Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Loughborough Aces


 * 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   delete. JForget 00:49, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Loughborough Aces

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Although the article is long and detailed, the subject appears to be non-notable. Having a trawl for mentions on Google, I get little beyond sites related to the team and its rivals. Doing a google news archives search returns equally little. I managed to find odd match reports carried in the local newspapers of rival teams (although nothing sustained or regular). Besides that I managed to find 3 references in two local papers to a couple of events last summer. The first was an event and match (with non student side Tamworth Phoenix) against the Australian American Football team carried in the Loughborough Echo (circ 18,000, owner Trinity Mirror) and Leicester Mercury (circ 70,000, owner DMGT). The different owners are perhaps significant, because the two articles are strikingly similar. There is a distinct whiff of recycled press release. The second in the Loughborough Echo is a match against Tamworth Phoenix.

The lack of notability isn't really surprising as University sports teams in the UK are not usually notable in ANY sport. In the majority of cases teams endeavours and even existence is unknown of even on their institutions campus, never mind in the wider world. American Football itself is of niche interest in the UK. Perhaps the lack of seriousness applied to British University sport can be illustrated from the following passage in the article "Although the Aces had a depleted squad due to certain members of the team choosing a holiday over the chance to play for the National Championship"

The other problem is that the article is unreferenced. The paucity of reliable and independent sources means that it is unlikely the vast majority of the article could ever be referenced. Although, it probably is accurate, large sections could have been made up.

Whilst probably not issues for deletion on there own it is worth note that at least "A Brief History of the Aces" appears to be a copy and paste of the teams website. Furthermore, although the article is long, I would not describe it as exceptionally well written. The article's main body basically takes the form of a year by year chronological list, with a number of notable gaps. There also seems to be a fair bit of unencyclopaedic language such as "winningest", "staggering" and "bested". ) Pit-yacker (talk) 11:50, 4 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of American football-related deletion discussions.  —Pit-yacker (talk) 11:54, 4 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Delete per nom, per lack of actual references and lack of available references that demonstrate that this team passes WP:GNG. Length does not equal notability. Pfainuk talk 12:16, 4 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Delete - Non-notable British Uni sports team (as per many others) and I am unable to find anything that contradicts that. DitzyNizzy (aka Jess) &#124; (talk to me) &#124; (What I've done)  13:33, 4 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Schools-related deletion discussions.  —• Gene93k (talk) 19:46, 4 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Delete no independent sources cited.--Paul McDonald (talk) 20:06, 4 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Delete - lacks the substantial sources to meet WP:ORG. TerriersFan (talk) 20:38, 7 July 2010 (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.