Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Football/Archive 32

Oscar Fulloné
The article about Argentine manager Oscar Fulloné states that he played for Estudiantes de La Plata, I can find nothing to verify this, (he doesn't seem to have ever played in Argentina) it also states that he played for Aston Villa, which seems unlikely. Can anyone shed any light on his playing career? King of the North   East  21:00, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Neil Brown confirms he never made a league appearance for Villa - although he could, of course, signed for them but never played. GiantSnowman 21:43, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
 * The football borders were virtually closed in England at that time for foreigners (except Commonwealth + Ireland I think) Someone with an Argentinian or Spanish passport had to be a resident for 2 years before there could sign a professional contract in England, signing as an amateur was possible. Scotland was less strict and some foreigners were signed by English clubs from Scottish clubs. England had to open their footballborders after joining the EU.Cattivi (talk) 23:59, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

He didn't play any league matches for Real Oviedo, but an Argentinian player "Fullones" signed a 2 year contract with Oviedo in 1963 according to El Mundo Deportivo Cattivi (talk) 00:14, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I read somewhere he obtained his coaching diploma in 1972 in Switzerland, he then coached Estudiantes, Sheffield United and FC Sion. Don't know if this is correct.--Latouffedisco (talk) 07:08, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
 * He is better known as Oscar Arce in England. Full name Luis Oscar Fullone Arce. On the coaching staff of Sheffield United in 1978-79. He played for Aston Villa Cattivi (talk) 10:51, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
 * No player named Oscar Arce played league football for Aston Villa, as confirmed (again) by Neil Brown. GiantSnowman 12:20, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
 * (edit conflict) Both Oscar and his brother Hector were on Villa's books, but it would appear that neither played for their first team. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 12:33, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Does anyone know of any reliable sources about his playing/managerial career, we hate unreferenced BLPs don't we? King of the North   East  12:29, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
 * He is mentioned as a Sheffield United coach in 1978-79 in the book A complete record of Sheffield United football club 1889-1999 by Denis Clarebrough & Andrew Kirkham p. 255. On the same page it is mentioned that Harry Haslam tried to bring Maradona to England in the summer of 1978, and his involvement in the Ardiles/Villa transfer to SpursCattivi (talk) 14:07, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
 * He doesn't seem to be a very notable player, finding good references is difficult. The article in El Mundo Deportivo is very poor...Cattivi (talk) 15:22, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
 * His stint at Sion is confirmed by RSSSF here. I found again an article about him, in French and probably not so reliable here . Use google translate^^. Note that they say he was born in 1944: he could have cheated with his year of birth...--Latouffedisco (talk) 18:26, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Gary Phillips - stats from 80s and 90s
Does anyone have any sourced stats for Gary Phillips (footballer), who played in the Football League during the 1980s and a bit in the 90s. The only source I could find was neilbrown's but I'm n ot sure if these include cup comps. Cheers, --Jimbo[online] 22:15, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Neil Brown's stats are league appearances only.--EchetusXe (talk) 23:17, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
 * allfootballers.com would give "all comps" info, if that's what you need, but unfortunately it's a pay site and I'm too skint at the moment to renew my membership. A few other project regulars are members though, I think...... -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 09:32, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Requested help from an admin
Could an admin please recreate Hermann Stessl. The page was deleted twice but this guy coached some major clubs through Europe. Thanks.--Latouffedisco (talk) 07:01, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I've restored it, although as the entire content was "Hermann Stessl is a former coach from Austria." I'm not suprised it got deleted. You might want to add some proper content quickly before someone tags it again -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 09:34, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
 * It now has enough to save it from immediate deletion, but please expand further. Club Oranje T 12:17, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks. It is now a decent stub. I'll see what can be done with him. Cheers.--Latouffedisco (talk) 17:50, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I've improved it a little, but details about his playing career are a bit contradictory. However, he had a "decent" coaching career. Cheers.--Latouffedisco (talk) 18:33, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

GA Sweeps invitation
This message is being sent to WikiProjects with GAs under their scope. Since August 2007, WikiProject Good Articles has been participating in GA sweeps. The process helps to ensure that articles that have passed a nomination before that date meet the GA criteria. After nearly two years, the running total has just passed the 50% mark. In order to expediate the reviewing, several changes have been made to the process. A new worklist has been created, detailing which articles are left to review. Instead of reviewing by topic, editors can consider picking and choosing whichever articles they are interested in.

We are always looking for new members to assist with reviewing the remaining articles, and since this project has GAs under its scope, it would be beneficial if any of its members could review a few articles (perhaps your project's articles). Your project's members are likely to be more knowledgeable about your topic GAs then an outside reviewer. As a result, reviewing your project's articles would improve the quality of the review in ensuring that the article meets your project's concerns on sourcing, content, and guidelines. However, members can also review any other article in the worklist to ensure it meets the GA criteria.

If any members are interested, please visit the GA sweeps page for further details and instructions in initiating a review. If you'd like to join the process, please add your name to the running total page. In addition, for every member that reviews 100 articles from the worklist or has a significant impact on the process, s/he will get an award when they reach that threshold. With ~1,300 articles left to review, we would appreciate any editors that could contribute in helping to uphold the quality of GAs. If you have any questions about the process, reviewing, or need help with a particular article, please contact me or OhanaUnited and we'll be happy to help. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 05:48, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Plan to address unreferenced footballer BLPs
I wanted to draw the group's attention to the large backlog of footballer articles that are included in the Category:Unreferenced BLPs. By by estimation (using Catscan which only shows 1,000 articles at a time), there are 5,000–10,000 footballer articles in this backlog. I think everyone would agree this is a problem (it is a large percentage of the overall unreferenced BLP backlog - maybe as much as 25%).

In order to reduce this backlog and its negative impact on the project, I think we need to make a coordinated effort to attack the problem. I've been going through footballers from specific countries and now the A's and trying to add sources wherever possible (even if they are poor ones) and Prod'ing the ones that are clearly not notable or verifiable. Many of these players are internationals and are easily sourced, but others are obscure (to me at least) and it's a challenge to source them. In particular, I've noticed that many are from Asia or North Africa (Japan, Thailand, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt and Libya have more than I expected). If anyone is familiar with Asian football (or reads Arabic), I expect they could source these articles much easier. There are also a large amount of articles about players who probably fail WP:ATHLETE - Albanians, Bosnians and Montenegrins playing in their domestic leagues.

We also have to find a way to reduce the creation of new unreferenced footballer BLPs. I've noticed most of the editors that created articles in the backlog are no longer active, so they are unlikely to add to the problem. Others are WP:FOOTY project members (I've created quite a few before I knew better). I don't think many project members are still making unreferenced articles, and I've been leaving notes with the few that are so hopefully they will help out. Another thing to consider is these unreferenced articles seem to follow a pattern - new editor signs up and creates dozens (or in some case hundreds) of articles about his or her local team or league over a few week period. Then, the editor loses interest and we have dozens or hundreds of new unreferenced BLPs.

There are certainly other approaches, such as Prod'ing hundreds of the articles at a time and hoping the creators are still active and will source them. I think we should act now as a group to address the problem and hope that others have ideas on how to attack it. Any help would be appreciated. Best regards. Jogurney (talk) 19:17, 24 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree something needs to be done about the unsourced BLPs, it is the most important of many other major problems with articles in the scope of our project such as biographies that were incomplete when they were created (e.g. infobox only lists the current club at the time of creation), articles that remain unmaintained which have not been updated since their creation which now display inaccurate and misleading info, articles relying on only one unreliable source, etc. A combination of these things together with the unreferenced BLP problem make it look like en:wikipedia has no minimum standard for inclusion and consequently makes us look unreliable.


 * I suggest that the best way to drive up our standards is a new zero tolerance approach to unreferenced BLPs, any new articles that are created should get an unreferenced BLP tag, a warning note to the article creator not to create unrefernced BLPs, and listed on a new WP:FOOTY/unreferenced BLP page, after a week on the list any that have not had sources added get PRODed. To combat the backlog perhaps we could add a manageable number at a time (say 200 a week). The reason I suggest doing it this way this is that it would give the WP:FOOTY community a chance to pick out anything we consider salvageable and it would look a lot less deletionist that simply slapping PRODs on thousands of unreferenced BLPs regardless. Any comments or alternative suggestions appreciated. King of the  North   East  20:10, 24 April 2009 (UTC)
 * We really need to cure this problem. I'm quite fed up: everyday I found new articles about young footballers who played, say 1 match in a pro league. But serious articles about a "true" footballer or football manager: very rare. I'll see what I can do for French football and French-speaking country--Latouffedisco (talk) 08:48, 25 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Thank you for the input. I like the idea of having a number of these unreferenced BLP articles on a single cleanup page which would go to PROD if not cleaned up after the week was over. Is it okay if I try to create this as a subpage of WP:FOOTY? If not, is there someone who could do it? Best regards. Jogurney (talk) 19:34, 27 April 2009 (UTC)


 * A centralised place for the unreferenced footy BLP's sounds good. The problem is that I imagine there are a lot of BLP's based solely on not-so-reliable stats websites. Let's see what we can get done. Sillyfolkboy (talk) (edits) 19:48, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes go for it, it will need someone to go through AlexNewArtBot's results on a regular basis, or perhaps we could ask him to filter all unreferenced pages out of the results for us. I'll ask. King of the  North   East  21:30, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
 * He is on holiday, I'm sure he'll help us out when he gets back. King of the  North   East  23:07, 28 April 2009 (UTC)


 * I've started a list of 200 articles at User:Jogurney/Unreferenced footballer BLP cleanup. Jogurney (talk) 02:38, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

What if we make a list of all the articles unsourced BLPs and sort them by country. This should be feasible by intersecting All Unreferenced BLPs with the subcats of Category:Football (soccer) players by nationality. I know it is much easier sourcing articles that about footballers from my homecountry. Rettetast (talk) 21:09, 6 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes that sounds like a good idea. King of the  North   East  21:43, 6 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I`ll try to make such a list. Working with AWB now, but the categories are very large so we may need to ask a bot operator. CatScan could not manage it. Rettetast (talk) 21:51, 6 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Good idea. I was just about to mention that I've been through the list of the first 200 articles and a few remain. I'm going to put the rest up for PROD to see if anyone can source them. As you say, it is much easier to source players you are familiar with, so lists by nation will be easier to deal with. Jogurney (talk) 22:25, 6 May 2009 (UTC)


 * OK. I have done some countries. See WikiProject Football/Unreferenced BLPs. The full list contains 5203 articles. Rettetast (talk) 23:33, 6 May 2009 (UTC)


 * That is fantastic work. Thank you. Looking at the lists, I am in disbelief that there are nearly 1000 unreferenced BLPs on Japanese footballers. I think most of those come from two users who seem to have finally stopped in the last month or so (after repeated messages). If they start any others, I think we need to consider it vandalism. Jogurney (talk) 02:10, 7 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Yeah, I noticed the huge amount for Japan. One of these editors actually included BLPunsourced in the creation of the article though, so hopefully there should not be many more unreferenced Japanese footballers. Rettetast (talk) 11:13, 7 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Good work, I'll go through the Australian (and maybe New Zealand and some other Oceania and Asian ones if I have time) ones over the next week or two and try to get them sorted out. Camw (talk) 02:57, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Great work. May I make one suggestion, that if there is still unsourced personal information left in an article after people add sources for football stuff, please could we replace the BLP unsourced tag with BLP sources - the equivalent of refimprove - rather than just removing the unsourced tag. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 08:16, 7 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Good point, but if you can not find sources personal information it should be removed per WP:BLP. I have added that to the instructions. Please edit and expand the instructions. Rettetast (talk) 11:13, 7 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Just a quick question - when an article is sourced, and the BLP tag removed, is the article automatically removed from the WikiProject Football/Unreferenced BLPs page as well? GiantSnowman 11:23, 7 May 2009 (UTC)
 * No it is not, so if you reference an article you should remove it from the list. It is possible to make new lists, but it was a huge task so it would be best to try to maintain the list. At least for a wile. If you want an update for a specific country you can ask me at my talk page. Rettetast (talk) 11:41, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

I updated the full list to see if there was any progress. We went from 5203 articles to ...5225. Rettetast (talk) 00:43, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks for creating and updating the lists. It certainly makes the work easier. I'm disappointed that the overall list is growing, but we must have removed at least 100 articles in the past week and I'm convinced the biggest culprits have stopped adding new ones. I think we can bring under 5000 in a week's time if we keep at it. Jogurney (talk) 03:29, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I think the probable cause of this growth is the fact that there are still (probably) thousands of unreferenced football BLPs not wearing tags. I've added tags to a couple of dozen since the first list was created. If anyone sees unreferenced BLPs going through new articles, the creator should get a stern warning. King of the  North   East  15:27, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

If anyone is interested I could make lists based on a club category. It is probably easier to find sources about players that have bin in "your" club. This has to be done on a request basis though. Anyone who wants to give it a try? Rettetast (talk) 15:16, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Move of David Hutton (SCO) and David Hutton (ENG)
I've moved both David Hutton pages because one page just said David Hutton and the other said David Hutton (footballer born 1989). Seriously why the hell would you not change the Scottish Footballer's page when you have an English Footballer with the same name? It just totally fucks everything up and the reason is that was because I typed David Hutton under search and I clicked go and it sent me to the Scottish Footballer's page and I typed it again and pushed the space bar and another said David Hutton (footballer born 1989), so now both pages are David Hutton (Scottish footballer) and David Hutton (English footballer). – Michael (talk) 00:55, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Calm down, nothing that a hatnote couldn't fix. It looks like a fine move and dab to me, all done here. Sillyfolkboy (talk) (edits) 01:12, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Another time, when you create a dab page at the name of a previous article, in this case at David Hutton which was previously the name of the Scottish footballer's page, it's best to fix the incoming links to that dab page, so that they point to the right David Hutton (xxxish footballer) and not to David Hutton the dab page. (I've done them, there weren't many...) cheers, Struway2 (talk) 08:38, 12 May 2009 (UTC)


 * I think the problem here is amply demonstrated by David Hutton (English footballer) already having been moved to David Hutton (Irish footballer), apparently because he's got U-21 caps. This does not make him Irish. The reason we disambiguate by birth year is to avoid stuff like this. In addition, the reason that one of the David Huttons was at David Hutton is because he's considerably better known right now, having been in the first team of a senior club for several years. This means that he is the primary target for inciming links right now. These need re-disambiguated properly again. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 02:42, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

David Hutton (Irish footballer)
Can an admin restore him back to David Hutton (footballer born 1989) because in the future if another Irish David Hutton turns up it would be inappropriate to have the name as such right? Govvy (talk) 20:52, 17 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Are you expecting one to appear or something? If another appears then move it, otherwise the DAB is fine as it is: we shouldn't organise articles on the prospect of supposed future articles. Sillyfolkboy (talk) (edits) WIKIPROJECT ATHLETICS NEEDS YOU!  22:18, 17 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Speedied the redirect, per the previous discussion on this. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 02:50, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Non-affliated national football teams
Quite a few of these national teams are up for AfD. As a single entity they don't seem to meet notability, but collectivly would they? Is it worth creating a new article and umbrella some of them under a name along the lines of Non-affliated national football teams? --Jimbo[online] 15:51, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I can't see how a collection of teams so non-notable as those which were deleted, most of which had very little in common (except that the majority of them would have a very hard job being classified as "national"), would make a notable group. - fchd (talk) 16:16, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Is there not an article covering the topic? The topic of non FIFA-affiliated national teams is certainly notable, I've read a few articles on the subject and I think there'd be enough coverage out there. Unsure as to whether a list article would really be, mind you. – Toon (talk)  18:50, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Non-FIFA football is the closest we have at the moment. Stu.W UK (talk) 12:19, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Notability question
Is there any rule (or at least guideline) concerning club notability outside English football league system? Here I mean those small leagues that don't have thousand clubs or so. I've found an article about the Icelandic club called Dalvík/Reynir. It was mainly written (very well, I must say) by User:Gullijons, and that club is probably user's hometown club. Anyway, it's not that I don't appreciate the user's effort, but how notable this club really is? The fact is that it never played in any league higher that fourth and bottom league (3. deild karla), which is, you guess, fully amateur. As for cup, on Iceland ALL clubs are eligible to enter the cup from the First Round and it reached Fourth Round (Round of 32) in 2007.

The club itself is just an example through which I want to ask what about the notability of those clubs that belong to smaller associations? SonjiCeli (talk) 20:49, 19 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Yes, there is a guideline - WP:N - keep to the general notability guidelines, and you should be all right. - fchd (talk) 21:23, 19 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Exactly, WP:N applies in this case. That said, I think this particular article is acutally non-notable, I failed to find significant coverage about it. In addition, maybe the fact the club is fully amateur is unimportant, but the fact it plays in the bottom tier of Icelandic league system makes me lean against keeping this particular article. --Angelo (talk) 21:38, 19 May 2009 (UTC)


 * The club plays at level 4 on the Icelandic football pyramid. So is it really any different than having an article about Bury F.C.? As for notability for amateur clubs, how about clubs like Wigan Robin Park F.C.? John Sloan @ 22:01, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
 * English Level 4 is different than Icelandic Level 4: I don't think you can compare following, coverage and player salaries and skills from such leagues, it is a no-contest actually. Don't know about Wigan Robin Park FC, but if it fails WP:N then it is not notable as well. --Angelo (talk) 22:53, 19 May 2009 (UTC)


 * That is also why I pointed out the non-English clubs, I would even say clubs that do not belong to top 5 European leagues. They differ from other minor leagues; I would say that Icelandic tier 4 is somewhere around English tier 10 or something like that.


 * Actually, I was aware of WP:N, but I was asking about the specific guideline within WikiProject Football which obviously doesn't exist yet. Anyway, thanks a lot. SonjiCeli (talk) 08:28, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

A rough guidline was set with WikiProject Football/Notability, have a look there. Under those criterias, the club is notable because it played in the national cup competition. EA210269 (talk) 08:53, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, WP:FOOTYN was never fully accepted and approved, and my own feeling is that it should be considered as additional criterions. So, if a subject for instance meets WP:FOOTYN but fails WP:N, then it is not notable. --Angelo (talk) 09:13, 20 May 2009 (UTC)


 * ...what is why I emphasized that ALL clubs are eligible to compete in a national cup starting from the first round proper (not qualifying or preliminary round).


 * Anyway, I don't want to be misinterpreted, but I'm not desperately trying to find the reason for AfD on this one particularly. I'd just like to help out in shaping and determining the notability guidelines concerning clubs which, as I can see, still are something to work on, especially when talking about minor leagues. SonjiCeli (talk) 09:18, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Just to emphasise, WP:FOOTYN is a very rough guideline at the moment - any suggestions for how best to improve it would be great. Another problem I've noticed is that currently it says that all clubs in top leagues are notable, regardless of which country they're playing in, meaning that the top Montserrat league and the top Australian league are equally valid! Stu.W UK (talk) 11:01, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

PC/NT updates
Hi there teammates, i bring to you another doubt,

I have seen that user Mega60 has been removing the updates on retired players, on exactly those grounds (players no longer play), hence "enters" my question, maybe he could be right, i don't know, wanted to bring this up to the forum before i message him:

What are the patterns here? My approach (which can be VERY MUCH wrong) was/is the following: For Playing Club (PC), i usually inserted the date that closed last season (i.e. 31 July 2002 if player's last season was 2001-02), for National Team (NT), not much gray area, i obviously added the day player last appeared for country. Is this correct or is our man MEGA correct (meaning no updates whatsoever must be applied in retired players)?

Attentively, VASCO AMARAL, PORTUGAL - --NothingButAGoodNothing (talk) 22:30, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Personally, I also delete the updates on players if they have retired/died. GiantSnowman 22:59, 19 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks a lot, Snowman, will do too from now on as well, seems quite logical also.

--NothingButAGoodNothing (talk) 00:09, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I requested a "managerupdate" parameter for the new footballer infobox, but I think it got forgotten about. I tend to remove the pcupdate parameter from players that are deceased or inactive but leave it in the case of managers and coaches in the absence of anything better for keeping tabs. King of the  North   East  14:01, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

BSC Young Boys managers
Does anyone happen to know if the William Reynolds (footballer) first-named on BSC Young Boys managers is a) William Thomas Reynolds born 1870 in Tewkesbury who played for Small Heath in the 1890s; b) William Reynolds born 187 8 9 in Manchester who played for Burton/Clapton/Grimsby/Swindon in the 1900s; c) some other bloke entirely? cheers, Struway2 (talk) 12:03, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
 * On BSC official site, he is presented as an "English football instructor" here, in German. Does any of them was a coach somewhere before ?--Latouffedisco (talk) 13:49, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
 * No idea, sorry. The Manchester-born one had a more varied playing career, but their playing careers are all I have any information on. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 14:02, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Now at William Reynolds (footballer born 1870) and William Reynolds (footballer born 1879) respectively. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 14:29, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Redundancy in table
I mentioned to User:HonorTheKing that the (C) and (R) marks on league tables such as Premier League 2007–08 are redundant. We have already highlighted the fact that people are champions by (a) league positions by points from top down (b) colours denoting the different achievements and (c) the comments column (where applicable). Isn't it a bit overkill? Surely people will get the point that three clubs are relegated by the fact they are in a big red area labelled as "relegated to championship"? Similarly, who would ever expect the team in any place other than the top to be the champions? The more we simplify these things the better, and the colouring and comments already resolve any accessibility problems. Sillyfolkboy (talk) (edits) WIKIPROJECT ATHLETICS NEEDS YOU!  12:03, 20 May 2009 (UTC)


 * In the current colour scheme on Premier League 2007–08, I'd certainly say the (R) for the relegated teams is necessary. The red colour is no doubt very clear to those with normal colour vision, otherwise you wouldn't use it, but the tiny writing on the dull background on the RH side saying those teams are relegated certainly isn't clear to me. The nice bold black (R) next to the team names, however, is very clear indeed, probably as clear to me as the red colour is to you. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 12:13, 20 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Topping the table does not mean winning the championship in all countries. Nor does finishing bottom necessarily mean relegation. Stu.W UK (talk) 12:16, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Perhaps the relegation comments etc should be made clearer then. Should the comments be bolded? That in itself is a problem. Colour blind issues are of little significance: only a blind man could confuse red with white and grey (the adjacent colours). To the red/green colour blind the table will appear highlighted at each end, which is a signifier of something anyway (although it lacks the colour content and implications that come with green and red). In what league is the person who finishes top not the league champion? Sillyfolkboy (talk) (edits) WIKIPROJECT ATHLETICS NEEDS YOU!  12:43, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Although blue on red can be a problem, as WP:COLOUR will confirm, the major thing with the relegation wording is not just the lack of contrast, but the combination of low contrast and very small font size. Making it the size as generated by reflist, for instance, which I think is 95%, would make it significantly clearer. Though I get the impression the template used for league tables is so tightly coded that it might not allow such a change? sorry about delay in replying, my internet connection's up and down like a yoyo at the moment :-) cheers, Struway2 (talk) 13:09, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
 * MLS, A-League and New Zealand Football Championship all lead to play-offs. For example, the most recent NZ championship was won by Auckland, despite them finishing 2nd in the league. I'm sure there are other examples from non-English speaking countries too - I seem to remember that Malta, San Marino and Andorra all have odd systems for instance. Stu.W UK (talk) 13:14, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
 * There should be absolutely no reason for any text that is relevant to the content of an article being less than 100% text size. Or, to be honest, any back ground colours either (or at least keep them to the very very palest of shades). Keep it simple and accessible. - fchd (talk) 13:24, 20 May 2009 (UTC)


 * I still think that having a template to create a league table is utterly ludicrous when we have a very simple way of creating tables already, via the wikitable system. I wish User:ClaudioMB had never created the bastarding things! At least in wikitables it's easy to change background colours, text colours, etc. – PeeJay 16:26, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Non-notable template?
Surely is a non-notable template? GiantSnowman 17:03, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Definitely not. Just remove it from all articles including it, then mark it for speedy deletion under WP:CSD. --Angelo (talk) 17:40, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
 * T3 talks about duplicate templates - and this isn't a duplicate of anything, as far as I can see...GiantSnowman 18:30, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I missed a 'and' word, sorry. You're right, regular TfD (still seven days, anyway) --Angelo (talk) 21:18, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Notable game?
Would the Suruga Bank Championship match qualify as notable to have its own article? Digirami (talk) 20:56, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I don't know what anyone else thinks, but it seems fine to me. It doesn't seem like the competition is intended as a pre-season friendly tournament, but a full-blown one that people should take seriously. – PeeJay 20:59, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree with PeeJay2K3. The Suruga is not a friendly competition, as it is organized by both the Japan Football Association and CONMEBOL. --Carioca (talk) 21:18, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Discussion for handling UEFA Cup and Europa League
First, this discussion should perhaps take place on UEFA Cup, if this is the case we can move it there.

Tonight (or tomorrow night for those still on Tuesday) as most are aware, the last UEFA Cup final will be played. Though imo there's no need to have a plan ready for the final whistle, there might at least be nice to come up with a consensus for implementation. My proposal would be to treat it as the European Cup/UEFA Champions League situation, this includes, article moves (some changes in the UEFA Cup article will also be needed), categories, templates etc. Should for example these three articles (List of UEFA Cup winners, UEFA Cup records and statistics, List of UEFA Cup winning managers) stay until until we actually have any Europa League winners, should the records and stats be changed upon the start of next season? chandler ··· 03:14, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I would say start of the 1st Europa League.--Latouffedisco (talk) 07:52, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I would say when the final UEFA Cup is all done and dusted. Imposing any kind of time limitations over the change will doubtless cause much back and forth reversion so we could all save a bit of time by just going ahead and renaming it to the new brand. I'm still in favour of an article split but I get the impression that the Euro Cup/CL article precedent is pretty much clad in stone. Sillyfolkboy (talk) (edits) WIKIPROJECT ATHLETICS NEEDS YOU!  12:57, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
 * The UEFA Cup trophy will be used for the Europa League. Similar to the Champions League as the trophy called "European Cup" is given to the winners of CL. So I think the article should be moved instead of making a new one. Raymond Giggs 13:40, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Request for opinions on national teams
I was wondering what people's opinions were on the remaining teams on these two templates: Template:NF-Board_teams and Template:Non-FIFA_teams. I've already nominated what I felt were the least notable (or completely unverifiable) teams, but I can't really decide where to draw a line. Some of the teams have only ever competed in one competition, e.g the ELF Cup or UNPO Cup. Would those teams' pages be better off merged into the tournament article? How about the Spanish regional teams which seem to play one game a year around christmas etc etc etc Stu.W UK (talk) 12:35, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, let me see:
 * Kiribati is an associate OFC member, so it is notable on its own.
 * Greenland was recently rumoured about being a possible candidate to join FIFA in the near future, due to the autonomous status the region has acquired in recent times, so it could be another notable one.
 * Catalonia, even if not recognized internationally, has played against significant opponents such as Argentina and Brazil, so it should be kept imho. Same applies for Basque Country.
 * Gibraltar has recently applied for UEFA membership, but it was rejected, apparently due to Spanish opposition to the joining, and the issue is still apparently ongoing. So, this could be another notable one.
 * All other national teams are debatable, but some of them, such as Occitania, South Moluccas, Yap, Brittany and Madeira don't really look that notable. --Angelo (talk) 13:57, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

I'd say the majority of them past notability with the exception of a few, but no clear criteria has been put forth. I'd say Madeira would pass general notability. The deletion seems to be quite hasty, perhaps instead of trying to delete them all, an effort to add references will be more suited - as that's what seems to be the main point of argument in all these AfDs. I've seen loads of FIFA affliated teams without/few reliable references, does this mean they should be bundled in too? --Jimbo[online] 08:14, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Beechlawn Rovers F.C.
Just found this article categorised in the main football category. All of the info seems a bit contrived, especially the bit about the stadium being the only one in Ireland with undersoil heating and a cantilever roof, and the bit about the sponsorship by McVitie's. Furthermore, the main editor of the article seems to have the same surname as one of the people who was listed as a famous past player until I deleted it. Hoax, anyone? – PeeJay 10:25, 21 May 2009 (UTC)
 * "They play in red shirts, black shorts and red socks, with their away colours being blue and black striped shirts, black shorts and blue shorts." That is the only true sentence in the article.

Nearby Coolock Town F.C. of the Amateur Football League are a more significant team and they don't meet notability criteria either.--EchetusXe (talk) 10:56, 21 May 2009 (UTC)


 * The club does seem to exist, as a parks team (in the dropdown menu) but does seem to be a popular subject for flights of fancy ... cheers, Struway2 (talk) 11:00, 21 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Would someone mind nomming it for deletion then? I have to go off and do an exam on Animal Development now. Eugh! – PeeJay 11:01, 21 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Your wish is my command... Have a nice exam :-) cheers, Struway2 (talk) 11:18, 21 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Cheers Struway. As it happens, I did have a nice exam :-) – PeeJay 20:01, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Category:Beechlawn Rovers F.C. players has also been created. Would this go through speedy when the parent article is deleted? --Jimbo[online] 12:47, 21 May 2009 (UTC)
 * No idea, you'd think so... You could always try asking the creator to db-author it. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 13:31, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

The two Enfield clubs
An IP keeps adding some highly POV commentary on the split between Enfield Town F.C. and Enfield (1893) F.C., despite my constant efforts to rewmove it. Can others keep an eye out, as I'm getting bored of reverting it -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 11:44, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Beitar Jerusalem
A new editor keeps adding a list of "Transfers to European clubs" to this article, something which has happened sporadically from IPs and new accounts over the last year or so. Can someone else keep an eye on it or have a word with him, as I'm tired of reverting. Cheers, пﮟოьεԻ   5  7  15:30, 21 May 2009 (UTC)
 * He has now started to add a similar list to the Israeli Premier League article (all transfers from Israeli clubs to Europe). This is not the first time this has been flagged up (see here from October last year - can someone else intervene. Cheers, пﮟოьεԻ   5  7  18:33, 21 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I'll happily step in. Please leave me a note on my talk page if I miss anything.  The Rambling Man (talk) 18:35, 21 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks, пﮟოьεԻ   5  7  18:36, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Milovan Rajevać
Someone has moved the Serbian manager Milovan Rajevać over its redirect to the accentless Milovan Rajevac. As he is Serbian and therfore should have an accent in his name, could a lovely admin please move it back? Cheers, GiantSnowman 00:58, 16 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Wow, I´m sorry but the person that made that move is right. Serbian language uses two aphabets:latin and cyrillic. The serbian latin letters are, lets say, the translation of the serbian cyrillic letters. So, there are 3 C´s in serbian:"C" that sounds like ts, the "Č" that sounds like tch or hard ch , and "Ć" that sounds like soft ch. Ц=C=ts ; Ч=Č=tch ; Ћ=Ć=ch . It´s trou that almoust all the serbian surnames and in -vić or -ić , but not all, and specially when ending in "C" without "I" before,is rare to be "Ć" like in -vić. If it ends in -vic it will allways be with ć ,but, if ends in -vac ,it will never be "-vać". For exemple: Stanković , and sounds Stankovich , and Bogavac , that sounds "Bogavats" , see? It´s 2 different letters with two different sounds. There is also Kovač ( sounds Kovatch ) . So, I´m not 100% sure but 99% that he is Rajevac , that sounds Rayevats ,and not as you say Rajevać, that would untipically sound Rayevach. So, I´m sorry to tell you may be 99% wrong. Feel allways free to ask me for help about this things. Cheers FkpCascais (talk) 06:27, 16 May 2009 (UTC)FkpCascais (talk) 06:35, 16 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I cheked it and it´s 100% now. It´s deffinitely Rajevac . Keep in mind that if a person is from Slovenia, the surname will end in -vič, like Zahovič , for exemple. FkpCascais (talk) 06:46, 16 May 2009 (UTC)FkpCascais (talk) 06:49, 16 May 2009 (UTC)FkpCascais (talk) 06:52, 16 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Seriously? That's the first time I've ever encountered that with a Serbian person, how interesting! GiantSnowman 10:40, 16 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Don´t warry, that´s because the vast majority of surnames and in -vić ,but in this case is -vAc. It was just funny to me to hear you say that since he was serbian he should have an accent in his name... :) FkpCascais (talk) 21:09, 16 May 2009 (UTC)
 * It's the same thing with Croatians, too (minus the cyrillic alphabet part as Croatian uses latin script). It's the case with Igor Štimac, Ivica Križanac, Alen Peternac, Josip Balatinac, etcetera. Timbouctou (talk) 23:08, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Infobox query
Blackpool F.C. - what's the "all-time topscorer" field doing in the infobox...........? -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 08:55, 22 May 2009 (UTC)


 * See Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Football/Archive 31. Perhaps it got in then... cheers, Struway2 (talk) 09:01, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Alan Foster (footballer)
Is there any evidence this guy played professionally? The match against Milan referred to (which the article helpfully doesn't date) appears to have happened in 1913, and Reading wouldn't join the Football League until 1920, after Foster apparently died. If he never played in the League for any other club(s), presumably we should treat him like a modern non-league player and delete the article........? -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 09:25, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
 * He played for Bristol City, I'll add the details. But it's an interesting point. Was the Southern League fully-pro in the years before it merged into the Football League? Or at least, was it any less fully-pro than, say, the Football League of the 1890s? cheers, Struway2 (talk) 10:05, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Done that. I commented out the reference to his teammate also being killed in action, as I can't find any source other than that Reading fansite. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 10:45, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I have no idea of the exact status of the Southern League in the 1910s. I do know, though, that in the late 1940s when Gillingham were in it they were only semi-pro (each player was on £1 a week according to the club's official centenary book) -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 17:57, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Charlie Bell
I was wondering if Charlie Bell, the former manager of Bournemouth and Mansfield  was the guy as the Marseille and Nice manager in France. He has also coached Padova see here and possibly Sporting Lisbon. Any clues ? Any informations about his playing career ? Now you must understand I'm very interested in English football pioneers in Europe... Cheers.--Latouffedisco (talk) 16:26, 22 May 2009 (UTC)


 * According to Michael Joyce's book: Charles Oliver (Charlie) Bell, born 18 May 1894 in Dumfries, died 1939 (he doesn't give full dates or places of death). Played for Dumfries Wanderers, Douglas Wanderers, Carlisle City, then one league game for Woolwich Arsenal in 1913/14 season, played 1 scored 2, then Chesterfield Town, Barrow, finishing at QPR in 1921/22 season but didn't play in the league.


 * Chesterfield FC's website has wonderful detail on Excel spreadsheets on all aspects of their history; the 1909-1921 link has some info. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 16:50, 22 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Plus the good bit: This, which is reliable as far as anything Wigan-related is concerned has him managing Wigan Borough 1923-1925, and then disappearing, before resurfacing as manager of Mansfield in 1934. hope this helps, Struway2 (talk) 16:57, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks Struway: looks like this is the same guy, based on his career dates and date of birth/death, although this has been a bit mixed up, no? (just an intuition).--Latouffedisco (talk) 17:50, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Yes, something's wrong. The last part of his playing career and early part of his coaching career in England is supposed to be: Barrow, QPR, Coaching jobs at Reading and Notts County (ca. 1921-23) Wigan Borough manager next. His first spell as Sporting trainer was January 1920-summer 1922.Cattivi (talk) 19:23, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Could wa have two guys with the same name there (several Charles/Charlie Bell who played/coached at the same time) ? --Latouffedisco (talk) 07:08, 23 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Looks like the Charles Bell from Sporting Lisbon is not the same guy see also that. So his coaching career would be Barrow, QPR, Coaching jobs at Reading and Notts County (ca. 1921-23) Wigan Borough - Padova - Olympique de Marseille (1932/33) - OGC Nice (1933) - Mansfield - Bournemouth, no?--Latouffedisco (talk) 07:30, 23 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Joyce only lists the one Charles Bell as having played in the Football League, but it was only his single game for Arsenal that got him into that list. Bell isn't an uncommon surname, and the Southern League had a lot of strong professional players before it merged into the FL. Though it still seems unlikely that there should be two. Do you know how long the Portuguese season ran in those days? if it was much shorter than the English, or differently phased, would it have been feasible for him to sign for QPR as short-term cover (he never played in their league side, do we know if he played at all), or do a bit of coaching at Reading, during the Portuguese off-season? Clutching at straws, perhaps... cheers, Struway2 (talk) 08:02, 23 May 2009 (UTC)
 * You could be right, as Portuguese football seasons were very short at that time. For the Sporting Lisbon it was a Lisbon-based championship. Look at that. No dates, but there were very few matches...--Latouffedisco (talk) 08:31, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

The 1919-20 Campeonato de Lisboa ran from 4 January- 16 May 1920-21: from 21 November to 22 May 1921-22: from 13 November- 12 February + 3 championship matches in June against Porto (Source Almanaque do Sporting 1906-2005). He could have been in England for long periods. The only problem left is: he can't have been Barrow's top goalscorer as claimed by the Mansfield complete record book in 1920-21 Cattivi (talk) 10:30, 23 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Hum, so another person in that case?--Latouffedisco (talk) 10:50, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

Maybe the Bell who started the 1920-21 season with Barrow, isn't the same one who played for them in January 1921. Cattivi (talk) 11:45, 23 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Could be, but can we start an article with all we have?--Latouffedisco (talk) 13:08, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

Article created at Charlie Bell (footballer): feel free to improve it.--Latouffedisco (talk) 07:20, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Ian Ugarde
Hoax? Hubschrauber729 (talk) 20:34, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I suspect it's a hoax because the LFP has no entry for him: Search of LFP. Jogurney (talk) 21:00, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Definately. If he was real there'd definately be at least one ghit, considering he would have played for a couple of the biggest clubs in Europe. --Jimbo[online] 00:44, 23 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I've listed it for speedy deletion under WP:CSD. --Jimbo[online] 00:48, 23 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Blantant hoax...--Latouffedisco (talk) 07:11, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

Could someone please also check whether Anthony Rush and Ronnie Walsh are also hoaxes. They were created by the same editor as Ian Ugarde.- gadfium 21:20, 24 May 2009 (UTC)


 * I'm confident that I would remember the name if I had watched Ronnie Walsh several dozen times at Priestfield, and I don't. If Anthony Rush had really been such a prolific scorer at Fulham in recent times, you would expect some google results on "Anthony Rush" + Fulham to have something to do with sport.  Both seem to be hoaxes.  Kevin McE (talk) 22:26, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

User:DavidHurst
seems to think that the new season has started today, when infact it starts on 1 July. Just thought I'd bring his edits to attention. Mattythewhite (talk) 17:43, 24 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Do we have a policy or talk consensus that we can point new users to, regarding the timing of end of season edits? Such edits are almost always done in good faith, so I think if we had something organised it would be more convincing than a straight revert and could avoid an edit war. --Jameboy (talk) 18:06, 24 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I'd propose choosing a reliable source: The Football League and the Premier League come to mind; and when they change their league tables, we change ours. How it'd work in practice is another matter: my lot were put up to the Prem twice yesterday, neither time by DavidHurst, and last I heard, the Championship season hadn't finished yet... cheers, Struway2 (talk) 08:17, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Template:Footballbox
What should be used for the "report" parameter in Template:Footballbox (since only one can be added)? Another editor changed my BBC link to a Soccerbase one, but I'd have thought that a match write-up would be preferred to purely statistical information? This is not a complaint against the other user however, as the template documentation gives no guidance whatsoever. --Jameboy (talk) 19:28, 24 May 2009 (UTC)
 * A report is an account of an incident or event. I believe the typical BBC write-up is a better quality of report than the basic statistical information offered on Soccerbase.
 * Soccerbase is a good place to start, but if a decent article exists (and is freely accessible) that is based solely on the match itself then Soccerbase should be replaced with said article.
 * I know there is no guidance and there probably should be. Taking a stab at it the guideline could be:

1. Article from the official footballing body, i.e. FIFA failing that 2. Article from a reputable news source, i.e. BBC failing that 3. Soccerbase link

I know there are plenty of matches where there exists only a Soccerbase page, but I think that should be a last resort rather than the preferred choice.--EchetusXe (talk) 19:39, 24 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Concur with that, especially as soccerbase is so iffy when it comes to some of their data. Nanonic (talk) 23:52, 24 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I think that, if there is no official match report from the organisers of the competition the match is played in, then we should leave the "report" parameter blank. There are few things I hate more than people filling in gaps just because they are empty. – PeeJay 01:04, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Bear in mind that both Soccerbase match details and official match reports from organisers of competitions are in general available only for relatively recent matches. There's no explanatory documentation for this template: is the parameter supposed to be for a match write-up, or is it supposed to be a reliable source for the information in the rest of the box? cheers, Struway2 (talk) 08:24, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Since the data in the footballbox has to be verified somehow, I would favor the "reliable source" option. Nevertheless, it should be irrelevant if the sourcing is done by a full (written) match report or just a boxscore as long as the data given in the football box is verifiable through the given report. --Soccer-holicI hear voices in my head... 08:33, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

User Huw Nathan
Has been making a series of ridiculous page moves. Could an admin revert these please? Jmorrison230582 (talk) 06:32, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Reverted, also left a couple words in the user talkpage. --Angelo (talk) 07:41, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks! Jmorrison230582 (talk) 16:29, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Liverpool 0–2 Arsenal (26 May 1989)
After being on semi-wikiholiday of late I'm back, and I thought I'd created an article on the 1989 English league title decider, as tomorrow is it's 20th anniversary. Edits and perspectives from a Liverpool PoV welcome. Qwghlm (talk) 15:26, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Champions League final ticket
In the vain hope that anyone here is going to the Champions League final on Wednesday, is there any chance that they could upload a photograph of their ticket for inclusion in the 2009 UEFA Champions League Final article? Blurring of your name and any other personal details on the ticket would be advised. – PeeJay 20:01, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Alex Wark, brother of John Wark
Hey folks. Dweller and I are trying to give the mustachioed genius that is Big Johnny Wark a well-deserved makeover and en route I've discovered, according to his autobiography, his brother was a pro at St Mirren. Anyone got anything I can use to corroborate, back up, expand upon here? He doesn't have an article but I guess if we can find something to cite then this link will not be red 'cos eventually it'll turn blue... Cheers in advance. The Rambling Man (talk) 16:29, 8 May 2009 (UTC)
 * He made one league appearance for St Mirren in the 1969-70 season, according to Neil Brown. Regards, GiantSnowman 16:36, 8 May 2009 (UTC)
 * it might be this one: born 17-11-51 12-7-1973 signed by Duntocher Hibs 28-6-1976 signed by Rob Roy 8-9-1977-30-11-79 Australia (don't know the club) 14-4-1982 to Australia again. This information looks outrageous, but you can buy it.Source: A Record of Postwar Scottish League Players version 3.0 (CDROM)It contains official information from the Scottish League by John Litster and Scottish Football Historian Magazine version 3.0 I have no doubts whatsoever Neil Brown copied it. Cheers Cattivi (talk) 19:38, 16 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Version 4 is out now but I haven't got that one. Cattivi (talk) 20:02, 16 May 2009 (UTC)
 * There is no mention of an Alex Wark playing in Australia according to the Australian Player's Database. Cheers, GiantSnowman 10:51, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Template:Defunct national football teams
This template has been the subject of an argument between Fasach Nua and chandler for a while now and before bans get handed out it might be a good idea if we could reach a consensus on what should be done with it. To save a lot of reading I'll try to offer a paraphrasing of the two sides.

Fasach Nua's argument is that there are only 4 teams that have no successor recognised by FIFA, and these are the only ones that can be recognised as defunct because no other criteria for inclusion or exclusion exists.

Chandler thinks that to not call teams like USSR defunct is absurd regardless of whether technically they were succeeded by Russia.

I have tried, fairly cackhandedly, to make some suggestions of ways to resolve this. The problem is that ultimately I don't really care either way. Any suggestions? Stu.W UK (talk) 22:26, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree with Chandler. The term "defunct" simply means that some national teams ceased to exists due to changed political circumstances. It has nothing to do with whether they have FIFA-recognised successors or whether FIFA attributes their achievements to any present-day team. Having that said, the template looks too complicated and rather unclear with the division of teams by two criteria (whether FIFA regards them as defunct and whether "wikipedia" sees them that way). Perhaps I should also add that I'm Croatian and as such I think that FIFA's habit of attributing Yugoslavia's record to present day Serbia is rather unfair since Serbia was only a part of the former country with many non-Serbian players contributing to the former national team's successes (the 1987 World Youth Championship was won by Yugoslavia and featured a number of Croats who would later went on to win bronze for Croatia at the 1998 World Cup). I'm sure same could be said for many prominent Ukranian players who played for the USSR or Slovaks who played for Czechoslovakia. Defunct national teams are directly related to their defunct nations, and since it's usually pretty clear whether a nation exists or not the same could be said for national teams. Regardless what FIFA thinks :-) Timbouctou (talk) 22:55, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

My point is that it is absurd to not include articles about defunct teams on a navigational template about defunct national teams. And as there seem to be a very long standing consensus to have Russia/CIS/Soviet, Serbia/Yugoslavia, Czechia and Slovakia/Czechoslovakia, Northern Ireland/Ireland pre-split and Vietnam/South Vietnam on multiple articles. And when it comes to at least USSR, YUG, TCH they're not only split in football (national teams, youth teams, leagues, cups, awards), but in country articles, sports like ice hockey, tennis, olympics, rugby, handball or basket. This consensus over all aspects of wikipedia does not seem to be challenged (but ofc not merge requests, presumable because he knows it would fail?) or questioned by anyone other than Fasach nua. This template (like all nav. templates) is here to help readers navigate through articles we have, the information should not be hidden. chandler • 03:29, 23 May 2009 (UTC)


 * OK, it´s pretty clear here that this is an issue that will be challenged here and everywhere forever and whatever the solution is, it will be challenged again. As a Serbian it´s obvious that I disagree with this. Not becouse I want to have all the credits of the old Yugoslavia to the today´s Serbia, but becouse in this particular case, the name Yugoslavia remained untill recently. So, what Yugoslavia are you talking here? The 1st, 2nd or 3rd? The 1st was the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, that was politically led by the Serbian royal dinasty of Karađorđević, and "Footballistically" participated in the 1930 World Cup with a team enterely composed of players from the serbian big clubs from that period. The Croat players that may have played, boycoted it... The 2nd Yugoslavia, the comunist/socialist/titoist/non-aligned, SFRY, was always been challenged by the croatian nationalists as completely serbian dominated. It´s thru that most of the best Croatian players, after the end of the WWII, came to play to Belgrade,Serbia, most of them to FK Partizan, but only one said that he was forced to. On the other side, on the first chance, in 1940, the croats decided to ignore the Yugoslav NT, and played for the NT of the Hitler allied independent Croatia, the only nazi/fascist country that didn´t payed a single cent of war damage, and was brutal the same, or even more than the III Reich. After the dismemberment of Yugoslavia in the early 90´s, Serbia continued to play as Yugoslavia becouse, all the other republics, with the exeption of Montenegro, decided to ABANDON Yugoslavia, and start their new nations and ,as obvious,NT´s. So, this is the 3rd FR Yugoslavia, this one composed of Serbia (10 million inhabitants) and Montenegro (0.5 million inhabitants). This Yugoslavia was denied (becouse of the Economical Sanctions, imposed to Serbia) the participation in the major tournaments until the WC in 1998. Remember when Denmark won? It was becouse they played instead and, let´s be honest, Yugoslavia was the favourite, specially becouse was bilt around the Red Star Belgrade (from Serbia, to laics) team that were the European Champions in 1991. That generation of great Serbian players like Mihajlovic, Stojkovic, Jugovic, Mijatovic and Savicevic from Montenegro, Stosic, Brnovic, and many more was completely denied any international succes on NT level and , with the serbian clubs happend the same.

I don't really know what to think here. Both sides have valid arguments and I cannot make a choice.--Latouffedisco (talk) 07:19, 23 May 2009 (UTC)
 * So, there is a reason wy was Serbia is declared as the succesor of all the previous Yugoslavias, and not becouse FIFA or UEFA "love" Serbia, and decided to be "unfair" to all the others. Nobody is deniying the archivements and the participation of the other nationalities. That´s exactly the reason wy there is a separate article, but deniyng that Serbian NT is the recognised succesor of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia,SFR Yugoslavia,FR Yugoslavia and Serbia-Montenegro National Teams is in the same way very offensive towards Serbia, and not fair. I think also that another reason is becouse it would be very wrong to show Serbian NT as a NEW team, specially becouse there is continuity in all this proces, being mostly the name that changes, and some players that start playing to the new countries, being sometimes greater the difference between the convocation to a friendly match, than between the passing from one Yugoslavia to another or to Serbia. As a Serbian I´m proud of our football archivements, but I also feel very proud to see the succes of the other ex-Yugoslav countries. Maybe in the next World Cup there are gona be 3 or 4 teams from the ex-Yu and I´m very heappy becouse of that. And another thing, does anybody know, specially you Timbouctou, where can I find the squads of the royal Yugoslav clubs? FkpCascais (talk) 05:54, 23 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Timboctou: the mentions of wikipedia in the template are Fasach Nua's addition. I didn't edit it because I thought it best not to restart an argument. If anyone has the coding expertise, could we possibly add something to the national teams infobox as is seen on, for example, the article for Kingdom of Yugoslavia, with the flags of predecessors and successors? Stu.W UK (talk) 09:56, 23 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Fairly easily. The code from Infobox Former Country just have to be copied. But would all be listed or just the countries that are the successors or those who split out? chandler • 10:01, 23 May 2009 (UTC)
 * There needs to be a clear exclusion criteria, as to why West Germany, Estonia, Egypt, Russia, Korea, Latvia, Lithuania, Pakistan, Poland, South Africa, Syria, Tanganyika, UAR, North Vietnam, North Yemen, and the FR of Yugoslavia(to name a few) have all been excluded as their circumstances are not significantly different from those included. Fasach Nua (talk) 10:41, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

I think "Teams whose both names and borders differ from the present" is fine. Population change is not a suitable criteria for labelling it a defunct team. How it stands now is good, if Ireland united then it could be replaced with Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. If Berwick-upon-Tweed becomes a Scottish town then it is not appropriate to label the England and Scotland national teams as defunct.

The Soviet Union does not exist any more, it is history. India (pre-1949), ok so it lost vast amounts of territory and citizens in the partition but India is a country of 1 billion people today, it is anything but defunct. A being team labelled under "Teams whose both names and borders differ from the present" does not mean it can't have a successor team.

I think we just have to use common sense here.

What criteria are needed? I suggest the following:

1. There is not currently a state of that name in existence. 2. Whose borders are significantly different to how they are now. 3. There is a non-stub article on the team in question in place. 4. The team was at one time officially recognized by FIFA.

CIS · Czechoslovakia · Ireland · South Vietnam · USSR · SFR Yugoslavia all meet the above criteria.

I would suggest that seen as Serbia and Montenegro played in the 2006 World Cup under that banner then if an article was created it would meet that criteria. There is already a category: 'Category:Serbia and Montenegro international footballers'.

The question of heritage doesn't need to enter into the equation. Two guys from Montenegro were in the squad in 2006, not much of a heritage, the rest were Serbs.

Yugoslavia is defunct, no question. The Serbian national football team article can talk of how it is a successor to the Yugoslav team, but that is irrelevant to this discussion.--EchetusXe (talk) 14:08, 23 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Ok, I agree with the template, but there is only one more thing: it says SFR Yugoslavia, and by this is excluded the 1st Kingdom of Yugoslavia, that did participate in a Wourld Cup, andf I think that the idea was to include that period as well... I understand that is complicate... The Serbia and Montenegro NT article alreadey existed, so it would be unuseful to make it again, and Serbia and Montenegro is EXACTLY the same as FR Yugoslavia (Federal Republic of Yugoslavia), and not a different team. FkpCascais (talk) 19:17, 23 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Item #3 There is a non-stub article on the team in question in place. as put forward by EchetusXe cannot be a valid criteria for inclusion / exclusion of anything in an open encyclopaedia as it is contrary to the aim of Wikipedia. Fact may be that there are none worthy of inclusion that don't yet have a non-stub article, but at one time all failed the non-stub criteria and we are not a moment in time organisation. Simply because one does not exist now does not mean one may not exist next week, next month or next year, and if one does it should be linked and included in all the relevant places. If not being notable enough because there was not yet an article in WP was a criteria for everything we could never have new articles on anything.-- Club Oranje T 00:05, 24 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I have another question: my version of the template included several teams that are redirects to their 'successors'. Should those teams be included, as they meet the requirements? If they should, would they be better off as redlinks rather than redirects?
 * I would say redirects are totally unnecessary as the articles aren't about a former team (and will surely confuse readers who think they're coming for a separate article, to find that some of the links are just redirects, as in the German example, Germany is already on the current UEFA team template). And as I see it including redlinks for lets say West Germany (a article that probably will never be separate again because german "lobbying") it would break WP:REDLINK ("Do not create red links to articles that will never be created, including articles that do not comply with Wikipedia's naming conventions."). When it comes to the current version, as FkpCascais said, it should not say "SFR Yugoslavia" but rather Yugoslavia (not just because that's where the article is, but because the article covers the Kingdom of Yugoslavia as well). To ClubOranje, I think that (without putting words in EchetusXe's mouth) a criteria being that there actually has to be a article (stub or not) to link to would be a rather good criteria for inclusion/exclusion in a nav template. chandler • 11:09, 24 May 2009 (UTC)
 * hmmm, reinterpreting it put like that, not including it currently in the template, OK (although plenty of NAV templates have red-links). I was thinking (probably wrongly) EchetusXe meant that what didn't exist today couldn't be included tomorrow. Must have been distracted. -- Club Oranje T 01:29, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Sure you could have redlinks, but in the West Germany example the part more important would be "including articles that do not comply with Wikipedia's naming conventions", the redirect "West Germany national football team" should be a redirect (so to have a redlink for that you'd have to break naming conventions). chandler • 08:22, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Another notable match inquiry?
Is the final of the one of Mexican league's bi-annual short tournaments notable for its own article? Digirami (talk) 11:25, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
 * It's a domestic league, so I would say no. --Angelo (talk) 12:52, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
 * As it seems to be a final (not just a regular season match) that decides the winner of the league I would say yes. chandler • 13:01, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I say yes for league finals for countries that have a playoff system (Mexico), those that pit the winners of Apertura and Clausura together for a grand final (Uruguay) and those leagues that require a one off championship decider when teams are tied on points at the top (Argentina). My belief is reinforced by the existence of this article, (the subject of the section directly below), which is about a "final decider" which came about due to a quirk of the fixture list rather than a feature of the league calander. If that is notable (which it surely is) then so are official title deciders from outside of Anglo-football. King of the  North   East  22:06, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Ok thanks! I take from this that any league match/tie that would determine the season/tournament champion is deemed notable... Correct?

But I have a follow-up. Is the Final Phase, which culminates in the game I mentioned above, notable for it's own article? I know it's commonplace to have an article like that for an international club tournament, but a league seems like a different (obviously). Digirami (talk) 12:11, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Template:Galatasaray SK PAF Squad
Certainly a clubs youth team doesn't deserve its own squad template. Hubschrauber729 (talk) 00:36, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Definitely not. GiantSnowman 10:54, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Manchester United F.C. A-class review
I've suggested Manchester United F.C. for promotion to A-class status. Apparently, I need support from "two uninvolved editors, with no significant opposes", which I hope to get from this WikiProject. I'm fairly sure that the article meets the A-class criteria given here, but comments regarding the improvement of the article would be appreciated at Talk:Manchester United F.C. However, please bear in mind that this is an A-class review, not an FAC, so the quality requirements are not quite as high.

My second point is that this project doesn't currently have an A-class review system. This project may or may not be as big as WP:MILHIST, but an A-class review system similar to theirs (here) wouldn't go amiss. Thanks. – PeeJay 00:08, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Proposed change to fb start
As more and more of the football navigational templates are being converted into navboxes, it might be time to make a small change to fb start, it's not a big change.

The current code is as follows:  and because of the highlighted code the subsequent navboxes inside will  display text size improper, example below.

A small difference that will happen if you remove the font-size:95% is that the 47em will be a bit narrower than before, which could be fixed with upping it to about 51 (I'm sure it won't be the exact same size in most browsers, but that isn't important is it), example below.

So I would propose changing the current code (above to), unless it would perhaps be suitable to even give it a little more width, perhaps 60em which would make much difference, but give the change to not break lines as often, example above.

But giving more width isn't as important as just removing font-size: 95% and make the width similar to how it is with font-size:95% on, for navbox templates to display text size as it is suppose to do. chandler ♠ 08:28, 21 May 2009 (UTC)


 * No one else has an opinion on this? I think it's a good idea. Since we're moving toward the Navbox and not going for a total all-at-once overhaul, we have to be committed to gradually making these changes. At least eliminating the font-size would be good, but I like also widening it to 60em. JohnnyPolo24 (talk) 11:14, 26 May 2009 (UTC)


 * I have no strong feelings about this, but I can make the change. So if noone objects I'll make the change tomorrow. The code will then be: . Rettetast (talk) 11:25, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

I did the change. Rettetast (talk) 12:46, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Help with Dutch translation - Pier & Kees Tol
Are any Dutch speakers able to find a source which confirms my suspicion that former Dutch international Kees "Pier" Tol (born 1958) and current SC Cambuur player Kees Tol (born 1987) are father and son - both have the given name 'Kees'; both play(ed) as strikers; both were born in Volendam; they were born roughly 30 years apart. Thanks in advance, GiantSnowman 18:17, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Oh, and it appears the younger Tol has the full name of Kees Pier Tol, so I'm 100% sure they're related - but I need a source! GiantSnowman 19:59, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Do you have a particular dutch page where you think there may be a connection listed? nl-WP does not yet have a page for the SC Cambuur-Leeuwarden player, and Pier Tol doesn't mention a relative. Playerhistory only lists Nick Tol as his son. (and this supports the Nick claim)-- Club Oranje T 01:34, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
 * No, I can't seem to find even a suitable source, let alone translate one! It appears there are numerous Dutch people called Kees Tol - the two footballers, and a musician, and an actor...GiantSnowman 11:00, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Just 2 footballers? There is 2 played for Volendam this March - well, on the bench - with Nick (and Martin and Leon) Tol, and looking at the date, different to your 2! -- Club Oranje T 11:26, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Volendam is a very close-knit community. A catholic enclave, with it's own dialect. A lot of people have the same surname (Tol, Veerman, Kwakman, Schilder etc) Because many people have the same name, nicknames are added (like 'Pier'). Kees "Pier" Tol is his uncle. His father Wim "Pier" Tol was also a Volendam footballer (Eerste divisie 1980-81 topgoalscorer probably not fullpro). thisand this Cattivi (talk) 12:01, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks Cattivi, much appreciated! GiantSnowman 13:50, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Special:Contributions/Best1290
What should we do about "editors" like this? I stumbled upon four hoax footballer articles this user created (all tagged for speedy deletion) and noticed dozens and dozens of sneaky vandalism edits he or she made to minor Asian and American national football team articles. I even found vandalism he or she snuck into articles in July 2008 that had not yet been caught and reverted. I've left the user a second to last vandalism warning (before I realized the extent of the vandalism). How can we find this kinds of users quicker so they don't sneak so much damage into football articles without anyone noticing? I'm quite sure I didn't revert all of the vandalism but I think I got most of it. Jogurney (talk) 04:35, 27 May 2009 (UTC)


 * BLPs are more closely-watched now than ever before. Editors with a history of dubious edits are beholden to Special:Contributions. In this particular case the user should have been uw-longtermed months ago. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 08:29, 27 May 2009 (UTC)


 * The problem is that many of his edits were on low profile sites, and were plausible. It is easy to spot claims of 16 year-olds at Mansfield having 24 England caps and 72 international goals, but not many of us are qualified to challenge the addition of a plausible name in the Belize national team, especially as some national FA websites are uninformative, or to know whether a team has changed its kit.  Are we to be more insistent on sources for low profile teams?  After all, there is no citation for the England squad, kit, fixtures, record in tournaments, manager list etc etc etc Kevin McE (talk) 09:28, 27 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Just assume that every single one is malicious. This user is well beyond the threshold of assuming good faith and has been for ages. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 11:46, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I meant edits in general to low profile teams, not only those made by Best1290. Kevin McE (talk) 13:51, 27 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Revert if it looks dubious. Ensure that pages are categorised properly so that they get the most eyes possible. Wait for things to improve by themselves, as they've been doing for the last eight years. We don't really know why it works, but it works. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 14:43, 27 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Looking at his edit history, it seems he's not just into football. Those edits about Bruneian politics looks rather dubious too. I've left a note at WP:POLITICS about him as I dare say he's also been 'productive' in this field. Bettia   (bring on the trumpets!)  12:00, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Smaller Fonts
Who decided to change the fonts in the season templates?Juve2000 (talk) 20:51, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Why don't you check who edited it? And what season template(s) are you talking about? --Jimbo[online] 20:55, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
 * The fonts are smaller because of a previous "mistake" (or at least not sought after variable) in fb start has been removed to make the Navboxes to work better all you have to do is remove the "font-size:smaller;" or "font-size:90%;", so the template uses the original size chandler • 20:58, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Fulham F.C. GAR
Fulham F.C. has been nominated for a good article reassessment. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to good article quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status will be removed from the article. Reviewers' concerns are here. Mattythewhite (talk) 20:57, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Conor Molan
The article on Conor Molan has been brought up at the BLP noticeboard. An editor claiming to be Molan has expressed a wish for the article to be deleted due to previous vandalism and says it is inaccurate anyway.Could someone take a look at this please? thanks, --Malcolmxl5 (talk) 21:31, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
 * "Conor Molan is a professional soccer player. He currently plays for Limerick FC."


 * Sounds about right to me lol.


 * I think this is what he objects to.--EchetusXe (talk) 21:35, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Well as it stands, it makes no claim to notability anyway, as the FAI First Division is not fully pro. If he has ever played in a fully pro league, it needs to be up there. Kevin McE (talk) 22:34, 27 May 2009 (UTC)


 * I've commented at the BLP noticeboard that he doesn't actually pass WP:ATHLETE. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 22:37, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks, I have listed it at AfD. --Malcolmxl5 (talk) 00:16, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Andy Rennie (Scottish footballer)
A new standard in reliable sources! who could possibly argue with a reference from an "offer of the week" advert for the club's fund-raising calendar? -- Club Oranje T 08:32, 28 May 2009 (UTC)
 * A source is a source.--EchetusXe (talk) 21:21, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Sam Hurrell
PROD disputed on the grounds he won a TV talent contest, but surely he isn't notable? (If kept, the horrible quality of the article needs some serious work - what's a "midlfieder"?) -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 09:01, 28 May 2009 (UTC)


 * I'd argue his case is covered by WP:NOTNEWS: "Even when an event is notable, individuals involved in it may not be. Unless news coverage of an individual goes beyond the context of a single event, our coverage of that individual should be limited to the article about that event, in proportion to their importance to the overall topic." The only thing Hurrell's done, AFAIK, is win Football Icon, do his youth contract with Chelsea, and fail to be taken on elsewhere. So his football career is clearly non-notable, and the only reason he's mentioned in news coverage is for winning the show. Redirect to a para in the Football Icon article, which I'd suggest be written by someone other than the lad himself... cheers, Struway2 (talk) 11:14, 28 May 2009 (UTC)


 * AfD created here. --Jimbo[online] 13:29, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Just a thought
Just a thought regarding the comming opening of the summer transfer window and the countless rumours appearing at the same time, such as Cristiano Ronaldo and Kaká to Real Madrid and Frank Ribery to Manchester United, FC Barcelona and Real Madrid, with these rumours a large serie of IP. nr. appears and changes the club the player plays in solely based on what is said in for example The Times, Marca or La Gazzetta dello Sport, regardless if its in good faith or just pure vandelism, my thought is that we should semi-protect these players until a transfer occur or the transfer window closes.

I belive it might, if done, simplify our work correcting players transfers durring the time, it would prevent a large serie of correction of heavily romoured players. --> Halmstad,  Charla to moi  15:31, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I personally would definitely opt for semi-protection on players who are highly involved in IP vandalism from transfer speculation. Vandals are often too bored/lazy to sign up to edit. For example if you look at the extended history of Gareth Barry we can see that at least 300 edits (!) were made when Barry wasn't even playing in the summer. This is a complete waste of time and space. These (mainly) IP edits are just a drain on you, me, the servers, and the general life blood of the universe. I personally would commend any admin brave enough to slap on a summer long semi-protection for these kinds of rumour-surrounded players. After all, if he's not playing then generally non-registered editors don't stop by to improve the article. We can see that only comestic/technical changes were made over this three month period. Therefore protection seems overwhelmingly logical in these cases. Having to revert football speculation on Wikipedia is one of my least favourite tasks. Sillyfolkboy (talk) (edits) WIKIPROJECT ATHLETICS NEEDS YOU!  15:53, 18 May 2009 (UTC)


 * These edits are great. Lots of bold newcomers doing mistakes. The job reverting such edits are a small price to pay for potential contributors. Just press undo. Explain why, and welcome the IP. I say no to semi protecting to avoid anything else than pure vandalism. Rettetast (talk) 16:01, 18 May 2009 (UTC)


 * I understand your reasoning Rettetast, however something i dont look forward to this summer is reverting a IP. nr. placing Zlatan Ibrahimovic in Real Madrid or FC Barcelona just because some news paper says the deal is done one day with one of the clubs and the next day with the other, or any other player. Last year i daily reverted edits placing Cristiano Ronaldo in Real Madrid and Samir Nasri to Arsenal FC (before it was confirmed by both clubs), there where also romours placing, then Real Zaragoza player, Ricardo Oliveira in Galatasaray S.K. which made a IP. nr placing him in the club multiple times on a daily basis until i had the page semi-protected. --> Halmstad,  Charla to moi  16:59, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm also in favour of article protection. Let newcomers learn the ropes on low visibility articles.--EchetusXe (talk) 18:01, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I disagree. While vandalism is extremely irritating, it is against Wikipedia's custom to pre-emptively protect articles, regardless of the potential for vandalism. – PeeJay 18:04, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree with Peejay. But still, why is an article like Cristiano Ronaldo protected and not Zlatan Ibrahimović, Franck Ribéry, Michael Ballack or Lionel Messi which are all High profile targets for vandals? Hubschrauber729 (talk) 18:20, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Presumably because no one has ever requested that they be protected at WP:RFPP; or if they have, they didn't request protection for very long. – PeeJay 18:30, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
 * What PeeJay said, no pre-emptive protection or speculation which articles could be hit the most. Nu&beta;i&alpha;&tau;&epsilon;ch    Talk  19:48, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I wouldn't agree to pre-emptive page protection as stated above just undo, this is after all the the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit. BigDunc  Talk 19:56, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
 * No to pre-emptive protection, but feel free to ask an admin for semi-protection in case of IP disruption and inclusion of false and/or unconfirmed information, which is probably the most irritating thing about such articles. --Angelo (talk) 21:41, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

I agree that preemptive protection is unnecessary and counterproductive. Speaking of which, here's my first RPP of the not-yet-close season: on Chelsea target. --Mosmof (talk) 21:56, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

List of University-educated footballers
A new list in development. If you have anything to contrubute to it, please do so. ArtVandelay13 (talk) 09:52, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I started adding some MLS players but then realized there will be hundreds of them (and MLS has only been around for a few years) due to the traditional manner in which footballers became professionals in the US (after completing a college soccer program). Is this list maintainable if it will have thousands upon thousands of entries? Jogurney (talk) 11:46, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm also dubious about this list - is this not a trivial intersection? пﮟოьεԻ   5  7  11:49, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
 * It is not mantainable, it is hardly verifiable, it is hard to find reliable sources for it. No different than any other lists that were created and quickly deleted in the past. --Angelo (talk) 11:51, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
 * It's probably more suitable as a category than a list. GiantSnowman 11:55, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Not even as a category, actually. WP:CAT says clearly when a category is good to be created or not, especially when it mentions "Do not create categories based on incidental or subjective features". --Angelo (talk) 12:00, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
 * In Europe, at least, unversity-educated footballers are a rare thing, and when a player has always been to uni, it's almost always mentioned. A comprehensive list would be a useful resource. I agree that the US system means that including US players would make the list pointless and unmanageable. We can mention this in the header of the list, and leave out US players. ArtVandelay13 (talk) 13:15, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Just to clarify, today few professional footballers in the US complete their college education before turning pro. It was until the recent past that almost all pro footballers here completed college first. Jogurney (talk) 13:29, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Aside from the issue of whether it's notable or not, I know Julian Hails has a Maths degree. I think Jens Lehman was doing an Open University degree a few years back and I think Sean Canham and a couple of other former Team Bath players did as well - as it was a Uni team after all. --Jimbo[online] 15:52, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I concur with Angelo, #57 etc above. Lists like this are merely information snippets that are never of any real use as they are never completed, and in fact this is unlikely to ever be, given there are currently over 90000 pages in category "WikiProject Football articles" and for the most part the information regarding whether a player is higher educated or not is not readily available. What exactly is the point of having a list of "a few football players who have a uni degree". It just becomes another it of unreliable information, and unreliable information should not be in an encyclopaedia. There are also far more players gaining degrees that is publicly known - some of them are smart enough to know that football careers don't last forever. -- Club Oranje T 01:14, 27 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Indeed. That Davie Weir completed his education prior to embarking on his football career, or that Kenny Deuchar is a practicing M.D., is interesting tabloid fodder but not a real basis for an expanded article. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 08:25, 27 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Anyways, I have just nominated this list for deletion: Articles for deletion/List of university-educated footballers. Please join the discussion. --Angelo (talk) 08:03, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

English lower league constutions 2009-10
Users have already started updating league articles, templates and club articles with details for the 2009-10 season (e.g. Template:Conference_North, but as far as I know these haven't been announced yet (several positions across the pyramid are subject to appeal and the FA Leagues Committee are keeping quiet for now. - fchd (talk) 16:38, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
 * That's right. For instance, the Southern League have confirmed which teams have been promoted from their feeders, but relegation has yet to be settled from the two Div 1's as Dunstable and Winchester are appealing their points deductions. We won't know the results of these until tomorrow at the earliest. Bettia   (bring on the trumpets!)  18:48, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

The FA have now announced the provisional lineups. Most notable is Team Bath folding, which means a number of relegated teams in lower divisions have been repreived. Bettia  (bring on the trumpets!)  19:14, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

End-of-season edits (again)
Just been round changing a few clubs' infoboxes back to reflect their 2008/09 divisions played in, as AFAIK the new season still hasn't started, and noticed that the navigational templates Premier League etc have already been changed to pick up the 2009/10 team lists. So I'm wondering what's the point of some established editors trying to keep to "this" season when other established editors have already gone on to next? cheers, Struway2 (talk) 07:56, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Baggio Husidić
Can an admin please re-create the article for this player. He finally made his MLS debut Chicago Fire tonight. Confirmation is here: http://web.mlsnet.com/scoreboard/game.jsp?match=05282009_CHICHV. Thanks! --JonBroxton (talk) 07:59, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Done -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 08:04, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Arvydas Novikovas
This article needs to be recreated - he played for Hearts against Celtic in the SPL last week. There was also an article in the local paper yesterday about him, which I think said that he has been selected for the full Lithuania squad. Jmorrison230582 (talk) 08:10, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Done that one too -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 08:26, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Everyone's headed to Turkey!
Or, so it seems if we are to believe edits made to Gérard Houllier, Paul Le Guen, Frank Rijkaard, Diego Capel and Ruud van Nistelrooy that I've reverted. It's typical silly season stuff, I guess, but I find it weird that I keep noticing unsourced stuff about managers headed to Galatasaray or Fenerberche. I can't tell if it's just one user posting from multiple Turkish IPs or if the Turkish media is especially into speculating. But please keep an eye out for players and managers prematurely headed to an Istanbul club. --Mosmof (talk) 18:23, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
 * There is a certain editor (or group of editors) that have been at this for some time. Innumerable players and managers have been "linked with" (what ever that means...) these Turkish clubs. I blame idiots and goal.com. Sillyfolkboy (talk) (edits) WIKIPROJECT ATHLETICS NEEDS YOU!  00:32, 30 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Same happened last transfer window, last summer, and previous window... Fenerbahçe would have the largest squad in the world if they signed half the linked to players we reverted in the last 12 months.-- Club Oranje T 02:04, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

Cacau
I'm making a edit war about the player full name. Although i have a name list of 30,000+ player name list and CBF id in a PDF, but the unique page is dead and i cannot found the link of download page of the PDF back, but the player official site, the club he play, kicker, playerhistory.com, and CBF all refer as Claudemir Jeronimo Barretto only. and his brother called Vlademir Jeronimo Barreto. And sambafoot, worldfootball.net transfermarkt.de (but cite his German passport is Claudemir Barretto) refer him as Jeronimo Maria Barretto Claudemir da Silva. How come a mid-name of even part of a Portuguese surname became first name, and a first name became a mid-name of even part of a Portuguese surname? And difference from his brother? Should both be used or only former survived ? Matthew_hk  t  c  23:42, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

ok here is the pdf  Matthew_hk   t  c  23:56, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Associação Olímpica de Itabaiana
This is a request for help. I've stumbled across the above article and, while I've managed hack out a general shape, it needs some attention to finer details. I don't know much about soccer/football, but this club looks like it has some claims to notability. I think it was copy/pasted wholesale from either the Portuguese or Spanish Wikipedia. Thanks in advance! TN X Man 23:29, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I will take a look. --Carioca (talk) 20:33, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

I cleaned up the article and added some sources. --Carioca (talk) 21:49, 30 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Thank you very much! It looks a lot better. TN X Man  01:21, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

User:76.175.156.192
This user persists in deleting a perfectly good photo of Alecko Eskandarian from that player's page (and this is ALL he ever does); despite my repeated attempts to get him to explain what his problem is with the photo, he never uses edit summaries and never responds to queries. I warned him twice about deletion of content, but he ignores the warning and persists in deleting anyway. Any idea what my next step can be? --JonBroxton (talk) 00:04, 30 May 2009 (UTC)
 * WP:AIV. – PeeJay 00:12, 30 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I've blocked the IP for a couple of days since they refuse to even discuss the issue. In future it'd be best to seek outside input after a couple of reverts, as this doesn't really look good. But this gave me a good laugh! :) Best, – Toon (talk)  00:23, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

Maybe the anonymous IP is the guy to the left of the photo, perhaps hes on the run from a madman who has an interest in Armenian-American sportspeople and so is worried the madman will spot the photo and track him down.

Who knows? Anonymous IP's are nutjobs mostly. e.g. this guy. Yes, it is more important to know that a guy called Alan Jones and a guy called Charles Machin used to be directors at the club at sometime in the past, FAR more important and MUCH more interesting information then who every single Chairman in the club's history has been.--EchetusXe (talk) 09:34, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

James McRea
This fella, a Scot, managed Egypt at the 1934 World Cup - anyone got any info on his playing/coaching career back in the UK? Google brings up nothing! Cheers, GiantSnowman 01:27, 30 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I think his name was "transformed" if you can't get anything...--Latouffedisco (talk) 11:40, 30 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes, his name was James McCrae according to the IFFHS magazines Cattivi (talk) 12:10, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

linkCattivi (talk) 12:17, 30 May 2009 (UTC)
 * The link first calls him McCrae and then McRae... :-s --necronudist (talk) 12:30, 30 May 2009 (UTC)
 * This forum at PlayerHistory.com confirms the multiple spellings, and that 'McRea' was the official one in use by FIFA. GiantSnowman 12:18, 30 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Michael Joyce has McCrae, as do Rangers, Man Utd, West Ham sources. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 12:32, 30 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I've made a typing error McCray in the IFFHS magazines. McCrae is the correct spelling Cattivi (talk) 12:35, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

He's the brother of David McCrae (Scottish international) Cattivi (talk) 12:44, 30 May 2009 (UTC)
 * An article already exists at James McCrae (footballer); I am in the middle of improving the article, and will create redirects fom all the different spellings. GiantSnowman 13:02, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

Template help
There is no 'bordercolor' parameter in the template - could someone add one please? Many thanks, GiantSnowman 16:14, 30 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Added the same from National squad chandler • 16:18, 30 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks Chandler, much appreciated! GiantSnowman 16:31, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

Season article guideline proposal
Looking at the talk pages over the past couple of weeks, the members of WP:FOOTY had quite a few discussions over things related to season articles. So, SonjiCeli and I thought it would make sense to team up and suggest a collective proposal for a guideline on season articles. Our proposal can be found here.

We tried to stay as close to the well-established "best practises" as we could. However, there is still a chance that we might have missed something or included something controversial, so any comments - either here or on the talk page of the proposal - from as much members of this project as possible would be gladly appreciated. --Soccer-holicI hear voices in my head... 23:22, 25 May 2009 (UTC)


 * About the "standings" section, or what I would refer to as the League Table. Try to avoid the use of the clumsy templates and provide a standard wiki format table instead. Also please consider dropping all the background colours. Some of the ones proposed on your page are way too dark; and they add nothing that the explanatory text doesn't do better. - fchd (talk) 05:06, 26 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Wording fixed. As for the colors, the hues are (except for some shades of blue) in use for a couple of years now, so we just inherited them. Which doesn't mean that they cannot be changed, of course. It would help if the colors being "way too dark" would be specified more exactly, though, as "way too dark" is a relative statement. As for the general table format, this is one of the possibly controversial issues of the proposal, so let's wait for significantly more input on this before deciding what to do. --Soccer-holicI hear voices in my head... 08:52, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree with Richard about the use of the league table templates. Get rid of the templates and use a wikitable instead. – PeeJay 09:53, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Agree with Richard and PeeJay. The templates are overly complicated and inflexible. There's a mention of colours, font sizes etc above at, if people haven't seen it. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 10:23, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Similarly, I would also suggest that the templates not be used for the results grid. – PeeJay 10:27, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

I know I'm the lone voice here, but I have nothing against the templates in standings and results. Not only it looks "neater" and "more appealing", but it is much easier to work with them. The main advantage is seen in league table where you have less things to calculate on your own, and it's easier to change positions, especially when you have 30+ league articles to edit in one day and you need as much spared time as you can get. Plus, when editing, templates use less rows and it's therefore easier to deal with them. I know that some users have trouble in loading the page with a lot of templates, but other than that, I don't see any other disandvantage. Maybe I'm totally wrong, but can someone here explain to me arguments why there is so much opposition regarding templates?

As for the colors, I think they are useful. Yes, now league tables look like the inside of a disco, but this many Europe spots offered and relegation spots being used need to be notified somehow. Especially because the text on the right hand side of the table is barely readable. Also, the tables really look "boring" and "empty" without the colors (just take a look at any English standings table during the punishment in late 80s), while I think that the spots should be more visible as they are very important in overall standings.

Anyway, this is just my honest opinion and I hope I will not be crucified for this. I would just like some more explaining regarding these two subjects discussed here and maybe I will see the other, negative side of that. SonjiCeli (talk) 11:09, 26 May 2009 (UTC)


 * "Especially because the text on the right hand side of the table is barely readable". Indeed. And the reason it's barely readable is 1) because (AFAIK, please correct me if I'm wrong on this) the template makes it appear in microscopic font size, contrary to the Manual of Style which says you're supposed to have a really good reason to use anything other than normal font size (or it used to, anyway); and 2) because of the low contrast between the text and (some of) the coloured backgrounds. WP:MOS would indicate you need to make the text readable, rather than relying on the colours. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 11:36, 26 May 2009 (UTC)


 * I was bold and changed the size of Template:Fb cl2 qr to 92.5%. Hope it's more suitable now. As for the colors, in order to create a more appropriate scheme: Where is the point in the given scheme when things start to become hardly readable? --Soccer-holicI hear voices in my head... 12:17, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I'll also pile in and say get rid of the table/results templates; they are a nightmare to use, involve the creation of thousands of other templates to make them work, and make the pages massive due to all the coding required. Wikitables are much simpler to use. пﮟოьεԻ   5  7  13:05, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
 * That font size is much better. As to colours, and purely from my particular variety of colour vision, the black text at that size is OK on all but the darkest red, when it looks a little faint. The blue text is difficult both on the darkest red and on the darkest blue. And I can't distinguish the lighter red background colour (demotion playoff) from the darker grey (ordinary team alternate stripe), which makes me wonder whether people with monochrome displays would be able to, but that doesn't matter so long as there's nice clear text to tell me what the invisible colour-coding signifies :-) But that's just me: Colours gives links to software you can use for checking colour and contrast, but I don't know if they're any good. Thing is though, there's no inherent meaning to all these shades of blue or whatever: people with standard colour vision and non-monochrome displays will still have to read the words to find out what the colours signify. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 13:13, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

@Struway2, Number57 and everybody else that think the same: How are standard wikitables simpler to use than templates? As I stated earlier, the only thing that might be the problem (only to those with weaker Internet connection) is the space being used. With other "arguments" I cannot agree because:

a) templates are extremely simple to use. The biggest difference between the using of templates and wikitables can be seen in league standings. IMHO, wikitables are much harder to use because you need to calculate everything on your own and that takes more time. If you think the other way, please explain why exactly is using the templates "nightmare" for you.

b) once you have created club templates (and the huge number of them has been created so far), your work is done and all you have to do is to update.

c) it seems that font size can be modified after all, while the colors could easily be changed. We just need to reach a consensus which ones to use. SonjiCeli (talk) 14:09, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
 * With the exception of goal difference, you don't need to "calculate anything on your own" when using wikitables. The "nightmare" of using the templates is that some of the stuff in them is meaningless. Compare this template and this wikitable. To me, the latter is much easier to understand and update, whilst in contrast, for the template version, you have to understand what is meant by .  пﮟოьεԻ   5  7  14:42, 26 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Everything in templates has its meaning. It is just different way to write it. In my opinion, the latter version you put is less understandable because you have exactly 8 numbers in a row without explanation inside the code what it actually means. That can be very confusing in some parts of the season and takes more time to update it because you have to check every time if you added the correct numbers to correct columns.


 * And no, you don't have to know what that row means if you want to update. Once it is put in the table before the start of the season, you don't change its position or code. To conclude, wikitable is simpler to write, but more difficult to work with it. The templates are more difficult to write, but you can solve that problem with just copy/pasting the previous season's table and editing it in an appropriate way.


 * One other thing: How do you plan to put head-to-head scores in the wikitable, because they are the main tiebreaker for around 15 leagues? In templates it only takes one row. SonjiCeli (talk) 15:05, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
 * In the final column (notes), you can just write the scores, possibly using the rowspan function. пﮟოьεԻ   5  7  15:17, 26 May 2009 (UTC)


 * So if I read correctly between the lines – the problem is not the fact that templates are used in general but rather the fact a junkload of subtemplates is being used? Holy moly, if this is the only concern, it can easily be addressed. I agree that ClaudioMB took it a little to far with the team and partially with the competition templates; in fact, this is bad design. A lot of the fb templates are not needed in my opinion as well. But there is no reason to put them all into a bag and flush them down the toilet altogether.


 * Secondly, we are using a medium that derives in its origins from a simple calculator, so tell me one good reason why we shouldn't use the feature of built-in calculation. Further, the average non-hacking human responds better to key-value pairs than to a vast amount of "unreadable" and unexplained code. If you want to have a significantly higher amount of undos/reverts/fixes just because another IP user f***ed up the code for the league or results tables once again, go for a wikitable-only solution. (I hope the irony was readable in the last sentence.)


 * Thirdly, the proposal is also about a unified look of those season articles (at least as much as possible). This goal is much more easy to reach if the basic structures are pre-defined.


 * Finally, it is also a question of page size. I conducted an experiment in two of my sandboxes. Sandbox 1 contains a conventional wikitable and Sandbox 2 holds a set of fb templates as they are currently in use. You may have a look at the code sizes via the history of both pages. Sandbox 1 has a total size of 3,627 bytes while Sandbox 2 is only 1,831 bytes. A template containing wikilinks should lie around 2,500 bytes. Given that there are already enough wikitables for information like stadia, managerial changes and what not which can take the season articles up to 50,000+ bytes, we should spare as much direct table structures as we can.


 * To sum it all up - let's go with a templated solution, but without included team and competition templates. --Soccer-holicI hear voices in my head... 16:22, 26 May 2009 (UTC)


 * I say keep the team templates. It keeps how the club's name appears in the table consistant all-around. I can think of several examples off the top of my head in Latin American clubs where teams' names are commonly written in different ways: Boca Juniors & Boca; River Plate & River; Sport & Sport Recife (the first is how the club is referred to domestically, while the second is how it is referred to internationally); LDU Quito & Liga de Quito; America & America de Cali; America & Club America (the previous America is in Colombia while the second is in Mexico); Defensor Sporting & Defensor. In all those cases, the club's name can be referred to either way, but the first one is the more correct to refer to the club.


 * But, if there are problems/complaints about the competition templates, just an idea to improve them or an alternate solution. Personally, the only problem I see is making sure the codes are consistent... but that seems like something that can be solved easily. Digirami (talk) 20:03, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

While we're going back to the drawing board for the league/results tables - any opinions on the other sections in general and the goalscorers in particular? --Soccer-holicI hear voices in my head... 11:26, 27 May 2009 (UTC)


 * One place I think would could start is change the width of the table headers from 33 to 25. I think that is a very simple way to make the tables smaller since, personally, 33 is a bit too much.
 * One other idea I have is to make the parameters in codes like easier for people to know what they are editing, without referring to the documentation. Instead of "s", use "season"; "competition" instead of "c"; "notes" instead of "nt";... and so forth. Essentailly make it more along the lines of the codes used in the infoboxes. Digirami (talk) 16:33, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

This is my first foray into this discussion but I am one who is disappointed by the inflexibility of the templates which the so call "consensus" has embarked as the only method of display. Also it is causes wrong displays and conflicts with reality. As in the case with Ukrainian Premier League 2008-09 in the standings display the "Qualification and Relegation" is simply WRONG! - And the editors some of them admins are forcing Futurism (WP:FUTURE) and biasness into the article and their insistance that the templates are "god". For example - Metalist, Vorskla and Metalurh D. have all qualified the Europa League but because the admins insist and using the template and incorrect designations rather than stating only the known fact as displayed in Correct Ukrainian Premier League Standings (as of May 26, 2009) there is bullyism and threats by the admins. Yet the displayed standings reflect only if Shakhtar Donest'k wins the Ukrainian Cup. Slightly biased which is against the neutrality that site is supposedly thrives on.

I appreciate your insight Soccer-holic, and SonjiCeli into trying to better the current schematic with the color schema which I thought worked well during the Ukrainian season but I contend that the Qualification and Relegation column IMO should only be used when in fact that is known fact with such designators as (Q) in the team column which now duplicate confuse not only those editting the standings but those who are trying understand why the (Q) is in the team column as well. Also if the standings are referenced do the these references sources also have these team designors (C). I don't see anything the Ukrainian PFL web site that, which is the official referenced source that has (C) or (R).Brudder Andrusha (talk) 11:50, 29 May 2009 (UTC)


 * On the above, I think what you mainly have is a conflict of editing. Someone doesn't quite know the rules to UEFA qualification for Ukranian clubs and are just assuming, incorrectly as you say, otherwise and it messes everything up.


 * But at the same time, you raised an interesting point in the (Q) and (R). If you have a column and color scheme to show who qualifies/is relegated to a competition or level, the (Q) and (R) seems redundant. (C) on the other hand, doesn't seem redundant since, as someone pointed out in a previous discussion, the team who tops a table is not necessarily the champion. Digirami (talk) 12:55, 29 May 2009 (UTC)


 * It seems to be more than that. The is deficient in displaying only Europa League. That template is asking for specifics which are mandatory. So I've been using  . Which to no surprise the admins have quickly designated that template for deletion. Luckily someone else is using that template - So not so fast with the heavy handed deletion action! And the excuse by the admin why not to use  ? Its not friendly and their browser can't display the standings? Surely I'd have a reason about incorrect data representation in the article as removal and not such a poor excuse. Brudder Andrusha (talk) 13:47, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I am well aware of so called champions stripped of their title at some later date because of their sins. Brudder Andrusha (talk) 13:47, 29 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Last I checked, "|r= " is not mandatory. So you can have it just display "2009-10 Europa League". The only problem is that is there is no competition template, you have to make one. That's easy, and I took care of it for you.
 * And it has nothing to do with champions being stripped of their titles. American (North and South) leagues, have multistage tournaments that require several tables. The primary exception in the region is Brazil. Digirami (talk) 14:15, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Revised color scheme
I altered the color scheme a little bit in order to improve the accessibility issues. The full scheme can be seen here; an example implementation can be found here. Please comment. --Soccer-holicI hear voices in my head... 00:26, 30 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I thing that should go is having the non-colored rows alternate from white to gray. I would prefer to keep it to it's default color: white. Digirami (talk) 06:07, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Agreed. – PeeJay 09:26, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
 * (Purely personally) that is better, though I still find the blue text (team names) a bit blurry on the darker red. And I'd agree that the non-coloured rows don't need to alternate. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 09:40, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
 * One thing that could be done to reduce the number of colours is to just use two shades, that is, not 4 blue but only 1 blue for the Play-off round and another one for qualification, same for the CL, one for the group stage and another one for the whole qualification, the text will disambiguate which round they get into. chandler 12:23, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
 * And what ever happened to using yellow? I remember when qualification to competitions like the now Europa League or the Copa Sudamericana used a yellow hue. I'm sure the blue text would be easier to read on that color background. Digirami (talk) 16:01, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
 * And I successfully removed that part of the Fb team code that makes the rows alternate colors. Digirami (talk) 16:08, 31 May 2009 (UTC)


 * How about a generic color for Europa League and Champions League - especially when we dont know what stage the team is going to qualify?? The alleviate the problem that we had in the Ukrainian Premier League this season where teams did't know where they wwould qualify until 5 days after the season completed. Brudder Andrusha (talk) 17:02, 1 June 2009 (UTC)


 * If I'm not mistaken, if a generic color is to be used, use the primary hue, i.e. the color for a group stage. Digirami (talk) 21:51, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Israeli football
Is the second and third tier in the Israeli football league system really fully professional leagues? Rettetast (talk) 22:38, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
 * No, they are not. I think here we have the confusion of some countries considering professional and semi-professional to be the same thing (in contrast to completely amateur). пﮟოьεԻ   5  7  08:27, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

I have nominated a relevant article for deletion. See Articles for deletion/Moshe Abutbul. Rettetast (talk) 01:06, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Category:England national football team results
While creating stub articles for Scotland internationals, I stumbled across the above category, which appears to be in a bit of a state. Maybe fair enough to have results by decade in that early period, but results by year seems a bit nonsensical when England were only playing one annual match against Scotland. Jmorrison230582 (talk) 08:49, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
 * As far as I can see, the category itself is fine, although some of the articles need merging/expanding. Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 09:07, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
 * That's what I was meaning, it's a perfectly reasonable subcategory, but some of the articles are overlapping. Jmorrison230582 (talk) 11:14, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Decades are fine, single years not so. GiantSnowman 14:26, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

AC Milan
Right on today AC Milan announced departure of Carlo Ancelotti and his replacement with Leonardo Araujo. There is only one problem: Leonardo has no UEFA Pro coaching badges, so he can't serve as head coach in Italian Serie A (technically he could not do this even in Serie B, because he has no UEFA A badges as well, but only UEFA B). It is still unclear how the club will solve this, probably they will legally appoint either Filippo Galli or Mauro Tassotti as head coach, with Leonardo as assistant. In addition, Ancelotti's replacement will not take over before July 1, and there is still no official statement from the club. Since a lot of unexperienced users who are probably unaware of this are changing the head coach name in the infobox with Leonardo, can you please help me with this? Thank you. --Angelo (talk) 16:49, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
 * on the TV coverage they said that he was expected to take those in the summer on a manager course, or something. And because its the off season they'll (the italian FA) probably allow it. chandler 16:57, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
 * He will attend UEFA A coaching badges in June. They are not enough, of course. This is the official source that confirms what I'm saying. --Angelo (talk) 16:59, 31 May 2009 (UTC)


 * A side note - See Gareth Southgate for an example of a manager without the UEFA Pro license who's been allowed to manage a top flight team for over three years. Nanonic (talk) 17:01, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Italian laws are different, I can tell you due to my experience. I can give you a number of recent examples of Serie A managers without coaching badges - Roberto Mancini during his spell at Fiorentina, Marco Giampaolo during his spell at Ascoli - and all of them appeared as assistant managers, with another club employee legally serving as head coach. As a note, both managers were later fined because they were actually serving as head coach without having the required badges. --Angelo (talk) 17:05, 31 May 2009 (UTC)


 * All sources, including highly notable ones such as the Guardian, quoting Adriano Galliani himself, confirm that Leonardo is indeed the new manager of A.C. Milan - these are both from official and reliable sources. I see no sources whatsoever that state otherwise, and as both notable sources and television channels (such as CNN's World Sport) all around the world have confirmed this, it must be included in the articles concerned. Your personal assumptions or opinions have no relevance to the topic at hand and is inconsequential to published and reliable sources. ··· 巌流 ? · talk to ganryuu 17:51, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I am not mentioning personal assumptions or opinions, but facts. The fact is head coaching positions in Italy must be covered by people with a UEFA Pro license; if a head coach fills or even just acts as head coach in a Serie A team without proper badges (patentino in Italian language), then he is subjected to being disqualified, as it happened with Marco Giampaolo during his spell at Ascoli, where he was disqualified for two months because of having only a UEFA A license. Considering Leonardo has just UEFA B license, I think there is nothing to mention. What the sources report is just what Galliani said in the aftermath of today's game. --Angelo (talk) 18:18, 31 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Nevertheless, if a reliable source reports something then we are not permitted to question its vericity ourselves. If Leonardo is indeed not permitted to act as head coach then I dare say that a reliable source will point this out in due course. For now, we have to go with what the club has announced. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 09:26, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
 * This is a usual situation in France. In fact, some head coaches/managers don't have diplomas,and their clubs appoint assistant who have them. So they are legally managers/head coaches but not de facto.--Latouffedisco (talk) 15:31, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Apparently he will be exempted from requiring a UEFA Pro license in his first season because he is a former FIFA World Cup Winner, but this will take validity only after he will take the UEFA A license on the 17th of July. This is at least what he said in the press conference. Something weird, actually, but apparently legal. --Angelo (talk) 21:00, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Flags in managerial changes
I am currently having problems with Serie A 2008–09, as User:KyleRGiggs is continuously (WP:POINT) adding flags in violation of MOS:FLAG despite multiple warnings. Can we discuss this here? I also invited him to open a discussion instead, but all I've received is this. Thanks in advance. --Angelo (talk) 18:28, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Agree with you Angelo, there are far, far too many flags splattered across articles, and this is/was one good example of that. Why does every single reference to a player or manager need a flag? - fchd (talk) 19:08, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Two things: 1) Can you point out exactly what part of the MOS:FLAG he is violating?; 2) Why are you just taking issue with the Serie A? Putting flags in the managerial changes section has been common practice for a while, so the majority of users must think there is no MOS:FLAG violation. So, I refer you to point number 1 since you wanted to open a discussion. It could very well be that you might be interpreting it incorrectly. Digirami (talk) 18:44, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
 * As to 1), I'd suggest probably MOS:FLAG and definitely MOS:FLAG. As to 2), I can't speak for why Angelo is taking issue with the Serie A: probably because it's on his watchlist. But in general, I'd have thought that the majority of users don't know there is a MOS:FLAG, and they add flags because either they think pages look boring without them, or because they see them everywhere and assume it's the right thing to do. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 19:23, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Considering the international nature of the sport, it seems that MOS:FLAG is not being violated. The media covering the sport often address players and coaches/managers by their nationality, too. Every news article I read seems have a main sentence like "the Argentine coach..." or "English striker (random name)..." to address a player, especially for the first time in an article. I guess putting flagicons in tables (I would never support it in prose) is our way of doing something like that. That same thing also happens with teams.
 * As for MOS:FLAG... If you do use a flagicon to emphasize nationality for a good reason, how would you accompany that with the country name.?(I can't think of a good way off the top of my head to do that in a table like managerial changes, or perhaps goalscorers). Digirami (talk) 20:01, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Use flagcountry instead of flagicon. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 20:19, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

The violated parts of MOS:FLAG are 'Do not solely decorate' (only two coaches in Italian Serie A were foreigners this year, and one season ago there were no foreigners at all), 'Do not use too many icons' (30 icons for 15 managerial changes, Serie B would be even worse) and 'Accompany flags with country names'. As already stated above, 'Do not emphasize nationality without good reason' might be a debatable one, personally I think emphasizing nationality for managers just makes no sense (all sports have an international nature, but Serie A is just the league of Italy) but it's merely my opinion. I have taken issue with Serie A only because I have Serie A and Serie B articles in my watchlist, whereas Premier League and La Liga (just citing the first two ones in my mind) are not. --Angelo (talk) 20:55, 2 June 2009 (UTC)


 * So essentially, we need to draw the line between using a flagicon to decorate or to use to indicate nationality of a coach, and possibly of a player or club (and also when to use a flagicon in football articles). Because the way I see it, if it is decided to not to put flagicons in something like the managerial changes section, people might question the point of having them in any other section of various football related articles, like rosters, goalscorers, etc (who knows). if they think it violates MOS:FLAG. Digirami (talk) 21:33, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
 * It is not the same: flags are shown to represent the football nationality of players. Managers do not share such concept, since they don't play in an international football team, so listing also their nationality is merely decorative and does not add any relevant information to the article. --Angelo (talk) 22:19, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Missing goalscorer
A shot in the dark, but I'd be incredibly grateful, not to mention impressed, if someone could find out who scored the other Blackpool goal in this game. Roy Calley's book on the history of the club incorrectly lists the score as 3–1 to Leeds City, with George Beare scoring the visitors' goal. As such, I can only list 49 of the club's 50 league goals in Blackpool F.C. season 1909–10. - Dudesleeper / Talk  21:24, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
 * www.allfootballers.com credits Walter Miller with 14 league goals, compared to the 13 in the season article, so that may be the "missing" goal.   Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 04:50, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Great, thanks. Not sure how "P. E. Miller" became "Walter Miller", but maybe that will come to light in the future. - Dudesleeper / Talk  09:08, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Oops. I didn't look far enough down List of Blackpool F.C. players. Walter Miller only played six games for the club, in 1910–11, and didn't score any goals, so I think it's P. E. Miller that AllFootballers should be listing. - Dudesleeper / Talk  09:26, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Gerry Wolstenholme has revised a lot of Blackpool stats after the publication of the Breedon book. Stanley Matthews went from 391 league appearances for Blackpool to 389 (Michael Joyce football players records first edition in 2002) Now there are only 380 matches left. P. E. Miller is now called P. C Miller (only 4 league matches in 1908-09) Cattivi (talk) 12:58, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
 * link Cattivi (talk) 13:33, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Now there are only 380 matches left. Not sure what you mean by that? - Dudesleeper / Talk  21:58, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I think he meant that the playing apps for Matthews have been revised from 391 to 389, and then again to 380. GiantSnowman 22:02, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes that's what I meantCattivi (talk) 23:27, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
 * His league appearances total for Blackpool is listed as 379 here and here. Either way, his article still has 391 as the total. - Dudesleeper / Talk  00:04, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
 * 379 was probably copied from one of the first editions of Hammonds Players records books (I've got the 1984 edition and the latest one) At the moment it's 380 (allfootballers.com and the football league match by match booklets) Tomorrow it could be 379 or 381 you never knowCattivi (talk) 09:08, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

WWW.allfootballers.com lists 3 Millers who played for Blackpool: P. Miller (a winger) in 1903-04 (3 games, 0 goals), P.C. Miller (full back) in 1908-09 (4 games, 0 goals) and Walter Miller (centre forward) (31 games, 14 goals in 1909-10 and 6 games, 1 goal in 1910-11). Walter also played for Sheffield Wednesday, West Ham United and Lincoln City, as well as for clubs in Scotland and Wales. Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 15:25, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Walter Miller's profiles for Wednesday and West Ham are at and  respectively.  Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 15:31, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Good work. I suppose I'd better create articles for the three of them so that I can link to them accordingly and save myself from going any more scatty. - Dudesleeper / Talk  22:07, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Playing for a pro team against semi-pro opposition
OK, we need consensus on this matter once and for all. Here's the problem - if a player playing for a professional team in a fully-professional league makes one solitary appearance in a cup competition against semi-pro opposition, is said player then notable? I only ask because a couple of AfDs (Eddie Ancalet and Dominic Merella spring to mind; the former played 19 mins while the latter played only 14, both in the FA Cup against non-league opposition) have resulted in the articles of two otherwise non-notable players being kept. So, even though voting is evil and wrong and all the rest of it, I thought we could have a wee vote and discussion anyways. Voting for 'players are not notable' means that you think that a player who plays for a pro team against semi-pro opposition is NOT worthy of an article; voting for 'players are notable' means that you think that a player who plays for a pro team against semi-pro opposition IS worthy of an article. Oh, and for anyone a bit slow out there, 'discussion' is where we can all 'discuss' the matter. Cheers! GiantSnowman 23:30, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Players are not notable

 * 1) GiantSnowman 23:30, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
 * 2) EA210269 (talk) 01:02, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
 * 3) Angelo (talk) 01:13, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
 * 4) Jmorrison230582 (talk) 16:54, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Players are notable

 * 1) Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 04:43, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
 * 2) Qwghlm (talk) 08:59, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
 * 3) EchetusXe (talk) 09:51, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Discussion
I think the answer depends on the context of the competition. If a semi-pro or even amateur club makes it into the finals of a major competition like the UEFA Champions League (didn't BATE Borisov do this recently?) and a pro club plays against them in those rounds, I think players from either team should be able to pass WP:ATHLETE. I'm not so sure that FA Cups (especially in the qualifying rounds) should do the same. Jogurney (talk) 00:03, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I think, players that didn't even play a full game, as in this example, are not notable full stop, whatever competition they played in. EA210269 (talk) 01:02, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree that footballers with only substitute appearances in a fully-pro league are not likely to be notable, but WP:ATHLETE says otherwise. Jogurney (talk) 02:11, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

The answer, as I have said repeatedly, is to ignore things like WP:ATHLETE and whether one club or the other is fully-pro, but to rely on the general notability guidelines and require multiple, non-trivial coverage from independent reliable sources before any subject merits an article. - fchd (talk) 06:33, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
 * A common sense approach might also be usuful. Does 14, or 19, minutes of "fame" warrant a wikipedia article? EA210269 (talk) 07:07, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

In principle, I would say appearance against semi-pro opposition does not confer notability, but maybe there should be a threshhold of competition beyond which the semi-pro nature of opposition seeks to be a barrier to inclusion. If any of Nantes' 2000 French cup winning team made their debut in that final, it would be churlish to disqualify their article on the grounds that part time side Calais RUFC had had an extraordinary run to the final. Kevin McE (talk) 07:08, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Given the luck of the draw of the FA Cup, it seems unfair to me that a player's appearance for a professional team against a semi-pro team would not be counted, when if the balls had been drawn out in a slightly different order, they could have well faced a pro team and be included. At least 48 League clubs & plenty of professional Conference clubs make up the 80 who take part in the First Round of the FA Cup - with by far the majority enjoying pro status, a few so semi-pro clubs in the mix does not in my view make appearances in it from that stage onwards non-notable. Qwghlm (talk) 08:59, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

It all depends how literally people take WP:ATHLETE. Since games between pro and semi-pro are not that common, this means we are only dealing with players who have only played a single game or part-game at a pro club, or a couple at most. So the question is more "are players who have played a few minutes for a pro team notable"? Had I participated in the Merella AfD I'd have said delete. The sum total of coverage in the national press about his pro career appears to consist of "Defender Kevin Nicholson came to the home side's rescue when he blocked Dominic Merella's late shot in the last 10 minutes", which to me does not class as "significant coverage". Oldelpaso (talk) 09:38, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Two points on taking WP:ATHLETE literally: First, it means we don't have to decide at a subjective level how many minutes played at a fully-pro level constitutes notability :-) And second, it avoids the pitfalls of recentism. Years ago, a player gets injured within minutes of making his debut, even in the top flight, and he'd get a couple of lines in the match report, probably focusing on how much his team were handicapped by his injury, and a paragraph in the local paper when he had to retire. These days, there'd be any amount of press coverage, and if he's with one of the fashionable clubs, there'd be the sort of slushy personal feature that sadly are considered "significant coverage". His notability as a footballer has to be determined by what he did, not by the prevailing attitudes of the media at the time he did it. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 10:23, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
 * No, that's not the way Wikipedia notability works. The general notability guidelines are the key, and if that means there is more people from recent times as opposed to the 1890s, that's the way it is. - fchd (talk) 11:07, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
 * It's precisely because WP:GNG falls down on accessibility of sources, either in terms of time or of place, that secondary criteria like WP:ATHLETE were introduced. People didn't think it was sensible that international players of years ago or far away were deemed less notable than Chelsea's latest 15-year-old schoolboy signing or a minor U.S. college's backup players, just because reliable non-trivial coverage was less readily available. If you or I don't like WP:ATHLETE doesn't really matter, but we can't pretend it isn't there. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 11:35, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

The slippery slope fallacy is a crap argument. Nevertheless I don't see this move advancing us anywhere.

I don't see how deleting a perfectly decent article on people like Eddie Anaclet makes Wikipedia a better place. FA Trophy winner, played Conference play-off semi-finals and has played enough games at this stage in his career to suggest he'll be playing in the Conference for some time yet, possibly making it to the Football League again if he happens to play for the right team. This shows that he is already considered notable enough by vandals to warrant their attention.--EchetusXe (talk) 10:02, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
 * You can't possible think that just because an article has been vandalised, that then confers notability on the subject...GiantSnowman 10:55, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
 * No, but it shows people have been looking for information on the guy- even if they do insist on leaving an unwelcome mark on the page. It makes it likely that others wish to read about him and also suggests they may go elsewhere for that information if they find it absent on Wikipedia.--EchetusXe (talk) 16:12, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
 * They could easily have clicked on 'Random Page' looking for one to vandalise. But this is off the point. GiantSnowman 17:07, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I believe that Page view statistics are a more reliable guide to whether people have been looking for information on the guy, althoug they certainly aren't a good guide to the notability of a player (eg. Ben Amos vs Guillermo Barros Schelotto) King of the  North   East  22:16, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Surely it does matter who the opposition are in a Cup match? If the team had been drawn against better opposition the player probably wouldn't have played. There's usually a reason why the only game they've played is against lesser opponents- they weren't good enough to play against teams from their own league.

Having said that, a player that fails WP:ATHLETE but passes WP:N still should have an article- I'd say Eddie Anaclet is an example of that; there are multiple reliable sources in his article that are about him and not just passing mentions. Stu.W UK (talk) 11:10, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
 * OK, Ancalet could pass WP:N (as the AfD resulting in a keep shows), but Merella seems to be struggling as a non-league player. If I consider nominating him for deletion again, will people support me this time? GiantSnowman 17:09, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I think Merella could fail under WP:IGNOREALLRULES, it does seem a bit pointy keeping the article based on the under 20 minutes of a match. --Jimbo[online] 18:00, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

I think it dilutes the strength of WP:FOOTYN to say that somebody playing for a pro side against a semi-pro side in a cup competition is notable, but to hold the line that somebody playing for a pro club in a mixed league (eg conference national) isn't. You'd end up with articles for every player that plays for a fully pro club, irrespective of the competition. Then you would get someone else coming along saying what about X, he played in the same competition - surely he is notable? I think we need to hold the line where it is. Quite frequently a young player will be selected for a match against a semi-pro side in the cup precisely because it is weaker opposition that the pro side has been drawn against (ie they wouldn't have played if they had been drawn against a pro team). Jmorrison230582 (talk) 16:58, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

User:FactFinder67
Can someone of our admins put the hammer (or at least keep an eye) on this newly created user? He has mostly been vandalizing Scottish league and cup articles in order to praise his Rangers. A warning has been issued. Thanks, a tired Soccer-holicI hear voices in my head... 01:11, 2 June 2009 (UTC)


 * A bit harsh giving an only warning. Incidentally, the "67", along with edits like this one, make me suspect that his loyalties aren't actually with Rangers... nonetheless, I think this was just a case of overenthusiasm and not vandalism. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 08:24, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Brechin City badly vandallised
Hi I've noticed that Brechin City's entry is badly vandalised and needs to be sorted out by some one who knows about the club. (3 June 2009) Biofuelsimon (talk) 11:26, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

James Whatman Way
I could accept an article on an as-yet-unbuilt stadium being built by a Premier League team, but an as-yet-unbuilt stadium being built by a semi-professional team playing in the seventh tier of English football surely isn't notable? If it matters, note that, although the article claims the stadium will be ready for next season, in fact building work hasn't even started in earnest and the club will be groundsharing with Ashford Town F.C. (Kent) next season -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 20:25, 3 June 2009 (UTC)
 * There seems to be quite a bit of news coverage over the past few years, not just from local papers either; several BBC articles exclusively covering the stadium. I haven't looked in-depth but it probably meets WP:N. – Toon (talk)  20:32, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Fully pro leagues
Is there a comprehensive list of fully-pro leagues? The Hack 02:28, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
 * WikiProject Football/Fully professional leagues chandler 02:35, 2 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Is that list current and comprehensive? The Hack 02:40, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Current, yes, generally so. Comprehensive, No. Feel free to find verification from reliable sources and add as appropriate. -- Club Oranje T 05:32, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
 * What about making this list an article: List of fully professional football (soccer) leagues? I think, it would be very helpful and informative. EA210269 (talk) 05:39, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
 * The next question will be: what does fully professional mean? For example "Development" players (who are full squad members) in the MLS are on about US$12k a year. This is the top tier of three US leagues considered fully professional.The Hack 06:54, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Can you survive on 12k a year in the US? You couldn't really in Australia, I wouldn't think they are fully professional. EA210269 (talk) 07:03, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Although professional football was introduced in the Netherlands in 1954, the first fullpro club was DWS in 1965. In 1964 there were still salary caps. Minimum wage: 1500 gulden a year for 12 players. 1000 gulden for additional players. Maximum wage 10000 gulden a year for 6 players, 5000 gulden for additional players. There was a 20% bonus for players serving a club for more than 5 years. Many Eredivisie players in the 70's were still semipro. Cattivi (talk) 09:28, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
 * It's clear that there is going to be a lot of gray area, so it's best to just go with the definitions that make the most sense logically on all accounts. Even with the "development" players in the MLS, it's pretty clear that it should still be treated as a fully-professional league. matt91486 (talk) 13:50, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

The problem with a list such as this is that it overlooks the historical aspects. I expect that every (now) professional league, throughout the world, has evolved from being wholly/mainly amateur to fully-professional. There were amateur players in the Football League at least into the 1950s and possibly later. Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 16:05, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Fully professional leagues dispute
At WP:FPL, a user keeps adding the top three tiers of the Israeli football system to the list citing a foreign source. The Israeli Premier League is fully-pro. However, it's highly unlikely that the second and third divisions are, but I'm at as loss as what to do/how to resolve the issue. --Jimbo[online] 22:29, 3 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Erm, the last time I checked it was customary to engage in dialogue with the user in question either on the article talk page or on the user's talk page prior to bringing it up here. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 08:11, 4 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Hopeless nostalgic, you. Madcynic (talk) 09:37, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Whilst hunting around for something to swing this argument one way or another, I found this forum post which says that Hapoel Acre (who at the time were in Liga Leumit) "has always been considered a semi-professional team". Not sure whether this is meant literally (i.e. they really are semi-pro) or whether it's just supporters of rival teams who feel this way, but it's a little something to start with. If they really are semi-pro though, the fact they've just been promoted to the top flight is also interesting... Bettia  (bring on the trumpets!)  13:34, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Aha! According to this FIFA document, Israel has two professional leagues, which I guess refers to Liga Haal and Liga Leumit. Bettia   (bring on the trumpets!)  13:57, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Hmmm. Well I guess that solves the problem of players currently playing in Leumit, but next season (due to league restructuting), half its teams are moved upwards and it absorbs the rest of Liga Artzit, so from next season there will almost certainly only be one fully pro league. пﮟოьεԻ   5  7  14:38, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
 * That sounds about right to me. If we go ahead and add Leumit to the list, we'll have to add a bracketted note saying that it's fully-pro only up until this year (or whenever the switchover takes place). Bettia   (bring on the trumpets!)  15:23, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Notability question
I don't know what constitutes notability for football related articles, but I came across this article in Special:NewPages: Celtic FC Result 10/08/2008. I've left it with a plain notability tag, but maybe it qualifies for speedy delete.

Also, the same user created Celtic F.C. season 2008–09. I would strike me as something that might already exist, or fit in somewhere else, or be called something else ... but like the above, I don't know. --rannṗáirtí anaiṫnid (coṁrá) 22:10, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Doesn't qualify under any of the CSD criteria but certainly not notable; I've Prodded it. – Toon (talk)  22:18, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Ugh. Contested without explanation by page creator, I've AfD'd at Articles for deletion/Celtic FC Result 10/08/2008‎. – Toon (talk)  22:34, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

WP:FLRC on List of English football champions
Folks. Quick note, we've got a football-related featured list (a pretty important one!) which has been nominated for demotion from its featured status. For those who are interested in helping out, see the criteria (which have been recently and quite significantly reworked) and then get stuck in. Cheers. The Rambling Man (talk) 12:42, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Kenny Dalglish and Proactive
What do people think of my solution of including the Proactive agency/Paul Stretford trial info in the article? There's been a lot of back and forth on this but I still think it doesn't warrant a great deal of attention. I'd appreciate other's thoughts. Sillyfolkboy (talk) (edits) WIKIPROJECT ATHLETICS NEEDS YOU!  14:57, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Bob Jack
Listed in the Port Vale F.C. players category I went to expand it. Only when I went to write in the details of his career there I discovered hes not in any of my books. Can anyone do some research and see if and when he signed for Vale and what happened? In the area of 1902 apparently.--EchetusXe (talk) 19:14, 5 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Michael Joyce doesn't mention Port Vale, takes him straight from Glossop to Plymouth. Doesn't prove he was never there, though. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 19:47, 5 June 2009 (UTC)
 * OK thanks, I better just leave it for someone who has details of him then. I already added an infobox and such.--EchetusXe (talk) 14:23, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Scandinavian clubs of the 1930s
According to both Joyce and Matthews, Len Evans, Wales international goalkeeper, went somewhere called Svenborg in 1935 after finishing at Birmingham and before becoming trainer at Blackburn. Can anyone possibly tell me where Svenborg is, assuming that's the right spelling, and whether Mr Evans was playing or coaching or what he was doing there? thanks, Struway2 (talk) 19:56, 5 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Svendborg is a Danish provice town. Once apon a time they had quite a football team. Today plays FC Svendborg in the Danish 2nd Division. ka  la  ha  21:36, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Confederation Cup squad templates
Are Confederation Cup squad templates like this actually useful for Wikipedia? Thoughts? --Angelo (talk) 00:48, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I say keep it - it's a top-level international comp, after all. GiantSnowman 20:27, 7 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Category:Confederations Cup navbox templates would support GiantSnowman's assertion. -- Club Oranje T 07:20, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Andy Aitken
Two of the footballers named Andy Aitken have been moved to (born xxxx) rather than (footballer born xxxx). Could an admin please revert these moves? Jmorrison230582 (talk) 04:54, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Done. --Malcolmxl5 (talk) 05:59, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks! Jmorrison230582 (talk) 11:00, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Robert Campbell
This needs a bit of sorting in the names, as they are unnecessarily long. Jmorrison230582 (talk) 10:59, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Needs an admin as the pages without the nationality in the title are already redirects to the existing page titles.--EchetusXe (talk) 14:28, 6 June 2009 (UTC)


 * The Bobby Campbells were moved by an inexperienced editor who seemed to think they needed the year of birth in the page name, I've moved them back to dab by nationality. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 09:08, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Large flags in match articles
Regarding the use of flags in international match articles (e.g. 2006 FIFA World Cup Final), we have the small flag icons in the infobox and in the match details section, fair enough. But do we really need the large flags above the team line-ups as well? These are disproportionately large, unnecessary and patronise the reader. Does anyone have any objections to me removing these? --Jameboy (talk) 12:43, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
 * No objections, I'd also remove them from the infobox as well, they are just there for decoration. - fchd (talk) 13:23, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Dutch speaker?
'Jeroentje is door hem neer geschopt. hij wou hem toen uitkappen maar jeroentje gaf de bal voor. Rhoon heeft toen met 7-1 gewonnen'

I'm re-writing the Nico Jalink article. Sadly it seems to have been deleted from the Dutch Wikipedia for that reason. Can anyone translate that for me as I am curious to know why?--EchetusXe (talk) 15:39, 6 June 2009 (UTC)


 * From my rudimentary understanding, it seems to have been an act of vandalism. Madcynic (talk) 16:13, 6 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Google translate suggests that he did something, was kicked out (sacked?) and then the team went on to win 7-1? :S Uksam88 (talk) 16:33, 6 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Looking at it again the full text is: "Aangemaakt door 92.67.63.178. De inhoud was..."


 * I imagine it therefore reads 'Content was... blah blah sacked 7-1 win'--EchetusXe (talk) 16:54, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
 * 'Little Jeroen' was kicked down by him. He wanted to turn past him, but little Jeroen crossed the ball. Rhoon won 7-1 on that day ??? Cattivi (talk) 17:25, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
 * haha thank you. I'm pretty sure the article had some content before it was seemingly reduced to that sentence. Anyway, not our problem.--EchetusXe (talk) 19:18, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Pavarotti and Modena FC - again
Hi all, I've been recently dealing with a disputed inclusion of a Pavarotti and Modena FC section within Modena F.C. by an anonymous user. Since the user seems to be definitely WP:POINTing his arguments against evidence, I would appreciate if you might join Talk:Modena F.C. and discuss the issue there. --Angelo (talk) 18:38, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
 * 1) I am not anonymous as I always use this same IP address. 2) You are lying about the scope of the previous discussion.   The previous discussion, which did not even occur on Talk:Modena F.C, so I had no way of knowing about that discussion, involved whether Pavarotti was a PLAYER, not a SUPPORTER.  So for you to threaten me telling me not to add information about a supporter because of a two year old discussion about whether he is a player is a flat out lie.  How is someone supposed to know about discussion that doesn't even occur on the talk page??? 69.253.207.9 (talk) 18:59, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Simply not to have an account is to be anonymous. It could be anyone behind that IP. IP's can be changed by the IP provider at any time without warning to the user let alone anyone else. Anyway, I hope this dispute can be resolved sensibly. I know nothing about it so am I choosing not to get involved.--EchetusXe (talk) 19:16, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Corry Evans
Corry Evans made his full debut for Northern Ireland tonight against Italy, however he is yet to play in a competitive match for Man Utd, so is he now notable or as he plays for Man Utd does he still not qualify? Jimmy Skitz's Answer Machine 19:55, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I'd think he's notable now, as long as reliable sources are used of course. Mattythewhite (talk) 19:59, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Agreed, Andrew Little was in a similar position, as he played for NI before he played for Rangers. Jmorrison230582 (talk) 20:17, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Same goes for Shane Ferguson; he's just come on now. Mattythewhite (talk) 20:28, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

The Scott Brown affair.
Scott P. Brown (English footballer) Scott Brown (English footballer)

Both decided to go and play for Bristol City in 2004 and 2005 and both played for Cheltenham Town between 2007 and 2009.

Now one of them decided to get arrested in October 2005, it would be pretty embarrassing on our part to label the wrong one as the brawler.

However I believe its my guy (no middle name) based on the fact that in 2006 the BBC was still calling the three guys teammates despite P.Brown having moved on to Cheltenham by then. Also here is the face of the convicts, here is P Brown. White guys all look the same to me, but I'm pretty sure that the goalkeeper is not one of those 3 pictured.

I'm confident I have reported the correct Scott Brown as the one arrested, but with the chances of a cock-up so obvious I decided it best if I got confirmation here.--EchetusXe (talk) 22:57, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

CA Marbella
I would appreciate a third opinion on Talk:CA Marbella. Rettetast (talk) 12:57, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Manchester United wartime guest players
Based on stats from Jack Rollin's excellent book Soccer at War: 1939 - 45, I've compiled a list of all of Manchester United's guest players from during the Second World War. However, they were all without full names – only initials – and while I was able to match a few articles to some of the names (thanks to anyone who categorised articles into Category:Manchester United F.C. wartime guest players), I was wondering if anyone here would be able to help identify a few more names. If you recognise a name, feel free to fill in the full name, along with any common nickname(s), and preferably link to the player's article if he has one. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks. – PeeJay 22:31, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I think if that category has been around since before the start of this year then all Vale players are already in there.--EchetusXe (talk) 23:01, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I've added a couple of players I recognise. One option is to manually search Neil Brown's site by surname, for any post-war matches. Cheers, GiantSnowman 23:17, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Added in Paddy Sloan, who is almost certainly the JW Sloan listed in the article. Qwghlm (talk) 11:00, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks to all of you who have contributed to this list. I get the feeling that some of these players may be untraceable, although I live in hope that we'll be able to identify most of them. – PeeJay 19:57, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I'll have a trail through the recent Sheffield United Who's Who book which has career stats for every Blades player ever. Bladeboy1889 (talk) 11:35, 13 June 2009 (UTC) - Update: I only found one I'm afraid - linked to his article on your list page.

Naming convention for not-easily-named matches
Over at Talk:Liverpool 0–2 Arsenal (26 May 1989) there is a debate over the form of article titles for matches which are notable, but do not have a formal title such as 2006 FIFA World Cup Final or a well-established nickname such as Agony of Doha. There doesn't seem to be a consistent name form - looking over the category for matches, it varies considerably, e.g.:
 * Teams + scoreline: e.g. Arbroath 36–0 Bon Accord, Australia 31–0 American Samoa
 * Teams + scoreline + year: e.g. Germany 1–5 England (2001)
 * Teams + versus: e.g. Bayern Munich v Norwich City
 * Teams + versus + year: e.g. England v Scotland (1872), Hungary v Poland (1921), Hereford United v Newcastle United 1972
 * Teams + versus + year + competition: Argentina v England (1986 FIFA World Cup quarter-final)

Including team names, and years, seem fairly elementary and non-controversial. Some additional thoughts:


 * Putting scorelines in articles works in disambiguating that particular match amongst others, as well as emphasising the notability of the game - matches are generally remembered more so by their scoreline than by their date, in my experience.
 * Putting the competition into the title is probably overkill - for example, England and Argentina only played once in 1986 and there is no need to disambiguate.
 * Putting the full date into the title is probably overkill, unless the two teams played each other more than once in a year and the scores were identical in each.

So I propose article titles of the format Team A x–y Team B (year), with an optional further disambiguation to Team A x-y Team B (date) if the year and scoreline aren't sufficient on their own. Others' thoughts are welcome... Qwghlm (talk) 11:27, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I think Team A x–y Team B (year) will suffice; I doubt there are going to be two matches between the same teams in the same year which both result in a 'notable' match. GiantSnowman 11:40, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
 * On a related point, while it would be hard to argue that Liverpool 0–2 Arsenal (26 May 1989) was less notable than say, 2003 Football Conference play-off Final, I fear that by allowing articles for matches that don't have a name, we're opening the floodgates for a load of crud, i.e. people creating woeful articles for every match played by their team in whatever season we happen to be in. How do we prevent this and what are the notability criteria for a match article? --Jameboy (talk) 11:53, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
 * We've had AfDs on some single match articles. The usual bar is the usual one for Wikipedia. If the game is sufficiently notable, there'll be lots of reliable sources discussing it, in a non-trivial manner. (And doing so long after the event, too). It's hard to ascribe criteria, but usually the match will be a particularly significant one in the history of one or both of the participating clubs, something that will need to be demonstrated in the article, with RS to back it up. --Dweller (talk) 12:06, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
 * It's not a case of 'allowing' articles that do not have a name - these articles already exist. And Dweller is right - basic rules on notability concerning non-trivial coverage from multiple reliable sources, i.e. above & beyond a single match report - will adequately cover matches in this case. Qwghlm (talk) 12:56, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree, the non-trivial coverage sums it up really. People are still writing about thta Liverpool v Arsenal match. I presume that there will never be any full, in-depth review of Aston Villa 1–0 Newcastle in the years to come. The bar for notability is already set higher than the week's news reports. Sillyfolkboy (talk) (edits) WIKIPROJECT ATHLETICS NEEDS YOU!  13:47, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
 * This Afd might prove useful, especially the comments that came in after my post to it at 15:48 on August 30th 2007, at which point the article had finished a major enhancement that better explained the notability. --Dweller (talk) 14:17, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

I think it depends on what makes the match notable notable. Germany 1-5 England was notable because of the scoreline. England v Scotland (1872) is notable because of the year in which it was played.

I think it should be team a v team b (year) or team a ?-? team b (year) as the standard.--EchetusXe (talk) 17:37, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Where the year disambiguation is unnecessary, it seems silly to use it, eg the Hereford-Newcastle game or the Bon Accord one. --Dweller (talk) 09:04, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

The more I think about this, the more I think standardising a convention is a bad idea. Matches notable for their score need the score in their title. Others do not. Some need disambiguation, using year will be normal, but the Eng / Arg example above is a good case of where that would be insufficient. I think that the standardisation should go as far as to set parameters to be chosen from - dates, if used, go at the end in brackets. Versus, if used, should be a simple "v". Which dash to use in scorelines. Etc. --Dweller (talk) 15:40, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, I missed that this debate was going on. As the person who brought up the issue on the Liverpool-Arsenal page, my complaint is simply about using titles that might be used in conversation. I have trouble imagining someone saying "Did you see Liverpool 0–2 Arsenal (26 May 1989) last night?" I do believe someone might sound more natural saying "Did you see the 1989 Liverpool-Arsenal match last night?" That's why I suggested the change. For an across-the-pond example, see 2007 New England Patriots-New York Giants game, which is the game in which the Patriots completed their record-setting 16-0 season. I think you can overindicate the content of an article in the title, when all you need is a pointer to what it's about. See also my comment on Talk:Luton Town 1–0 Millwall (13 March 1985).--Mike Selinker (talk) 14:01, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Yugoslav First League in the 90´s
This may sound strange, but I´m really having a hard time to find the complete squad lists of the Yugoslav First League teams from 1991 until 2000. The Playerhistory website is incomplete. Can anyone help me? FkpCascais (talk) 19:08, 7 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Someone has placed scans of pages of certain years of the "Fudbal SiCG Alamanah" (published by Tempo) on the web. Here is one from the 02/03 version with a portion of the Vojvodina squad. I'm not sure if someone has copies of the actual almanacs somewhere, especially for the years you're looking for, but there are plenty of scans from post-2000 almanacs here and perhaps someone at that forum has older ones. Jogurney (talk) 21:54, 7 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, thanx a lot, I´ll check the almanachs to see if I have some foreign players missing, since that is the main reason I need the squads, to complete my Foreign players list, but I think I have the seasons since 2000 pretty much covered. It´s becoming very anoing for me since without finding the 90´s statistics I can´t finish the list. The almanachs may also sometimes be inacurate becouse the majority of the times are published before the transfer window is closed... I thouth I had the list almost done, but I´ve founded missing a brazilian in the "great" Red Star, argentinians from Vojvodina... imagine the medium and smaller clubs... FkpCascais (talk) 21:00, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Very strange redirect
I don't get it...... -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 08:57, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Looking at the edit history, it seems that Scottish Division Two and Scottish Second Division are different concepts - Division Two was the old second tier (which is now called the First Division), whilst the Second Division is the modern third tier. Takes semantics to a whole new level! пﮟოьεԻ   5  7  09:19, 8 June 2009 (UTC)


 * When the league now known as the Scottish Premier League was first renamed from Division One to the Premier Division, the old Division Two became the First Division, much as how the Football League Third Division is now Football League Two. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 09:20, 8 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Welcome to the world of football, where everyone is in the top flight lol.--EchetusXe (talk) 11:31, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Gordon Lennon
This Scottish player has recently died, but as far as I can see, he's only played in the semi-pro Scottish second & third divisions...can anyone prove his notability? Cheers, GiantSnowman 11:44, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Hmmm. I checked earlier that he didn't have an article after seeing the BBC story, but obviously someone has created it since then. This is definitely a WP:ONEEVENT story, so I'll prod it. пﮟოьεԻ   5  7  11:50, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
 * The prod was removed without explanation, hence Articles for deletion/Gordon Lennon. пﮟოьεԻ   5  7  12:18, 8 June 2009 (UTC)


 * I'm disappointed in this one - the idea that a player is notable by "passing" WP:ATHLETE with one appearance as a sub in a professional league, but isn't notable at all for their sporting career otherwise is fairly ridiculous. There's too much of a mentality that articles are either "football articles" or "non-football articles" around here, leading to the situation where "football articles" are judged exclusively on where they sit on WP:ATHLETE while "non-football" articles aren't allowed to be judged on minor sporting achievements at all. But we'll see what the AfD brings up. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 09:22, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Looks like its brought up a complete stalemate thus far.--EchetusXe (talk) 11:26, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

English clubs in the European Cup
This isn't going anywhere fast. Before I give in and take it to AfD, anyone fancy having a go at turning into a real article? Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 10:55, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Oh boy, that thing really is an utter mess. I think it would be worthwhile to AfD this and complete English clubs in European football instead - the European Cup records only go up to 1966-67, and there's no mention of the Cup Winners Cup or UEFA Cup at all. The only question is, would we need all three competitions in one article, or would it better to split it (and therefore keep that article)? Bettia   (bring on the trumpets!)  13:30, 10 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Considering that next to none of it is referenced (in either article), I wouldn't have a problem with a solution which involved liberal use of the delete key to be honest. But yeah, a merge there is a good place to start. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 13:49, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Victor Petroni
Doesn't look like a notable player, and I thought you people might be able to sort it more quickly than I can. Thanks, or get back to me if I need to AfD it myself, or whatever. Itsmejudith (talk) 20:36, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
 * He is notable. He played in the fully-pro National Professional Soccer League (1984–2001), meeting WP:ATHLETE, and was even elected to the end-of-season All-Star team in 1986. The article does need cleaning up though. GiantSnowman 22:54, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Another notability question
I've come across this article about an amateur league in Ireland, which links to pages about all of its Senior teams, and many of its lesser teams. The linked articles say nothing more than that the team is a member of the LSL. Does Wikipedia really need articles on every amateur football league and team? WikiDan61 ChatMe!ReadMe!! 12:19, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
 * My first impressions were that the league is probably notable enough but the teams most certainly aren't. However, the league article states that teams from this league enter the FAI Cup and other such competitions. Considering that a general rule-of-thumb for English non-leaguers is participation in FA competitions, should we apply the same logic here? And if so, to what degree? Bettia   (bring on the trumpets!)  13:18, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Gordon Ramsay
As far as I was aware, Gordon Ramsay was only ever a youth player at Rangers...however, an article written by him in 2002 claims that he made two first-team appearances, saying "I played two first-team games, against St Johnstone and Morton. Both away and both shit in the sense that I played 20 minutes and 10 minutes." Can anyone verify this? Cheers, GiantSnowman 12:31, 10 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Not quite...  and many more... cheers, Struway2 (talk) 12:59, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
 * OK, cheers! GiantSnowman 13:25, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

navbox conversions
I noticed a box in need of conversion, Template:1986 FIFA World Cup, and I'm having trouble figuring out the markup to prevent nested boxes from being broken. Any assistance would be appreciated, especially because I would then be able to make these edits properly on other templates. Thanks. JohnnyPolo24 (talk) 14:25, 10 June 2009 (UTC)


 * I've had a go at this - it's a bit weird to nest the templates like that, but that can be sorted out later. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 14:38, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Hungaria FbC Roma
A copuple of players – Ferenc Nyers and Nicolae Simatoc are just two that spring to mind – played for a Hungarian club called Hungaria FbC Roma in the early 1950s. Seeing as these players also played at the top-levels of France and Spain respectively, I presume Hungaria FbC Roma was/is a notable club. Does anyone know if Hungaria FbC Roma is the correct naming convention, and if not, what is? And does anyone have any further details on the club? Cheers, GiantSnowman 15:03, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Hungaria FbC Roma was an exhibition team who played some matches in Italy (sure), maybe in other countries (I don't know)? It was not an official team.--Latouffedisco (talk) 18:17, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Did it play any famous teams? And did it have any other famous players? Basically, would it be notable enough for an article? GiantSnowman 21:31, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I remember reading somewhere that the club was a team formed by hungarian players that escaped the communist regime, but I´m far from sure. You can find more players in the rsssf webpage, in expatriate players in Italy list, it says the players career, and I remember finding many hungarians that also played in Hungaria Roma. I´ll give you the exact web page when I find it, and you´ll have to check the entire list (borring,I know) to see another players that played there. Another thing is that I´ve founded in a sebian official website of Hajduk Kula, in the historic section that Ferenc Nyers played for a predecessor team, but I didn´t add this info to the players page becouse I don´t know if it can be used as a reference, and becouse it doesn´t mention the exact years that he spent in the club. FkpCascais (talk) 23:10, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I think it worths an article, due to the political background of this team, the players who played for it. I don't know which teams it played however. I think you should ask User:Necronudist, maybe he has some datas and informations about this. Cheers.--Latouffedisco (talk) 09:33, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
 * No, I haven't :-) I heard about that team, but nothing much has been written about it. We're Italians, we don't care about history. What's on TV right now? :-P --necronudist (talk) 10:34, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Yeah "Valentino Rossi", that´s why you´ve made the all-time Serie A players list, to remember the glorious PAST days of italian calcio... :))) . You said you´re gonna help me with my lists, and you only gave me one valiable name, O.Gazzari... FkpCascais (talk) 17:27, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
 * My girlfriend lives in L'Aquila, I have other things to think about. However, I don't like the way you're doing the list... it's not a well organized work, I'm afraid I would be only a danger. --necronudist (talk) 18:33, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Here is the hungarian players and managers in Italy list * . Christian, what you dislake in my list. Dont tell me again about the ex-Yu players. They are considered foreigners since 1992, a long way ago... Since you colabore with playerhistory website, you cold chek me the 90´s, and the Williams, brazilian Red Star player, help that I´ve already desperately asked :(. I´m a Great Mexican Earthquake survivor, you know... FkpCascais (talk) 19:58, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Have you finded more players,Giantsnowman? Are you making the article? I vote for you doing it. As Latouffedisco said, it would be interesting becouse of its background. Sorry can´t help you more... I imagine that it would only be hard to categorize it... Hungarian club,in Italy,non-official team, I can´t remember more exemples of this kind of clubs. I imagine that in this case, the hungarian players formed a club as a temporary solution, so they could continue with the trainings untill each one of them started playing for "real" clubs. FkpCascais (talk) 23:04, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
 * The article has now been created. Any help with improving would be much appreciated. Cheers, GiantSnowman 15:48, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Question regarding club appearances and league matches
Hi,

Would it be possible to have the "Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only" message disabled for a specific player? In Brazil (and I bet in other countries, too) we usually count all goals a player has scored for a given team in every *official* match, regardless of whether it was for the local state league, one of the many national domestic leagues (there's no such thing as "the" domestic league in Brazil), or international leagues (Copa Libertadores, for instance).

What is happening right now is that .br users are simply ignoring that message -- and providing bad information to our readers. I'd say the vast majority of the pages concerning Brazilian football players are wrong in that regard.

Thank you for your attention.

Pedrovsky (talk) 17:58, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Not that I know of. In those circumstances I just write a note explaining the stats are for all competitions. I imagine that would be a pain the ass though for an entire countries worth of players huh?--EchetusXe (talk) 00:45, 11 June 2009 (UTC)


 * As I said at Template talk:Infobox football biography 2, it wouldn't be hard to add a Brazilian = yes parameter which could be used to display a different message on those articles. The question is whether the Project thinks that having a different rule for Brazilian clubs is worth codifying. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 08:04, 11 June 2009 (UTC)


 * When the topic was last discussed at Template talk:Infobox football biography/Archive 4, the reasons for only including league appearances were 1) league stats were thought to be more readily available, both over time and geographically; 2) including cups would immediately open the door to "debate" as to what cups should be counted; so 3) for consistency, we should standardise on something for which the data is available and definitive.


 * Do the reliable sources in Brazil really count everything, including Copa do Brasil, local cups if there are such things, all in together? for players at "big" clubs and smaller clubs? historically as well as now? Because if they do, then the reasons given above wouldn't apply to Brazil, and perhaps we should allow them a variation. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 09:15, 11 June 2009 (UTC)


 * The only good sources I've found (Guardian's Stats Centre and Globo Esporte's Futpedia) report Campeonato Brasileiro Serie A and/or Copa do Brasil matches (it's easy to separate the totals for each). ESPN Soccernet reports some state championship statistics (e.g., the top level of the Carioca), but I don't believe it's complete. In short, I think it's reasonable to limit the infobox to Brasileiro Serie A (or Serie B, if anyone can find a good source for it) statistics. Jogurney (talk) 12:53, 11 June 2009 (UTC)


 * OK guys, fair enough. Thank you for the prompt answers. :-) Pedrovsky (talk) 13:45, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Quick question
Robin van der Laan. Does anyone know whether I am supposed to write: "Van der Laan..." or "van der Laan..." when starting a sentence with his name? Do I just write "Laan...".

Help pl0x.--EchetusXe (talk) 18:08, 11 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Robin van der Laan, Van der Laan, sorted Laan, Robin van der. --necronudist (talk) 18:29, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
 * And even when his surname comes up in the middle of a sentence, it should still be capitalised as "Van der Laan". – PeeJay 18:33, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
 * k, thnx.--EchetusXe (talk) 18:41, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

In the middle of a sentence it's not capitalised, except when it's someone from Belgium. Cattivi (talk) 10:17, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Robin van der Laan is Mr. Van der Laan... it doesn't matter if it's in the middle or at the beginning of a sentence... when the first name is missing, it's always capitalised. But maybe a Dutch can solve this issue better than us... I can be wrong as well. --necronudist (talk) 10:23, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
 * That's the idea I've been working to on Ruud van Nistelrooy. Was pretty sure that was the case anyway. – PeeJay 10:24, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
 * The 'v' in surnames starting with van is usually capitalized when not preceded by the corresponding first name. My Dutch is kind of horrible, even if I live in the Netherlands, but I'm pretty sure about this. Also a quick Google News seems to confirm it: . --Angelo (talk) 10:58, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
 * The same happens with brazilian or portuguese surnames. Exemple: Álvaro dos Santos. The "D" in "dos" is small d. Or in spanish. Exemple: Nestor de los Santos Perez. I have a friend with a combination of both (Dutch and portuguese). Her name is : Patrícia von Zeller de Almeida. FkpCascais (talk) 12:32, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Good point. Only a note: von Zeller is German, not Dutch :) --Angelo (talk) 13:08, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Hmmm...she clearly said dutch, but now I see what happend, her name is vAn Zeller...sorry, my mistake. FkpCascais (talk) 15:58, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Trimi Makolli
Does article Trimi Makolli meet the requirement for WP:CSD acording to A7?

The player is not part of the senior squad, hes youth squad player, have not played any matches for the club more then a few friendly in the 2009 pre-season. --> Halmstad,  Charla to moi  18:39, 11 June 2009 (UTC)


 * No, on the basis the article asserts notability by saying he plays for Djurgardens. I was going to say prod it, but I see someone already has, and the prod has been removed. It'll have to go to AfD now, if anyone can be bothered... cheers, Struway2 (talk) 09:42, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I've taken it to AfD, the debate can be found at Articles for deletion/Trimi Makolli. Cheers. GiantSnowman 11:24, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Someone has added a source confirming a league appearance, I have withdrawn the nom. GiantSnowman 16:51, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Was constructive though, if it encouraged people to add sources. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 17:25, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Oh definitely...it's a shame that some people require the threat of deletion before they improve an article though...GiantSnowman 17:27, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
 * To be fair, there's a limit to how many articles one can improve in any given time, the threat of deletion just raises a particular one up the list of priorities. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 17:29, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Agreed. We could definitely use more help with the backlog of unreferenced footballer BLPs: WikiProject Football/Unreferenced BLPs. Jogurney (talk) 18:50, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Maybe trying to improve articles rather than just trying to delete them without even doing a very simple google search would be a way forward? I'm new to this, but seems obvious to even me8lgm (talk) 09:26, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Michael Husbands
Could somebody keep an eye on the Michael Husbands article? I don't know anything about him, but there have been a lot of suspicious edits recently, I'm not sure if the edits are correct or not (other than the unsourced speculation), so if my reverts are wrong, then please revert me, otherwise, it needs to be watched. Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 18:46, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I'll do it.--EchetusXe (talk) 19:45, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Maybe it was Husbands himself? Trying to rewind time back to 2005 when he had a future in the game but was still a totally shit player? (hope he never reads this). Its probably the same nutjob he claimed he could leap like a salmon.--EchetusXe (talk) 20:03, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I've been keeping an eye on it for a while. Every now and again it gets a few random edits to the stats in the infobox. --Jimbo[online] 11:13, 12 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Now at ANI --Malcolmxl5 (talk) 00:01, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

"(i have erased false information about michael husbands)". I can't understand this, all of the information in the article is fully supported by articles from the BBC. Seems as though this individual wants to believe that Husbands never left Vale Park for some reason.--EchetusXe (talk) 13:30, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Question about "Football in..." templates
As you can see, DragoLink08 has changed a couple of "Football in " templates to a "more colorful" layout, similar to those of the national team templates. Revert or not revert? --Soccer-holicI hear voices in my head... 10:58, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I'd say revert. Let's try to be a bit consistent about choice of colours, btw they do not even look that great... --Angelo (talk) 11:03, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
 * revert. Rettetast (talk) 14:32, 12 June 2009 (UTC)


 * And not just football, either. He was given a final warning yesterday and made another hundred of the same edits today; ping an admin. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 15:46, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
 * No need for admin intervention yet. I have alerted him about the discussion. WP:BRD. Rettetast (talk) 16:12, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Why do we use different colours anyway. Wouldn't it be better to use the standard template colour on all footy templates? Are there any gain other than the bleeding eyesore at the bottom on thousands of articles? Rettetast (talk) 16:15, 12 June 2009 (UTC)


 * I'm sorry if I have done anything wrong about the templates. It's just that we have teams like Manchester United or the New York Yankees that have colorful templates and I thought that it would be nice to make them look more eye-catching. DragoLink08 (talk) 04:33, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Personally, I'm not all that against the addition of colours to the navboxes, provided that they are appropriate to the navbox. – PeeJay 11:00, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Exactly. There should be no problem for team navboxes with club-colored designs, but it's a whole different story for general purpose templates. --Soccer-holicI hear voices in my head... 11:04, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Flags of principalities
In the Swansea City vs AS Monaco tie in European Cup Winners' Cup 1991–92, Swansea has the Welsh flag whereas Monaco has the French flag (not the Monaco flag). Is this an inconsistency and which should be changed, if either? --Jameboy (talk) 22:50, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I think both are presently correct. Swansea qualified via winning the Welsh Cup, while Monaco qualified via winning the Coupe de France Final 1991. Where you might have fun & games is if Swansea or Cardiff qualified via the predominantly English competitions. ;-) Jmorrison230582 (talk) 06:47, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
 * That would really be a question, what flag to put! Cardiff could have gained promotion to Premier League this season... FkpCascais (talk) 07:17, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Swansea are registered with the FAW, and are therefore a Welsh club: Monaco are registered with the FFF, and so are a French club. Kevin McE (talk) 08:31, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
 * If they qualify through a English tournament to represent The Football Association in Europe they'd have to have a English flag. chandler 08:38, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Cardiff and Swansea aren't actually eligible to qualify for European competitions via the English league or domestic cups. That was the problem with Cardiff potentially entering the UEFA Cup if they won the 2008 FA Cup Final. Anyway, Swansea and Monaco currently have the correct flags. – PeeJay 11:41, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
 * That seems to make sense. Thanks for the input. --Jameboy (talk) 15:44, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

List of foreign players in Serbian lower football leagues
Is this article worth it? Seeing as it is a list of lower-league players, I reckon the vast majority will fail notability, meaning we have what is basically a list of non-notable footballers...GiantSnowman 00:39, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I don´t understand you. You want to make an article about a club, Hungaria FbC Roma, that is not even an official club, made only a couple of exibitional matches, and had 2 known players(you´ve asked help to find more players,remember?)... and you´re criticizing a list with 72 capped international players !?!?...never mind. The list I made it becouse I had that information and becouse is complementary to the 1st league list. This way you can follow the career of many players with the help of both lists. But anyway, I don´t mind if people think that is unworthy... I am just surprised that this came from you, I even try to get more info about the Hungaria team you wanted to do the article, to help you... Are you mad becouse of something? FkpCascais (talk) 06:00, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Haha, it's nothing personal FkpCascais! I really appreciate the help with Hungaria, and I was merely asking if other editors thought this article was worthy of being on Wikipedia - calm down! Regards, GiantSnowman 12:47, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Yeah,yeah...and Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny get married and had children: Monis Pantalonis, Zé Carioca and maybe...you! FkpCascais (talk) 15:06, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry, have I done something to offend you? GiantSnowman 15:07, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Disambiguation
There exists Joe Smith (footballer born 1889), England international, maker of 612 Football League appearances and scorer of 380 goals, with a long managerial career, already dabbed by birth year because of Joe Smith (footballer born 1890), England international and maker of 482 Football League appearances, but clearly the primary target for people looking up Joe Smiths born in 1889. Does anyone have any sensible suggestions as to what I should I name an article on a rather less prominent Joe Smith, English footballer born 1889, who played 8 league games before being killed in action in the First World War? cheers, Struway2 (talk) 09:27, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Can I suggest Joseph Enoch Smith i.e. his full name? or Joseph Smith (footballer)? --Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 10:59, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Do you have their months of birth available? If so, why not use those in conjunction with the year? – PeeJay 11:40, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
 * For Joseph Enoch, if such was his name, Joyce might say so but I'm not convinced, there's only the year. I think I'll call him Joseph Smith (footballer). Thanks for your ideas. Whatever he gets called, once there are three of them I'll have to make a dab page at Joe Smith (footballer), which is currently a redirect to Joe Smith (footballer born 1889). cheers, Struway2 (talk) 11:50, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I think Joe Smith (footballer) should redirect back to Joseph Smith (disambiguation) rather than being a disambig page, but I can't find the relevant guideline to back this up so I may be wrong. --Jameboy (talk) 16:02, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Did it that way because I thought it might be helpful for people only having to look down a list of 4 rather than howevermany, but wouldn't have a problem with it redirecting back to the main dab page instead if people think it should. I can't find any rule on the matter either. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 17:33, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Youth player categories
insists on removing club categories from the articles of youth players, even though I have directed him to previous consenus that such categories should be kept. I am about to approach my 3RR limit, please could someone else have a polite word with him? Cheers, GiantSnowman 13:46, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Why not make a Category:AFC Ajax youth players? A. Falcao (talk) 13:56, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

For information, there was a more recent discussion of this matter at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Football/Archive 31, which had input from both sides of the argument, but finished off with a pertinent comment, that "As is common on this discussion page, it's quite possible for us to resolve this simply by looking beyond our own WikiProject guidelines and at the general ones - if a player is tied to a club by multiple reliable secondary sources, he should be in their category. If not, then not." cheers, Struway2 (talk) 14:15, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I don't understand, why you no have rules! Apparently your WP:FOOTY most backward in the Wikipedia, once you no have rules. A. Falcao (talk) 14:19, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree it would be helpful if the various football article style guides were kept up-to-date to reflect current consensus, so that people wouldn't have to search for relevant arguments. But wherever the current consensus is written down, it's still what we have to go by, until and unless it's changed. "Rules" is only another word for consensus: it's what (in this case) football article editors have agreed is the way to do things. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 14:25, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Okay ... more not will disturb you. A. Falcao (talk) 14:28, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Baichung or Bhaichung?
Should Baichung Bhutia be moved to Bhaichung Bhutia? I requested a move but so far no one has agreed or disagreed with me. Spiderone (talk) 15:49, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Template:Infobox football tournament season
Can someone tell me what I'm doing wrong with my implementation of Template:Infobox football tournament season in FA Cup 2007–08? I can't get the image to show. Not sure if it's me or a template issue. --Jameboy (talk) 20:13, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
 * It seems to be a template issue. The image will show if imagesize is blank (but will be enormous). Neither 250 or 250px seems to work to size the image. Nanonic (talk) 21:41, 13 June 2009 (UTC)


 * My bad. I've fixed the template. Feel free to ping me directly if you see bugs like this in future. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 10:07, 17 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Nice one, cheers. --Jameboy (talk) 22:30, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Kyle Davies
Can an admin please re-create the above article? The player is making his debut for FC Dallas right now. Source is here: http://web.mlsnet.com/scoreboard/game.jsp?match=06132009_HOUDAL. Thanks! --JonBroxton (talk) 00:34, 14 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Done. Camw (talk) 01:19, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Many thanks! --JonBroxton (talk) 01:24, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Albanian Superliga
Does anyone know if it is fully-pro? --Jimbo[online] 07:47, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Dave Martin
I think this requires admin attention. Jmorrison230582 (talk) 10:08, 14 June 2009 (UTC)


 * I put Dave Martin (footballer born 1985) up for speedy deletion earlier today so the page could be moved back. --Jimbo[online] 11:47, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Done. Oldelpaso (talk) 12:23, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Tom Wilcox
Could anyone with a copy of Michael Joyce's "Football League Players' Records 1888 - 1939" please provide me with a record of Tom Wilcox's career? The article currently lists him as having played for Huddersfield Town from 1910 to 1911, but my book of Manchester United players lists him as having played for Carlisle from 1909 to 1912! Any help? – PeeJay 15:05, 14 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Page 280. Thomas Walter J Wilcox born at sea 1879 d 1952


 * Millwall Athletic
 * Cray Wanderers
 * 1904 Woolwich Arsenal 0 apps
 * Norwich City
 * 1906 Blackpool 37 apps
 * 1908 Manchester United 2 apps
 * Carlisle United
 * 1910 Huddersfield Town 2 apps
 * Goole Town
 * Abergavenny


 * "The year shown is the one in which the season started... The start and end seasons are the first and last in which the player appeared for the club either in the League or the FA Cup." cheers, Struway2 (talk) 16:18, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Merci beaucoup :) – PeeJay 16:48, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

1930 FIFA World Cup
The above article is being re-assessed as part of the GA Sweeps project The re-assessment has been placed on hold. It hasn't failed because it's basically a good article, but there are some minor changes or clarifications needing to be addressed. If these are fixed within seven days, the article will pass; otherwise it will fail. See 1930 FIFA World Cup for things needing to be addressed. Jezhotwells (talk) 20:18, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

User:Sir Stanley and "Diary of the season"
I don't know if anyone else here has come across the above-mentioned user, but he seems to have taken to adding "diaries" to the Manchester United season articles. Are these encyclopaedic? – PeeJay 22:50, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
 * No, I've seen these type of edits before and I don't believe they are encyclopedic. I'd say they count as Proseline. Information should be formed into coherent prose, or if it is to remain as a list or table it should have clear criteria. I've noticed that season articles tend to become a dumping ground for various random "events", often in a bulleted list and usually unsourced. While this may serve as a starting point for expanding the article, we need to move beyond it in order to bring the article up to a high standard. --Jameboy (talk) 23:33, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Btw, Bradford City A.F.C. season 2007–08 (a GA) is more like how a season article should look I reckon. Decent amount of prose, with supporting tables and stats. --Jameboy (talk) 23:40, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Ah, good old Peanut4. Actually, he's not been around for a while, anyone know what he's up to? GiantSnowman 23:47, 14 June 2009 (UTC)


 * What is with the weird references to the Times archives as well? Still, better than nothing I suppose.--EchetusXe (talk) 00:48, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Top-scorer League Two
Can someone take a look at The_Football_League_2008–09 and Football_League_Two_2008–09. Do u really count the goals from regular season + promotion playoffs (+ FA Cup (in one case))? Simeon Jackson scored 17 goals during the season, 3 in playoffs, 1 in FA Cup and 1 for Canada, so perhaps we can increase it to 22? ;-) --Ureinwohner (talk) 23:14, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Andy McGuigan
So yeah, another case of me going off to bring an article up to scratch only for me to find no evidence of the player actually playing for Port Vale. Can someone please do a little check to see if what is there already is accurate (and that he was indeed signed to Vale)?--EchetusXe (talk) 00:40, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I've filled in a few gaps from www.allfootballers.com. It seems that he was on Vale's books for 1906-07, but never played a first-team game.  Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 05:26, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
 * OK, thnx.--EchetusXe (talk) 10:40, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Football disambiguation
Requesting comments at Talk:Football for a proposed rework of Football. Regards, jnestorius(talk) 12:13, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Articles for deletion/Albert Roca Puyol
Would members of your project please weigh in at Articles for deletion/Albert Roca Puyol. Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 17:17, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Image congesion of featured article
I would like to invite discussion on the talk page of Kit (association football). The talk surrounds Image congestion on the page, input is required for this is a Featured Article.--Lucy-marie (talk) 21:26, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

The Notorious T.F.F.
I am not happy with Tommy Fraser having this fact at his article unreferenced: [Fraser is the grandson of "Mad" Frankie Fraser, a former member of the Richardson Gang]

It says as much on Frankie Fraser's article but can anyone find a reference?--EchetusXe (talk) 22:01, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Never mind I found a Daily Mail reference. Its not ideal but it will do.--EchetusXe (talk) 22:10, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Albanian players up for deletion
9 Albanian players have been grouped for deletion at Articles for deletion/Egland Haxho. If you agree with me that some (if not all) should be saved then can you assist in adding information and references to the articles so that hopefully they can be kept. I will try and concentrate on Egland Haxho and Arbër Abilaliaj. Hope you can assist. Eldumpo (talk) 07:25, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Squad templates
Where are people getting squad info from for squad templates? the Wolves one is somewhat different to the names and numbers on the official website. I realise the old season is finishing and there will be changes for the new season, but surely guessing at names without back-up amounts to WP:OR. -- Club Oranje T 11:36, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Re:Wolves; the old squad season's numbers should be kept until new ones are announced, and any new signings should not be added until they actually sign for the club on 1 July 2009. Regards, GiantSnowman 11:43, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Tony Kempster RIP
Those of you who edit non-league football articles will undoubtedly have used Tony Kempster's website (www.tonykempster.co.uk) to look for information, since it is invaluable for making sense of the lower reaches of the pyramid. Sadly, he has lost his battle with liver cancer, and passed away last night. Oldelpaso (talk) 13:58, 16 June 2009 (UTC)


 * I remember using that site. RIP Spiderone (talk) 17:02, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Aw man, that's really sad news. RIP Tony. – PeeJay 18:47, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Is he worthy of an article? He's mentioned on the 'Recent Deaths' page, and the BBC has done a whole feature on him....GiantSnowman 00:27, 18 June 2009 (UTC)


 * It's worth thinking about, certainly. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 07:38, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Sergio Aguero
Can someone watch the Sergio Aguero page because it's being vandalised constantly. Spiderone (talk) 17:01, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Paul Ince
I'm having trouble with a guy who keeps adding guff about how Ince spent more than any Blackburn manager in the last five seasons. To me, it seems unnecessarily defamatory about Ince and completely POV, but this guy just won't listen. Help pls! – PeeJay 19:28, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
 * As you can see by this edit, I'm still having trouble with this guy. I'm probably being too sensitive about the content he's adding, but I'd prefer it if someone else would have a look before I go far too overboard with my reversions. – PeeJay 22:54, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Spanish football templates
I'd look at solving it myself, but I'm terrible with template coding. One of the Spanish football templates (I'm not sure which one, but it's one of the two that I just used on Regional Preferente de Ceuta) puts a link to the Hebrew version of the template as an article link. It has happened on more than one article I've recently used it on. Does anyone who is good with templates know how to remove this thing? I think it's trying to wikilink the templates together, but instead it just creates wikilinks from all articles on which the template is used to that template on the Hebrew Wikipiedia. I know these probably aren't exactly high traffic articles that will create widespread problems for a lot of people, but I'm at a loss of how to fix it myself. matt91486 (talk) 19:44, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Fixed :-) – PeeJay 19:54, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks much! matt91486 (talk) 20:30, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Template:goal
Is it just me or is this template a bit unnecessary? The image is a bit unruly, especially when a player has scored more than one goal in a game. I think it would be much more appropriate to just have the goal times with a number in brackets to indicate how many goals the player scored (if more than one). – PeeJay 22:14, 16 June 2009 (UTC)


 * I'm actually quite fond of this one, so long as it's only used in match templates. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 10:15, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I don't use it, as I don't edit match article, but it looks extremely useful. GiantSnowman 11:51, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm with Chris here. Anything looking like this (scroll down to the Statistics section) is causing eye cancer anyways, not to mention the drastically increased loading time... --Soccer-holicI hear voices in my head... 11:59, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Soccer-holic, I'm confused. You say you're with Chris, but your comment seems to suggest that you don't like the template. Could you explain? – PeeJay 12:31, 17 June 2009 (UTC)


 * I think he means that it's possible for anything to be abused. The potential for abuse is not in itself a reason to get rid of the template. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 12:49, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
 * OK, I understand. Nevertheless, my reason for suggesting that the template be deleted is not because of the potential for abuse, but because it is garish. Whenever a player scores more than one goal, we use more than one goal template, creating this effect:
 * Cole ⚽ 19' ⚽ 37' ⚽ 53' ⚽ 65' ⚽ 87'
 * My suggestion would be to get rid of the goal template and write simply this:
 * Cole (5) 19', 39', 53', 65', 87'
 * Opinions? – PeeJay 13:39, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes, that's the way it is done in all other media as far as I can tell, and as a double bonus gets us away from another pointless template and removes the unnecessary image of a football from a lot of pages. - fchd (talk) 16:00, 17 June 2009 (UTC)


 * [Re-indent] - why not just change the existing template to allow for multiple goals? So that it looks like a combination of the current template and PeeJay's suggestion? GiantSnowman 13:41, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Sorry PeeJay if I have not been that clear, but Chris ressolved the situation correctly. :-) As for Snowmans idea - it would definitely be an improvement if multiple goals could be listed behind the ball. --Soccer-holicI hear voices in my head... 13:54, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I definitely think that it would be a good idea to make the template allow for multiple goals, but I still think that the image of the ball is inappropriate. I mean, what is it that makes you associate the picture of the ball with the scoring of a goal? – PeeJay 14:35, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
 * To readers who aren't immediately familiar with the conventions of the sports media, it may make for a clearer indication of what those little numbers mean. I'm thinking that the best solution for this would be to expand goal to allow for multiple goals, so that would give Soccerball shade.svg 22', 44' (o.g.) , 90+2' (pen.) - how does that sound? Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 15:21, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
 * That sounds like a great idea, Chris. Would anyone actually object to a change like this? – PeeJay 17:10, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes, let's do that. Madcynic (talk) 21:35, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I personally don't mind the ⚽ symbol, even if it shows up multiple times for the same player.  Is it possible to give the editor the option of doing it PeeJay2K3's way, or must we all conform to a set standard?  I have a second question.  Why is a multiple goal scorer only listed once on the score sheet?  I give you the example of a 5-3 game where a player from the winning team scores goals 1,3 & 5, and a player from the losing team scores goals 1 & 4.  You basically need pen and paper to figure out the chronological order of goals.Juve2000 (talk) 15:49, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

On what grounds is an icon of a ball representative of a goal? The ball is as relevant to a tackle, throw-in or goal kick as it is to scoring a goal. Kevin McE (talk) 16:27, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
 * ...a ball is often used to represent goals  for example chandler 16:33, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
 * If it's good enough for FIFA then it should be good enough for us...GiantSnowman 16:48, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
 * But on that page the icon is used in the teamsheet to indicate the goalscorers. In the match summary, it merely gives the time at which the goal was scored. – PeeJay 17:10, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
 * But the question wasn't "is our system used anywhere else" rather "do footballs represent balls", which they do, often in penalty shootouts as well chandler 17:35, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
 * FIFA also call the stadium in Johannesburg Ellis Park, but we don't; we are not bound by FIFA's choice of presentational style. As Chris points out above, we should be writing for '"readers who aren't immediately familiar with the conventions of the sports media"'.  What does that ball tell the reader that the times do not?  Images should not be used purely for decoration.  Kevin McE (talk) 18:05, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
 * If you're not even gonna take FIFA as proof that its used, why even ask? chandler 18:15, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
 * The image isn't even needed as we only list goals in the footballbox template, and even in the minority that list yellow cards and red cards, we have separate icons for those events, which should be enough to make the distinction. I still don't understand why (for example) the Americans list bookings and sendings-off in the footballbox, but that's probably just me. – PeeJay 18:42, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I can't believe you are making such a big issue over a soccer ball. We are all used to it so leave it alone.  Please.AntropovNikki (talk) 21:33, 17 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Arguing the point from first principles may not be appropriate here. It is certainly true that a ball symbol in such context is typically used to denote a goal in various media. The omission of such a marker may cause ambiguity; timestamps next to players in the professional sports media can mean several things, from goals scored to time substituted. The icon helps to clarify the point in my opinion, as opposed to merely being decoration. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 01:50, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Can't see anything wrong with how things are done at the moment. Is this really the most important thing some people have to worry about? Darryl.matheson (talk) 23:33, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I can't see the proble with discussing this now. Don't you have anything better to do than make negative comments? – PeeJay 23:40, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

ClubOranje ⚽ 22', 67', 90+2' Yay, I scored a hat-trick -- Club Oranje T 06:17, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I see the point PeeJay2K3 is making, 2002 FIFA World Cup qualification (OFC) article is a real mess with more than a hundred ⚽ in a single article, just compare it to 2006 FIFA World Cup qualification (OFC) which does not use the ⚽  at all, it looks much more simpler and still we can see the minutes of the goals scored. - Martin tamb (talk) 13:40, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Update
Expanded to support up to five goals, per the above discussion. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 07:48, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Would it be possible to take that number up to about 15 goals, in order to accommodate for Archie Thompson's total against American Samoa? – PeeJay 09:19, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
 * The code's trivial; feel free to expand it to as many as you like. I would note that in that particular case you might want to think about alternatives, because all the non-breaking spaces may end up causing layout problems. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 11:42, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Seeing as 15 goals in a game is a major one-off, why not do his in 3 groups of 5? GiantSnowman 11:47, 18 June 2009 (UTC)