIFF or PDF documents and sends then to you chosen e-mail address. I’ve used that quite a bit, and I’m afraid I’ve ruined one of their Rothmans books doing so. You might also try to get into contact with Markku Kasila.

Then if I move over to my own “work”. I understood that you would have feelings of regret if the infoboxes were done away with (which is something that a milder critic of mine suggested as a possibility. But in my experience this does not seem to be a problem as they never cover any of the tables or result grids. This had lead me to think that there is some fundamental difference between the infobox and map templates. Perhaps a solution could be to change the template of the map so that it would never go over any other content, but that it would truly “float right”, as it should be doing.

I’m afraid I don’t have any idea of what “drop boxes” are and how they work.

I personally feel that the expanded tables are interesting and worthwhile. As I remember from the 70s and 80s, this is how the tables were presented even in Helsingin Sanomat, Ilta-Sanomat and the like, so that those who were making bets would be informed about the performances of the various teams home and away. I keep all the articles as Word documents on my computer, just in case some nutball decides to delete my work… And if that ever happened, I thought I’d create articles entitled 1969–70 Football League full statistics and so on.

I think I told one of my critics that there are always articles like 1969–70 in English football, where they will find concise tables that should be possible to view with less difficulties. But I have the feeling that they are not happy with this suggestion.

Have you ever considered doing expanded tables for the Finnish seasons? I think you might have to calculate things yourself to a large extent, unless Veikkaus Lotto has them. (Did you hang on to your copies?)

Do you have an idea yet when you might be visiting Finland next summer? Are you familiar with the fact that half the country is on vacation after Juhannus (‘Midsummer’ — literally St. John’s Day). I should be more or less here for the first half of what we call summer, that is, until mid-July. If you come during the first half of our summer, perhaps we might be able to meet each other? Do you have many friends or acquaintances in Finland?

And yes, I suppose you could add me to the Finland task force, although I probably won’t be able to do anything very substantial. But I might be able to help here and there, especially in matters of translation, even from the southern hemisphere, I think, though only occasionally.

Incidentally, do you know what pyhäinhäväistys means — ‘sarcilege’. Our people have some pretty funny names in Wikipedia, like Soppakanuuna ‘soup cannon’. My name is actually a name that the Yup'ik people gave me in Alaska.

Yours sincerely, Apanuggpak (talk) 21:47, 24 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Hi again. My apologies for the delay in replying - my Wikipedia work loses out at weekends to football and domestic commitments. I will be in contact again next week.  Kind regards  (Finnish Gas (Finnish Gas 11:24, 26 February 2012 (UTC)).


 * Hi again. Just a short reply this time as I have done very little Wikipedia work on articles over the last few days and have loss that current sense of achievement.


 * Again I like your proposals "1938 Finnish Division 3 — Maakuntasarja" etc but am concerned how they relate to Naming conventions (use English) and Article titles. It is an issue that needs to be addressed quickly by our WikiProject Football/Finland task force.  I think that we possibly might make a case that Finland is a special case as most people would have little understanding of page titles like Maakuntasarja, Ykkönen etc. and therefore the incorpation of English within the title can be justified.  There is also the issue of categorisation as if "Finnish" comes in the title after the year all the Finnish articles should sit together in the category listings.  By the way thanks for the tip about not using the word "League" for divisions below the Mestaruussarja.


 * My sincere appreciation for the details and contacts at the Finnish Sports Museum. I have now looked at their website and can see Jalkapallokirja catalogued year on year.  I will visit there in late July / early August. Thanks!  I also hope that they have copies of the Finnish District Football Associations anniversary publications.  I do not know the book Pelimiehet and will look up that one with interest.  I threw away my old copies of Veikkaus Lotto years ago!


 * Re English football - for me info boxes are a core requirement and should be included on every page - even if it is just a small box that enables one to navigate from one year to the next. It would be nice to see a solution where the template of the map could never obliterate existing content. I do not like expanded tables personally although I accept their statictical requirements.


 * At the moment I am emboiled on discussions on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Football. Thanks for letting me add you to the WikiProject Football/Finland task force - it is much appreciated. Kind regards - (Finnish Gas (Finnish Gas 15:20, 27 February 2012 (UTC)).


 * Hi, I’ve just found you an ideal person to discuss the problem of naming these articles (unless you’ve already resolved the matter). And I found him in Maputo of all places. His name is Partick Lees, and his half English (father) and half Finnish (mother), and you can say that both are his mother tongues. And he plays football, in Kolmonen. He’s right now on a plane bound to Lisboa and on to Helsinki, and perhaps in a few days he might have recovered from the flights. The first practice session on Sunday. You could find him in Facebook, I think. His current profile picture is from some beach in Mozambique. Let me know if you can’t find him. Apanuggpak (talk) 00:02, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

List of Malmö FF seasons FLC
One of my lists is on FLC, would you mind to take a look and see if you have any feedback? There have only been a few other editors expressing their opinions. Thanks! --Reckless182 (talk) 11:59, 25 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Hi again. My apologies for the delay in replying - my Wikipedia work loses out at weekends to football and domestic commitments. The List of Malmö FF seasons looks very professional in its presentation - well done again!  There is only one area that might be addressed and that is to reduce the extent of "white space" in the Key section.  This might be covered by the inclusion of a photo in the bottom left hand corner of the section (say of a historic trophy presentation).  Alternatively the layout itself might be changed to reduce the "white space" in the Key.


 * There is plenty of work to undertake in the Malmö FF seasons themselves - that should keep you going to old age!


 * NB: Thanks for the addition to navbox. Kind regards (Finnish Gas (Finnish Gas 11:19, 26 February 2012 (UTC)).
 * Thanks for your feedback! --Reckless182</b> <b style="color:white; background:#6A9AFC">(talk)</b></b> 15:58, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

The Navbox
Just a tip, your navbox, among others, is being discussed at WP:Project Football. --<b style="color:white; background:#6A9AFC"><b style="color:white; background:#6A9AFC">Reckless182</b> <b style="color:white; background:#6A9AFC">(talk)</b></b> 22:32, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I have responded. (Finnish Gas (Finnish Gas 10:17, 27 February 2012 (UTC)).

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Guernsey Rovers A.C.
Thank you for your message at my talk page about the deletion of Guernsey Rovers A.C.. When you want to contest a proposed deletion the first step is to remove the tag from the page. I have set up the AfD, which you can see below. Regards - Cloudz 679 09:56, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Nomination of Guernsey Rovers A.C. for deletion
A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Guernsey Rovers A.C. is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Articles for deletion/Guernsey Rovers A.C. until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on good quality evidence, and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion template from the top of the article. Cloudz 679 09:56, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Suomen Palloliitto Archive - www.urheilumuseo.fi
Hei Finnish Gas. Here is very good link to you.... http://www.urheilumuseo.fi/Default.aspx?tabid=2987

write to box 'Nimi:' Palloliitto and push 'Hae' Then you get the list. Push '57 kpl' and you get stories of SPL from 1907 to 1975... from 1940's there can find all tables of finnish football. All text is ofcourse in finnish or swedish. (Vessix (talk) 09:41, 13 March 2012 (UTC))


 * How strange! I discovered this Arkiston "SUOMEN PALLOLIITTO SPL" tiedostot 5 minutes ago and then get your message.  I stumbled across one of the pages in the archive yesterday and knew there must be an index.  Many thanks for your thoughtful message. (Finnish Gas (Finnish Gas 09:50, 13 March 2012 (UTC)).


 * Good! I've used those pages sometimes, made articles of Suomen Cup 1955-1960 to finnish wikipedia and added matches to mestaruussarja -articles. Some early 1930's matches still missing. In 'toimintakertomus' there is also lst of all clubs in Palloliitto and every 'piiri'(county) in it. Interesting detail: Viipurin Reipas moved to Lahti 1940's when USSR roped Viipuri (criminal act). It still stay Viipurin Reipas to 1962, when they renamed it simple Reipas (,Lahti). Viipurin Reipas is still alive, but it's only sport is gymnastic. Usually finnish sportclubs are multi-sport clubs.(Vessix (talk) 10:04, 13 March 2012 (UTC))


 * Be sure to copy any of my work over to Finnish Wikipedia if it is useful. We will eventually have all the Suomen Cup results from 2001-2012 on English Wikipedia as I have managed to find them in a digital form using other sources - they could easily be copied over to Finnish Wikipedia where you have gaps in coverage.  Eventually (and it will take a long time!) I would like to have full coverage of the top 4/5 league tiers going back to the late 1940s.  The problem area is the period 1995-1999 when I have no available Kolmonen sources and 1987-99 when there is no Nelonen/IV divisioona tables.  Any suggestions? I suppose the only real option is to contact the individual "piiri". Re SPL Viipuri have you seen the SPL Saimaan piiri article - at least we can still document Viipuri for future generations. (Finnish Gas (Finnish Gas 11:06, 13 March 2012 (UTC)).


 * Something about differents between Sarja (serie) and League (Liiga) in Finland. In football earlier SPL (Suomen Palloliitto) was the organisation, that organized Mestaruussarja (Championship serie). The League (current Veikkausliiga) is the independent organisation. Same is in many other sports. In Icehockey played Mestaruussarja until 1976, when the top level taked name SM-Liiga. Current 2nd level in icehockey is Mestis and it officialy means Mestaruussarja (Championship of Finnish Icehockey federation). The League is independent system. Winner of the League is champion of Finland.
 * More: There was two federations who played their own Mestaruussarja in football: Palloliitto and Työväen Urheiluiitto (Finnish Workers' Sports Federation). 1946 champions of both federtion played the final matches for Finnish champion. 1947 two best teams from each federations played in pool. 1948 best 8 each federation goes to Mestaruussarja. In 1920's and 1930's SPL and TUL didn't play interfederation games. There is political reasons since the Finnish civil war 1918.
 * Here is stories of TUL: http://www.urheilumuseo.fi/Desktopmodules/etaika_arkistot_extra/tiedostot.aspx?ID=2818 (Vessix (talk) 12:23, 13 March 2012 (UTC))


 * Thanks. (Finnish Gas (Finnish Gas 12:34, 13 March 2012 (UTC)).


 * List of TUL champions is in TUL Cup (Vessix (talk) 12:48, 13 March 2012 (UTC))


 * I will prepare the TUL article in English WP in the next day or so. (Finnish Gas (Finnish Gas 12:57, 13 March 2012 (UTC)).


 * Remember that TUL is multi-sport organisation, not only football. (Vessix (talk) 13:04, 13 March 2012 (UTC))

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Off-wiki canvassing
I hope you don't mind me putting two and two together, but as very similar language was used, it looks like you may have posted this on the Tony Kempster website. This is a violation of WP:CANVASS and is generally regarded as very poor practice. Apologies if it is not you, but as I said, similar wording was used. Number  5  7  14:58, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

Bristol and Avon League
Hello. In response to Cloudz' valid comment at the AfD, I rephrased the sentences that were copyvio of the BEP source. Your recent edits have put them back in... cheers, Struway2 (talk) 09:21, 30 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Sorry! I will sort out. League Octopus (League Octopus 09:25, 30 March 2012 (UTC))

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Re: 2010–11 Primera Catalana
I must admit, I'm a little confused as to why you're bringing this to me since I previously had nothing to do with this article. If your looking for more detail on the delete rationale, I refer you to the user who proposed the article deletion. To contest the PROD (wikislang for propsed deletion), simply remove the following text from the top of the article and explain your reason for doing so in your edit summary or on the article's talk page:

However I strongly suggest you consult Socce-holic before you do so. Otherwise, he will probably just resort to a different deletion process.

Hope that helps.

Sir Sputnik (talk) 02:10, 17 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks for your helpful response. League Octopus (League Octopus 08:33, 17 May 2012 (UTC)).