Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/John Charlton (footballer)


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep. ✗ plicit  12:44, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

John Charlton (footballer)

 * – ( View AfD View log )

Apparently non-notable footballer, per the absence of WP:GNG compliant sources cited in the article, and per the failure of my own search for sources.

While the individual does meet WP:NFOOT #2 due to their career with Liverpool, WP:NSPORT states "meeting of any of these criteria does not mean that an article must be kept", and I believe this is an example of a case where we should decline to keep the article.

The individual played in just three games for Liverpool in 1932, where coverage of the sport was considerably less expansive than it is today. They also played for the less prominent, but also professional, teams Bradford City and Derry City, but I haven't been able to find a separate record of them playing for those teams, let alone the number of games they played.

The upshot of this is that we have no independent or significant coverage of this player, and in its absence I do not believe we should - or can - have an article on them. BilledMammal (talk) 07:43, 5 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Football-related deletion discussions. BilledMammal (talk) 07:43, 5 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of England-related deletion discussions. BilledMammal (talk) 07:43, 5 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Sportspeople-related deletion discussions. Eastmain (talk • contribs) 07:52, 5 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in WikiProject Football's list of association football-related deletions. Spiderone (Talk to Spider) 09:25, 5 September 2021 (UTC)


 * Keep - meets WP:NFOOTBALL; needs improving, not deleting. I have a book about Bradford City somewhere, will dig it out when I can and expand (moved house, it's in a box somewhere). GiantSnowman 10:38, 5 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep Agree with GiantSnowman. Article meets criteria for inclusion and should be improved not deleted. NapHit (talk) 15:54, 5 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep - meets NFOOTBALL. Shouldn't have a problem finding coverage if one could access media from age. Nfitz (talk) 21:37, 5 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Comment - for those saying it can be improved, perhaps I wasn't sufficiently clear in my nomination. I don't believe that there is information available that will allow it to be improved, as my WP:BEFORE search, including of newspaper archives, turned up nothing. I suppose what I am trying to say is that for those !voting Keep, perhaps it would be prudent to attempt to prove this information exists, rather than assuming it? If it can be proven to exist, I would happily withdraw my nomination. BilledMammal (talk) 21:49, 5 September 2021 (UTC)
 * lean towards keep Nominator should understand footballers from the 1930s, well the main balk of sources at that time was against European politics and the on-set of WW2 in which a lot of information was destroyed in bombings/fires about these sort of things across all of Europe and the UK. Also a lot survived and another thing, pre-internet, what makes you assume sources for him are online did you even consider multiple off-line sources? I understand the delete argument, but I completely disagree with the rationale. Govvy (talk) 09:13, 6 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I did consider offline sources. Fortunately, digitization has been proceeding at an excellent pace in recent years, and so I searched newspaper archives for a reference to him, but to no avail. It is possible that coverage of him exists, but I believe my WP:BEFORE search has been sufficiently thorough that we need to demonstrate they exist, rather than assuming it. BilledMammal (talk) 10:12, 6 September 2021 (UTC)
 * One thing is certain, in-depth press profiles on individual sportspeople was more rare and less prevalent then, than it is today. Geschichte (talk) 11:07, 6 September 2021 (UTC)
 * There is a mention on page 7 of the May 5, 1934 Londonderry Sentinel that Derry City had retained him - but I don't have enough access to the British Newspaper Archive to get the details. Digging further into the Sentinel, there are certainly numerous mentions of him throughout 1930s, until in October 1935 that appears to indicate he was transferred back to Bradford City. Searching for "Charlton" at "Bradford City" is a nightmare, as Charlton Athletic are in the same league, yielding over 21,000 hits in the 1930s alone. There are certainly some stuff digitized, but even now, only a small fraction of that Archives 750 million pages have been digitized! Nfitz (talk) 17:54, 6 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I checked page 7 of the Saturday Morning, May 5, 1934 Londonderry Sentinel, but there was no mention of him. Are you sure you have the right page? (I also looked to see if there was a non-morning paper, but haven't been able to find one - however, that could have been an error of my search. Could you clarify whether you were referring to the morning paper?) BilledMammal (talk) 22:08, 6 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Looking again User:BilledMammal, it ways Page 7, 8. So perhaps it's in something continued on Page 8? The URL to the BNA is . The bit of text I can see is "Derry City have notified the I.F.A. that they have offered term* to the following players and have placed them on their retained list:—Thomas Pinkerton. John Charlton". Nfitz (talk) 00:15, 8 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Thank you, I see it now - it's entirely on page 8. Unfortunately, the fragment you have quoted consists of the totality of the coverage of Charlton. I think we would classify it as a WP:PASSINGMENTION. BilledMammal (talk) 05:09, 8 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep passes NFOOTY.--Ortizesp (talk) 19:22, 6 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep passes WP:NFOOTY.Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 18:25, 7 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep passes NFOOTY comfortably. What that says about the effectiveness of those guidelines in weeding out the notable from the non-notable, I'm still not entirely sure, but as they stand, they are fulfilled by John Charlton. Montgomery15 (talk) 23:14, 9 September 2021 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.