Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/1927 World Snooker Championship/archive1

1927 World Snooker Championship

 * Nominator(s): BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 16:59, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

This article is about the first edition of the World Snooker Championship, where Joe Davis won the first of his fifteen consecutive world titles. Like others, he had noticed that English billiards was on the wane and, with billiard hall manager, Bill Camkin, persuaded the Billiards Association and Control Council to institute a professional championship. It attracted some notice in the national press, usually as a footnote to articles covering Billiards. There is less coverage of the tournament in more recent sources than I expected; perhaps because most tend to focus on snooker history since the revival of the tournament in 1969 or after the move the the Crucible Theatre in 1977. As ever, many thanks for any improvement suggestions. Regards, BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 16:59, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

Support from Gog the Mild
Recusing to review.


 * Locations map: Why is the red dot representing Birmingham so big?
 * I think it was probably to indicate that this was the venue for the final, but I've amended it to be the same size as the others. BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 22:30, 14 July 2023 (UTC)


 * Cite 38: "A History of Billiards: (the English three-ball game)". Why the upper-case B?
 * It looked right to me, but I am never entirely sure about case in titles and have amended it. BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 22:30, 14 July 2023 (UTC)


 * "The final took place from 9 to 12 May 1927. Joe Davis won the title by defeating Tom Dennis by 20 frames to 11 in the final." The terminal "in the final" can probably be dispensed with.
 * Removed. BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 22:30, 14 July 2023 (UTC)


 * "Professional English billiards player and billiard hall manager Joe Davis had noticed the growing popularity of snooker compared to billiards in the 1920s, and with Birmingham-based billiard hall manager Bill Camkin, who had also seen snooker's increasing appeal, persuaded the Billiards Association and Control Council (BACC) to recognise an official professional snooker championship in the 1926–27 season." A slightly long sentence?
 * Amended (with some unnecessary repetition removed too). BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 22:30, 14 July 2023 (UTC)


 * "The BACC's Secretary A. Stanley Thorn". Lower-case s for secretary.
 * Amended. BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 22:30, 14 July 2023 (UTC)


 * "with a five-guineas sidestake." What does that mean?
 * Reworded to "with a five-guineas wager between the players for each match". BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 22:30, 14 July 2023 (UTC)


 * Lead "The two matches in the preliminary round were held at Thurston's Hall in London". Article: "The first match played was between Melbourne Inman and Tom Newman at Thurston's Hall" then straight on to "Tom Dennis and Fred Lawrence played their match on 9 and 10 December at the Lord Nelson Hotel, Carlton Street, Nottingham." What happened to the second match in London?
 * The matches were not played in round order. I've amended the Schedule table, to make it clearer, but would be happy to amend the text too. BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 22:30, 14 July 2023 (UTC)


 * "As with the game between Inman and Newman, as an added extra to a billiards match." This isn't a sentence. Perhaps '... it was an added ...'?
 * I've amended to your suggested wording. BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 22:30, 14 July 2023 (UTC)


 * I don't see how the ten entrants were reduced to four semi-finalists.
 * Two of the ten were eliminated in the preliinary round, and a further four were eliminated in the quarter-finals. Hopefully this makes sense when looking at the Main draw section, but I'm happy to add to the text too. BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 22:30, 14 July 2023 (UTC)


 * "using the "pendulum cannon" shot". Why the quote marks.
 * Removed. I added a link to the term in the cue sports glossary. BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 22:30, 14 July 2023 (UTC)


 * "Both sessions on the third day were shared to leave Davis 16–8 ahead. Davis had taken a winning lead by taking the 23rd frame 80–34 to lead 16–7." It may read better to reverse these sentences, so they are in chronological order.
 * Done, with some slight tweaks to the wording. BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 22:30, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

Both entertaining and educational to read. Gog the Mild (talk) 20:57, 14 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Many thanks for the improvements you identified, . There may be a bit more for me to do, e.g. about how the draw produced the semi-finalists. Please let me know. Regards, BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 22:30, 14 July 2023 (UTC)


 * All good. You definitely need something in the prose, possibly in Background, explaining how the ten were whittled down to eight. (And how was it decided which four of the ten were in the preliminary rounds?) Gog the Mild (talk) 11:42, 15 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks, . I've added a little in the background section. I could't find any indication in sources of how the players for the preliminary round were selected. (The Billiard Player article in December 1926, simply says "Ten entries have been received and approved by the Control Council for the above championship, the draw for which resulted as follows:". As Newman was the reigning professional billiards champion, one would have thought he would have been spared the preliminary round if it was not a random draw. Regards, BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 00:09, 16 July 2023 (UTC)


 * In the Schedule table, cut the links down to only at first mention, at most.

Otherwise this looks good, so supporting. Gog the Mild (talk) 11:22, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

Images are appropriately licensed. Nikkimaria (talk) 04:11, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

Comments Support from Chris

 * "The BACC's secretary A. Stanley Thorn, rejected" => "The BACC's secretary, A. Stanley Thorn, rejected"
 * "The preliminary rounds were to be held" - maybe "The preliminary round matches were to be held", given that there was only one prelim round, not multiple
 * Amended per both points above. BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 17:06, 16 July 2023 (UTC)


 * "The terms specified that half of the total entry fees would go to the finalists, with the winner receiving sixty percent" - is that sixty percent of the half.....?
 * Yes (presumably, though not explicitly in sources, the rest went to the BACC). I've amended the text. BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 17:06, 16 July 2023 (UTC)


 * "However, Davis, the eventual champion, won the £6 and 10 shillings from gate receipts" - does this mean he won all the gate receipts, contrary to what the earlier sentence said? Or something else?  It's not really clear to me.......
 * I've reworded this; the BACC used the half of the entry fees that was meant to be prize money to but the trophy. (Everton (1986), after mentioning the planned split of fees/stakes/gate receipts, has "Davis... predictably won the tournament and pocketed £6, 10s. from the gate receipts, though the Billiards Association used the players' half of the entry fees to buy a trophy.")


 * "the BACC used the player's part of the fees" => "the BACC used the players' part of the fees" (unless you were referring to Davis as "the player"......?)
 * "An article in Athletic News said" => "An article in the Athletic News said"
 * "The snooker game an added extra to the main event" => "The snooker game was an added extra to the main event"
 * Inman image caption needs a full stop
 * "was held 20 to 22 April in Birmingham" => "was held from 20 to 22 April in Birmingham"
 * Amended per the five points above.


 * That's it I think -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 16:29, 16 July 2023 (UTC)
 * BTW I am on holiday after tonight, I'll check back when I get back -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 16:34, 16 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Many thanks, . Let me know if anything else is needed. Regards, BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 17:06, 16 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Support -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 18:06, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

Comments from Mike Christie
Not much to complain about here.
 * "The first match played was between Melbourne Inman and Tom Newman at Thurston's Hall, Leicester Square in London. The snooker game was an added extra to the main event, a billiards match": I don't think you need "played", and "added extra" says the same thing twice. And I didn't realize until the next sentence that the billiards match was also between Inman and Newman.  How about "The first match was between Melbourne Inman and Tom Newman; it was held at Thurston's Hall, Leicester Square in London, as an extra attraction to the main event, a billiards match between them."?  And "added extra" appears again below in the description of Inman's match with Carpenter.
 * I've used your suggested wording, and amended the other redundancy. BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 00:46, 7 August 2023 (UTC)


 * I see that the main draw section gives the number of frames for each round, but I think it should be mentioned before the game play summary, since otherwise the reader has to figure out how many frames each round is from the score. There's a paragraph in the background section giving some of the terms set by the BACC; perhaps it would fit there?
 * Added. BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 00:46, 7 August 2023 (UTC)


 * In a couple of cases you mention dead frames being played. I think this should be mentioned as a modern reader may be unaware this was ever done.  Were dead frames played in all rounds?
 * I've expanded on the comment in the Background section to mention dead frames there, but it's made think me think I need to have another look at sources. It's not very consistent to display the score for the final in the Main draw section including dead frames but not for the other rounds. BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 00:46, 7 August 2023 (UTC)
 * I've been through Kobylecky's book (which is based on an exhaustive search of newspaper and magazine archives), The Billiard Player, The Times, and the British Newspaper archive, and populated as many scores as I could. (I also looked at Cuetracker's page for the tournament, as although it's not regarded as a reliable source, it can provide useful information.) For the matches where I couldn't find whether the dead frames were actually played, the nearest-to-useful info I found was in The Birmingham Daily Gazette. On 7 January 1927 it has "The last game was unnecessary" in the Cope/Mann match, but not whether it was actually played; for Dennis/Carpenter it similarly has "The last game being unnecessary" on 23 April 1927. Please let me know what you think about how I've incorporated the additional info into the "Main draw" section. BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 10:57, 7 August 2023 (UTC)

-- Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 15:18, 6 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Many thanks, . I've responded above. Regards, BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 10:57, 7 August 2023 (UTC)

Support. I wondered about those scores after I left the comments above, and was going to mention it; I'm glad you made those changes. Looks good. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 11:11, 7 August 2023 (UTC)

Image and source review
Reviewing this version, source spot-check only upon request. File:United Kingdom adm location map.svg should probably mention somewhere the licence of the data sources "United States National Imagery and Mapping Agency data" and "World Data Base II data". File:Melbourne Inman.jpg needs some cleanup of the file information, especially given Contributor copyright investigations/20100822. Why does #4 not have an author? Are The Observer and The Times a reliable source, and do they lack bylines? It's a bit unclear why some British newspapers have bylines and others don't. I am somewhat bemused at how few hits there are for "The Billiard Player. ""W. G. Clifford" on Google - is that a high-quality reliable source? Same for this one. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 14:39, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

Many thanks,. I'll respond below. BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 17:05, 8 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Map licence - I'm not sue what to do here. Is there an example you could point me to please?
 * Several maps show licence templates for the sources they draw their information from. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 17:45, 8 August 2023 (UTC)
 * OK, I think I've done this now. BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 21:35, 8 August 2023 (UTC)
 * File:Melbourne Inman.jpg needs some cleanup of the file information: I need a bit more guidance here. From comparing https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2014696772/ and the Commons page, it looks like everything is OK, but I definitely don't consider myself an expert on image icences.
 * Actually, it's a much more minor issue - several broken links. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 17:45, 8 August 2023 (UTC)
 * I couldn't see any broken links, but I've manually approved the bot move, and added the player's name to "Items portrayed in this file" at Commons. BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 21:09, 8 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Sorry, it's things like hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ggbain.16618 that should be a link, I think. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 18:22, 9 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Number 4 has no by-line
 * The Observer and The Times articles do not have by-lines. At WP:RSP, "The Times is considered generally reliable."; The Observer "is generally reliable." (with caveats about opinion pieces and politics)
 * The Billiard Player was established in 1920. It was known as Billiards and Snooker from October 1936 to April 1938 and from January 1961 to February 1972, when it ceased publication. In 1938 it was bought by the sport's governing body, the Billiards Association and Control Council (BACC) and from the May 1938 issue it was their official journal. Even before this, the magazine featured articles by BACC officials, and by leading players including Joe Davis and Thelma Carpenter alongside news articles. It continues to be a valuable source for snooker writing, e.g. this year's The Natural: The Story of Patsy Houlihan, the Greatest Snooker Player You Never Saw mentions or cites The Billiard Player more than 50 times and Billiards and Snooker about 20 times. IMO the magazine is one of the best sources for billiards and snooker, but obviously would need to be used with caution for commentary on the BACC itself.
 * Until 2009, the Global Snooker Centre site was run by Janie Watkins and IMO can be regarded as reliable for anything published up to that year (and possibly beyond). Leading snooker journalist Dave Hendon has given some endorsements via his blog,here and here, and the site was described as "the game's leading website" in Snooker Scene in August 2009.

Please let me know if anything else is needed following my responses above,. Thank you. Regards, BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 21:35, 8 August 2023 (UTC)


 * Seems like we are OK-ish, then. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 19:20, 9 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks, . I've added links for the Melbourne Inman image now. Regards, BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 22:59, 9 August 2023 (UTC)

Support by Lee Vilenski
I'll begin a review of this article very soon! My reviews tend to focus on prose and MOS issues, especially on the lede, but I will also comment on anything that could be improved. I'll post up some comments below over the next couple days, which you should either respond to, or ask me questions on issues you are unsure of. I'll be claiming points towards the wikicup once this review is over.


 * Lede
 * most of the leading billiards players. - very minor, but perhaps "English billiards", as you and I both know there are many types of billiards.  Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 13:56, 10 August 2023 (UTC)
 * being held at Thurston's Hall, one at Camkin's Hall, and one each in Nottingham and Liverpool. - this reads a little weird, as it talks about halls and then cities.  Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 13:56, 10 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Amended the article per both points above. BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 15:30, 10 August 2023 (UTC)


 * I think 20-11 should be mentioned somewhere, as it's the official result of the final.  Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 13:56, 10 August 2023 (UTC)
 * It is.. unless I'm missing something. BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 15:30, 10 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Oh, I see. I am a silly sausage.  Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 08:51, 11 August 2023 (UTC)


 * Prose
 * dead frames - the cue gloss link is wrong here (the WP:PIPELINK trick doesn't work with templates).  Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 13:56, 10 August 2023 (UTC)
 * All three links work for me; maybe someone else fixed it? BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 15:30, 10 August 2023 (UTC)


 * Per WP:CURRENCY, there is no need to link the £ sign.  Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 13:56, 10 August 2023 (UTC)
 * minimal publicity." - the full stop should be after the speechmark.  Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 13:56, 10 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Amended per the two points above. BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 15:30, 10 August 2023 (UTC)


 * BACC used the players' part of the entry fees towards purchasing the trophy -> I dunno if I'm confused, I thought Davis purchased the trophy?  Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 13:56, 10 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Everton (1986) says "the Billiards Association used the players' half of the entry fees to buy a trophy" (p.50) In Joe Davis's autobiography The Breaks Came My Way (1976), he writes, "What became of the entrance fees, which by rights should have been mine on winning the title? Well, the Billiards Association were chronically poor and they used all the money themselves - to buy the trophy!" (p.85) I know other sources differ, e.g. theWPBSA. BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 15:30, 10 August 2023 (UTC) One more - the Hamlyn Encylopedia of Snooker (Revised ed, 1987) has "The trophy, now insured for more than £2,000, was the property of the Billiards and Snooker Control Council who, as the BACC, bought it for £19 in 1927." (p.161). BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 15:37, 10 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Wild. I thought he had bought it, not that "his money" was used to fund it. The item BACC used the players' part of the entry fees towards purchasing the trophy - perhaps this should mention £19, or just define what "players" were paying towards it. It's all a bit murky.  Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 08:51, 11 August 2023 (UTC)
 * I've added a bit, and the Hamlyn Encylopedia of Snooker source. BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 12:36, 11 August 2023 (UTC)


 * The billiards match was to 16,000 - this is a little informal, probably need to say "played to first to 16,000 points, with a 3,500 handicap head start",  Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 13:56, 10 August 2023 (UTC)
 * I've reworded this. BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 15:30, 10 August 2023 (UTC)


 * You link "frame" in summary, but use it previously in the article  Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 13:56, 10 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Now linked at first instance.


 * Fred Lawrence is not at the linked page.  Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 13:56, 10 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Oddly 2/4 links were correct; all should now work. BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 15:30, 10 August 2023 (UTC)


 * Additional comments

Additionally, if you liked this review, or are looking for items to review, I have some at my nominations list.  Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 12:35, 10 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Many thanks, . I've responded above. Regards, BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 15:33, 10 August 2023 (UTC)

Ian Rose (talk) 08:53, 13 August 2023 (UTC)