Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/1998–99 Gillingham F.C. season/archive1

1998–99 Gillingham F.C. season

 * Nominator(s): ChrisTheDude (talk) 17:03, 17 October 2021 (UTC)

Following on from four successful promotions, here's another season from the history of English football/soccer club Gillingham. This is one which brings back some very good memories but also some very bad memories of a day at Wembley at the end of the season which ended with me literally crying, which is never a good look for a grown man. Oh well, such is life and football. Feedback as ever gratefully received..... -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 17:03, 17 October 2021 (UTC)

image review
 * Pass. Nikkimaria (talk) 12:32, 18 October 2021 (UTC)


 * Is there any better-quality alternative to File:NyronNos.png? Nikkimaria (talk) 01:32, 18 October 2021 (UTC)
 * - I found one which is a little bit better. Unfortunately images of players from this season seem to be a bit thin on the ground...... -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 07:38, 18 October 2021 (UTC)

Support from TRM
That's it from me. The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 10:12, 23 October 2021 (UTC)
 * "the play-offs for " could link play-offs in general here, and then the specific year article for "semi-finals" perhaps.
 * "conceded two late goals, and Manchester City won the subsequent" did we skip over extra time?
 * "was 10,400 for the visit of Manchester City" in the league or in the play-offs?
 * Well, Man City didn't visit Priestfield in the play-offs......? -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 21:06, 23 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Ignore, conflating seasons. The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 21:31, 23 October 2021 (UTC)
 * "amid allegations of gross misconduct" probably not a great idea to leave this hanging, did anything ever get proven?
 * Added in the body, probably a bit much detail for the lead.....? -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 21:06, 23 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Not sure, as it's borderline BLP against an individual? The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 21:31, 23 October 2021 (UTC)
 * "The 1998–99 season" put season inside the link.
 * "67th season playing in" probably don't need "season playing" here.
 * "the 1997–98 season, Gillingham" I would pipe to something more contextual like "the previous season".
 * "but missing out due to having scored" -> "but missed out having scored..."?
 * "of £525,000" etc could inflate these values.
 * Is there a template to do that? -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 21:06, 23 October 2021 (UTC)
 * There is. It's surprisingly called inflation... The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 21:31, 23 October 2021 (UTC)
 * - thanks for the tip - done! -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 21:45, 23 October 2021 (UTC)''
 * "won promotion in that" overlinked.
 * "were red and black" stripes.
 * "the FA Premier League in " no need for FA?
 * But that was its name at the time......?
 * Ok. The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 21:31, 23 October 2021 (UTC)
 * "game against Walsall and" overlinked.
 * "next game away to Blackpool, having" no result mentioned?
 * Minor: Wrexham is A.F.C. Oldham too.  And Swansea City.
 * ("preceded by the arrival by helicopter of the club's new mascot, Tommy T. Trewblu" I mean, wow)
 * "former champions of English football, who" but Preston were former champions too??
 * "tier of the English football league system for the first" overlinked.
 * "Gillingham's 16th consecutive league game without defeat" that's not in the 11v11 source which is just a league table snapshot, you need the 11v11 Gills results for the season link there too.
 * "defeating Blackpool 1–0 to " overlinked.
 * "fifth in the table" mildly repetitive albeit in a previous section, still the previous sentence.
 * "away to Walsall.[24][30]" overlinked.
 * "by the Football Association, the" the is part of their name.
 * "contenders Preston North End.[36][37]" overlinked.
 * "but rebounded with a 4–0 win over Lincoln City" rebounded is a little journalese.
 * "on loan" I would have "on" in the link too. Same in caption.
 * "to AFC Bournemouth with" no need for AFC.
 * " away to Notts County, Asaba " overlinked, and I would say "over" or "against", not "to".
 * "A 4-0 win away over Notts County"? That reads really weirdly to me.....? -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 21:06, 23 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Try "A 4-0 win away against Notts County"? The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 21:31, 23 October 2021 (UTC)
 * "finishers Preston North End. In" overlinked.
 * "Bartram dived" first mention so full name and link.
 * "played Manchester City, who" overlinked.
 * (As if there weren't already enough reasons to dislike Dickov.....)
 * Final is linked in table but not semis?
 * There's no article on the semis......? -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 21:06, 23 October 2021 (UTC)
 * "team Oldham Athletic." overlinked.
 * "at the earliest stage" welllllll.... "proper" stage...
 * "played Colchester United Goals from Asaba, Adrian Pennock and" Col U and Pennock.
 * Huh? -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 21:06, 23 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Col U and Pennock overlinked, sorry. The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 21:31, 23 October 2021 (UTC)
 * "opponents were Millwall. In " overlinked.
 * "the highest number of appearances" -> the most appearances.
 * Again, did the accusations against Pulis come to anything?
 * "enter the play-offs" you previously linked to the relevant league section of the play-off article.
 * "defeating Stoke City in the semi-finals, Gillingham beat Wigan Athletic" stoke/wigan overlinked.
 * ref 2 is BBC News.
 * ref 12, pp.
 * ref 22 looks like Grauniad, not Times and has author missing. And page.
 * ref 27 page missing.
 * general: check the Gale refs, many seem to be missing page numbers which can be found in the citation at the bottom of each linked article.
 * Do you know, I never noticed that the page numbers were shown at the bottom there...... -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 21:27, 23 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Hints and tips, my domain. The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 21:31, 23 October 2021 (UTC)
 * ref 34 The Sunday Times.
 * ref 39 needs en-dash, not spaced hyphen.
 * ref 54, pp.
 * ref 66 is BBC News.
 * - all done I think, other than where noted. Many thanks for your review -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 21:27, 23 October 2021 (UTC)
 * - just checking to see if I have addressed everything to your satisfaction.....? -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 07:22, 28 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes, all good for me, so supporting. The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 07:42, 28 October 2021 (UTC)

Comments Support from Grapple X
As a lifelong Manchester City supporter there's no way I'm passing this one up.
 * "Shortly after the end of the 1997–98 season, highly rated teenage forward Jimmy Corbett moved to Premier League club Blackburn Rovers for an initial fee of £525,000; clauses in the contract meant that the fee had the potential to rise to £1 million if Corbett played more than a specified number of games at the higher level, but a succession of injuries limited his playing time at Blackburn and Gillingham received no further money."—Quite a long run-on sentence here, I'd split this at the semi-colon.
 * The "Match details" tables throughout should use a table caption for screenreaders. It would be simple to move the "Results" title and ref into a caption field but you might wish to leave the reference as a byline above the table and just add a title
 * "Brian Statham was restricted to one game in the 1998–99 season although he had been a semi-regular in the team the season before."—Not sold on "semi-regular" here, might be preferable to give a number of games played instead if the source permits this
 * "He scored 20 goals in the Second Division during the regular season, 1 in the play-offs, and 1 in the League Trophy for a total of 22 in all competitions"—Elsewhere we seem to have smaller numbers as words ("Two players" and "one game" just a few sentences prior) so this seems inconsistent
 * I have been told multiple times that all numbers in the same sentence should be written as either numbers or words, not mix-and-match, so I think this is OK -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 21:11, 23 October 2021 (UTC)
 * It's MOS:NUM. The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 21:32, 23 October 2021 (UTC)
 * That's not to say there isn't a wording that could avoid it; something like "and once each in the play-offs and League Trophy for a total of 22 in all competitions" or "and another in both the play-offs and League Trophy for a total of 22 in all competitions" would avoid mixing words and numerals for comparable quantities but also avoid those stray "1"s coming so soon after "two" and "one". A minor point and not worth holding things up over, though. 𝄠ʀᴀᴘᴘʟᴇ ꭗ 23:04, 23 October 2021 (UTC)
 * That works - why didn't I think of that? -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 07:51, 24 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Re: Pulis' sacking—I can understand not going into a lot of detail here but it does seem remiss to not mention he won a settlement for unpaid monies relating to it. (BBC story on it, Grauniad).
 * All I have at present. 𝄠ʀᴀᴘᴘʟᴇ ꭗ 17:53, 23 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Done, with one exception as noted -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 21:11, 23 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Looks good. For consistency's sake I've applied the same inflation template to the court settlement amount added, feel free to revert. Happy to support this at present. 𝄠ʀᴀᴘᴘʟᴇ ꭗ 23:04, 23 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks for that, can't believe I missed that one..... -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 07:51, 24 October 2021 (UTC)
 * - just checking to see if I have addressed everything to your satisfaction.....? -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 07:23, 28 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Already stated my support above, all good by me. 𝄠ʀᴀᴘᴘʟᴇ ꭗ 09:41, 28 October 2021 (UTC)
 * You did, I apologise. It was early :-) -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 09:46, 28 October 2021 (UTC)

Source review - pass
That's all I have. The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 14:33, 9 November 2021 (UTC)
 * ISBNs all check out.
 * For News of the World Football Annual 1998–99, wouldn't we say that Brown was the editor, not the author? - done
 * For The History of English Football Clubs, both Amazon gives the publication year as 2015, while Google Books says 2013. It it a reprint?
 * My copy says 2013, certainly (see right) -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 15:24, 9 November 2021 (UTC)
 * I don't have access to the books and none appear to be available online so AGF with this experienced nominator on those offline sources.
 * Ref 2 checks out and verifies the information in the article.
 * Refs 14 and 15, just a minor issue, I've never seen "versus" represented with a capital V, normally either v or vs? - done
 * Ref 29, this 11v11 ref is okay other than the fact it's the wrong year, it should be the table for 1999, right? - done
 * Check refs 41 and 42 here too for the same reason. - done
 * Ref 46 is dead for me, but would recommend you use 11v11 over Soccerbase anyway. - done
 * General: You've used Gale a couple of times for Guardian sources, I've sometimes been asked that since I have Newspapers.com access (as you do too by the looks of it) to find the same article there and clip it out so it's free access rather than subscription only? Not mandatory at all, just a thought to make that "free" encyclopedia even freer!
 * - I don't have access any more. I only signed up for a trial.  I suppose I could create another email address and get another trial :-) -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 14:50, 9 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Ref 67 appears to be BBC News in the same way as ref 66 etc. - done
 * Could run IABot over it to add archive links for more consistency. - done
 * - all of the above addressed I think -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 15:56, 9 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Looks good to me, so the source review passes. The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 12:57, 11 November 2021 (UTC)

Support from Amakuru

 * Background and preseason
 * There are 13 usages of "the club" in this section, and it begins to feel a little repetitive. Could reword a few of those for variety?
 * Done -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 13:08, 10 November 2021 (UTC)
 * "highly rated teenage forward Jimmy Corbett" - there should be hyphen in "highly-rated"; but also, this feels a little POV. Who described him as highly-rated?
 * The sources against that sentence describe him in those terms, but I have reworded it -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 11:04, 10 November 2021 (UTC)
 * "equivalent to £968,252 in 2019" - not sure what the MOS says about this, but that sounds a somewhat over-precise figure for a rough inflation estimate. You also said "2.32 million" in the previous sentence, which is far fewer significant figures than this one.
 * That seems to be down to the inflation template. I had never encountered this till the other week, so I was not familiar with all the parameters, but I seem to have sorted it now...... -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 12:34, 10 November 2021 (UTC)
 * "Gillingham also broke the record for the highest fee paid by the club" - I think we can omit the "also" here, given that we already mentioned further up that this record had been broken too - so the reader is expecting it.
 * Done -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 13:08, 10 November 2021 (UTC)


 * August to December
 * "first goal for the team in the win. The team then lost" - repetition of "the team"
 * Done -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 13:08, 10 November 2021 (UTC)
 * "again dropped to 18th in the table" - would be good to know how high they reached in between their two 18th-place stints
 * Done -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 13:13, 10 November 2021 (UTC)
 * "by far the largest crowd to watch a game involving Gillingham during the regular season" - is that up to that point, or including to this day? Worth clarifying which. Also could note the second highest, if that's known.
 * It was just intended to mean during this particular season - reworded accordingly -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 11:12, 10 November 2021 (UTC)


 * January to May
 * "They then lost the next three games, however;" - I think a full stop would be easier to parse than a semicolon here
 * Done -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 13:08, 10 November 2021 (UTC)


 * Play-offs
 * "Preston dominated the game in the second half" - is this someone's opinion, or is it a statistical fact based on possession or shots or something? Worth clarifying
 * Reworded -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 13:11, 10 November 2021 (UTC)
 * "in the fifth minute of injury time, Paul Dickov scored an equaliser to make the score 2–2" - good grief, this must have been a bitter pill for you guys to swallow! And to think where Man City ended up now... 😃
 * Well, yes....... ;-) -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 11:07, 10 November 2021 (UTC)


 * Cup matches
 * No realy comments, except that the prose here is very short. Perhaps that's OK though, since the run in the two main cups was so limited...


 * Players
 * For cleanness and future-proofing (if someone tinkers with the layout), I'd stick a reference on the end of the second paragraph - even if it's just the same one as is used for the table below.
 * Done -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 13:09, 10 November 2021 (UTC)


 * Aftermath
 * "equivalent to £124,951 in 2019" - look at the precision issue again
 * See above..... -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 11:12, 10 November 2021 (UTC)

That's about it. Cheers &mdash; Amakuru (talk) 10:45, 10 November 2021 (UTC)
 * - all done, I think. Many thanks for your review! -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 13:13, 10 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Nice one, I'm happy with that, thanks. Good work and support. &mdash; Amakuru (talk) 13:32, 10 November 2021 (UTC)

- requesting permission to open another FAC......? -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 20:21, 11 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Have at it! Hog Farm Talk 20:24, 11 November 2021 (UTC)

Hog Farm Talk 16:46, 13 November 2021 (UTC)