Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Lancelot F.C.


 * 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. There is a consensus to keep the article in some form. If people want to discuss a merge on the talk page, they can, but AfD is not needed for that. TonyBallioni (talk) 23:56, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

Lancelot F.C.

 * – ( View AfD View log | edits since nomination)

Not a notable club. No sources actually discuss the football club, all we have is one full match report and passing mentions in an overview of some matches. No better sources found elsewhere. Fram (talk) 13:21, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: History, Organizations, Football,  and Scotland. Fram (talk) 13:21, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Keep - Per WP:FOOTYN, teams which play in the national cup competition are notable. There is at least one source which discusses the club given on the article as it is just now. Granted, there are a number of WP:ROUTINE match reports but I believe GNG can be met. I would also suggest redirecting to List of football clubs in Scotland as an alternative to deletion. Stevie fae Scotland (talk) 14:24, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
 * FOOTYN is an essay, it is not an accepted guideline. There is no reason to believe that clubs that play in a non-restrictive cup (as was the case here, or is the case still now for small countries) are notable just because they entered this competition. Such inherited notability is getting less and less accepted across enwiki. Which source actually discusses the club? Or do you mean that single match report? Fram (talk) 14:45, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
 * The source for the club's foundation and explanation of the club as a breakaway from a cricket club discusses the club rather than it just being a routine match report. Stevie fae Scotland (talk) 15:35, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Which source would that be? Fram (talk) 15:52, 10 January 2023 (UTC)


 * Merge to History of football in Scotland. The significance of Lancelot F.C. is that it formed so early, in the 1870s. It's more than "just another defunct club to add to the #Defunct clubs list" (and all the clubs listed at List of football clubs in Scotland are apparently individually notable). Even if it's just a few sentences, there are a couple of interesting facts and sources about Lancelot F.C. that could be moved to the History of football in Scotland page, and it would be greatly appreciated if the target page could also get a bit more attention and improvement at the same time. Cielquiparle (talk) 18:42, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
 * If consensus was to delete, I would support Cielquiparle's merge proposal as an alternative. Stevie fae Scotland (talk) 15:38, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

Relisting comment: The discussion is moving towards preserving this content in some form, but consensus to keep or merge is not clear yet. Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Complex / Rational  14:43, 16 January 2023 (UTC) Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Linguist111 (talk) 20:57, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Keep: I've put the reasons on the talk page; long story short is that the club was Notable in the mid-1870s (there are lots of match reports, it's not proportionate to include them all), and was more so than many clubs today which have their own wikipedia pages. After all, at the time, there were fewer than 50 out of the 200+ clubs in Scotland that did enter the Scottish Cup, and at the time Scotland was way ahead of England in terms of football ability. The club meets the somewhat vague GNG guidelines and until someone comes up with a better one specific to football clubs there's no reason why Lancelot should be excluded but (e.g.) Coylton Coyla or Scourie or Sandbach United F.C. should be kept.  In Vitrio (talk) 19:27, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
 * @In Vitrio The question is: Is there enough information ("significant coverage") of Lancelot F.C. in reliable secondary sources? We have to consider Lancelot F.C. on its own merit. (Never mind about the other club pages; best not to call attention to them unless you want to make them targets for deletion as well. See WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS.) I searched the British Newspaper Archive and got a handful of articles dating back to 1889 (exciting), but those were mainly passing mentions (and sometimes newspaper articles are primary sources). I searched the Internet Archive and only found a bunch of books mentioning a person named "Lancelot F.C. Thomas" (so not relevant). But if you happen to have access to one or two of the books on Scottish football history, and Lancelot F.C. is discussed there – *that* could help a lot in justifying a !keep. Cielquiparle (talk) 19:56, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
 * @In Vitrio I just read the Talk page. Another page to look at is WP:ORGDEPTH. "Significant" has to do with quality not just quantity of information, and depth of information. Cielquiparle (talk) 20:03, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks for those other WPs, was not aware of them. The problem with finding other sources is that even a club like Thornliebank, which reached the final once, is barely, if ever, mentioned in history books (I've NEVER come across a reference to them other than in a list).  If the club was never in the Scottish League, it gets swept aside.  So the books mention Clackmannan County, but not the much more successful Clydesdale.  The ultimate perhaps being not mentioning the first Helensburgh (semi-finalists) but instead the third (Scottish League for three seasons).
 * Lancelot at least had decent quality opponents, they were not like, say, Kerland or Gilbertfield who were stuck against 2nd XIs that year. One reason why I put up the page is because I kept finding references to them when researching Lancefield, which suggested that they were a cut above the normal sides, at least for a brief period, and so were Notable at the time - in context their coverage is broader than for other clubs who just have fixtures and occasional results. In Vitrio (talk) 21:11, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
 * @In Vitrio Is there any way you could put the most important points in the History of football in Scotland page (regardless of the outcome of this AfD)? You seem like an excellent candidate to help fix that Wikipedia article; you're welcome to be BOLD and create sub-sections, delete questionable statements that are unsourced, find sources for plausible statements and cite them, and revise away, etc. I'm finding that all the context you are providing is super interesting (here and on the Talk page), and it would be very valuable to have that captured on the main subject page. Cielquiparle (talk) 21:28, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
 * I'm flattered, but I would not consider myself an expert at all, and much of that page would require someone with better knowledge of the more contemporary game. The best I could say about Lancelot in the 'history' is that they were one of a surprisingly large number of the earliest clubs that came from cricket clubs (e.g. Clydesdale, Granville, Western, Blythswood); I had no idea how big cricket was in Scotland, or at least Glasgow at the time. In Vitrio (talk) 14:22, 11 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in WikiProject Football's list of association football-related deletions. ChrisTheDude (talk) 14:43, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Merge/redirect as per Cielquiparle, a sensible alternative. GiantSnowman 20:00, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Keep I also lean towards keep, it's hard to determine the sources off hand, but there is enough to lead me to believe that the article is noteworthy. I also am at odds why merge into History of football in Scotland, a sentence or a few there might help, but certainly the whole content? It's not the right venue for that. So it doesn't seem the sensible choice. You could easily have a List of defunct Scottish football clubs, a couple of paragraphs on each club with links to main articles as needed and for the shorter article sizes to be merged in. However we don't currently have that, so that's another reason to keep WP:PRESERVE. Govvy (talk) 10:07, 11 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Keep - Per above. Thanks, Das osmnezz (talk) 05:10, 12 January 2023 (UTC)
 *  Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
 *  Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.


 * 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.