User talk:Falastur2/Archive 8

Greg Cunningham

On an entirely different subject, what is your take on the club status of Greg Cunningham? The "was scheduled to remain on loan with the Foxes until the end of the season" phraseology used in the MCFC OWS article that reported he was returning to Manchester to recuperate strongly suggested that his loan had already been extended at Leicester City to the end of the season. Everything I read WRT Ben Mee's loan at LCFC also suggested to me that the club wanted Mee IN ADDITION to Cunningham, not in order to replace him. Which is why I felt Cunningham had a similar status to Ben Arfa at Newcastle United - a loan player that would unfortunately spend the vast majority of his loan period out injured. Although he probably won't play for either club again this season - a leg break such as his usually takes a minimum of 4 months to recover from, which takes us to the beginning of May before he can even start full training again - it still raises the question as to which club he would play for if he could. If his loan had been extended before he broke his leg then he is officially a player on loan to Leicester City even if he never plays for LCFC during that second loan period. Alternatively, it might also be the case that Mancini and Eriksson only verbally agreed to the loan extension in principle and the leg break occurred before it was confirmed contractually. In which case his initial loan ended on the day he broke his leg (or soon after) and he is now officially a Manchester City player again. Mancini's Lasagne invite to Harry ^Talk 01:39, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Greg, regretfully, is definitely out for as long as his loan would have lasted. In this circumstance, Leicester automatically terminated his loan, as is usual in English football when this kind of injury occurs. He was sent back to City ironically on almost the same day that Ben Mee arrived, to return to the club doctors and to be treated in the way that Mancini, as his "senior" or "parent" manager, wants him to be treated. Ben Arfa was kept at Newcastle because he was expected to return to action before the end of the sesaon, and because Newcastle from the very start had ambitions to buy him if he played well, and they were impressed by what he managed before his leg break. Falastur2 ^Talk 01:11, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't think the situation is quite as simplistically straightforward as you make it sound ... because every loan contract is different. You hear of clubs recalling their players back from loan all the time - e.g., West Brom recently recalled its Dutch right back Gianni Zuiverloon from a much longer scheduled loan period at Ipswich Town because WBA currently has a defensive injury crisis on its hands - and yet when City wanted to recall Joe Hart from Birmingham City at the end of last season under similar circumstances it was contractually unable to do so. Different players, different clubs, different loan spells, different loan contracts. There is no general rule. Similarly, Newcastle United was not able to turn round to the French club from whom it had taken Ben Arfa on loan and say, "We hereby automatically terminate Ben's loan because it now seems unlikely that he will play for us again this season." The legalities and financial obligations involved in a loan contract prevent matters from being that straightforward and convenient for either party. However, I liked the basic simplicity of your argument and so used it to justify changing Greg's loan status.

The main reason I have for believing that Greg's loan was either never contractually extended, or was immediately revoked by mutual agreement if it was, is that I could not find him listed in the first team squad displayed on LCFC's OWS while, OTOH, Kyle Naughton (loanee from Spurs) and Ben Mee were both listed there. If Greg was the only player on loan at LCFC then not too much could be inferred by his not being listed on the LCFC OWS since I'm pretty sure that Márton Fülöp was similarly not listed on City's OWS during his emergency loan period with the club at the end of last season. But with multiple players on loan, surely they would all be handled in the same manner, so if Ben and Kyle are currently both listed for the terms of their loan spells then Cunningham would have been listed for the term of his. Hence his subsequent removal would imply his loan stint was over, either because the original term expired due to lack of extension, or by mutual agreement after it was extended (due to the likelihood that the injury would last longer than the agreed loan term).

That piece of hardly infallible logic is all I have to base the decision on, because I have seen nothing in writing that categorically states his initial loan expired without extension, or that it was extended and then immediately terminated given the severity of his injury, or even that it was extended and he is still officially on loan to LCFC despite the fact that he is recuperating back amongst the support of his family and friends and under the medical oversight of his parent club (which is the norm rather than the exception in these situations). If you have seen anything more definitive WRT his "actual status" then please draw my attention to it, or better still, add it as a cited RS against his "loan out" table entry. Mancini's Lasagne invite to Harry ^Talk 02:55, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Gonna answer this really quickly as it's late and I'm really tired - hope you don't mind. I'll give a more well-written and reasoned argument tomorrow if you want it clarified.

• Greg has a profile on the Leicester website, you can find it here. The link has been removed because his loan has been terminated, but it's still accessible if you know where to look. I just used a site-specific google search to dig it up, along with other links to his name.

• Some evidence in support of Greg's loan termination:

1. City OS says he is returning to Carrington for rehabilitation on his injury
2. A Leicester City blog talking about his termination
3. You can read this from the Leicester OS as well but it doesn't actually specifically talk about the details of Greg's termination

• As for your comment about Hart's loan being a different circumstance, that was due to it being an end-of-season loan. Premier League rules (note: i.e. does not apply to Football League clubs and is not necessarily standard outside of England) say that if a player signs on loan to another club (still valid if the loanee club is outside the PL), there must be a clause in the loan agreement stating that under no condition can the loaning club recall the player. The loanee club (i.e. Birmingham) can terminate the loan on the request of the loaner, and there was talk last season that Brum were going to volunteer to terminate Hart's loan but they never did. However, the fact of the matter is that legally we could not recall Hart, and all those (and there were many) who said that we were foolish to not write in a recall clause are incorrect, since the above rule makes recall clauses illegal on season-long loans. For the record, Zuiverloon's original loan deal from which he was recalled only extended to 4 January 2011 and so this no-recall rule was not in effect. Falastur2 ^Talk 04:48, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Actually, the only piece of information in your above message that supports the argument for Greg's loan termination is your first bulleted point - because the existence of his "unlinked" profile on the LCFC web site supports my own prior "dog that didn't bark" argument that if he was still officially on loan to Leicester then he should have an active profile there in the same manner that both Mee and Naughton currently do. NONE of the three web pages that you provide links to as evidence for his loan termination in your second bullet provide evidence one way or another - (1) Greg would still have returned back to Manchester to recuperate even if his loan at LCFC had been extended and was still in effect because, of the two clubs, City has much better medical facilities plus, as the club that owns his contract, it has the greater interest in his long term welfare; (2) the person that wrote that blog may well be privy to information that both of us are not, OR (much more likely) he may just have assumed that Greg's loan expired or was terminated for all the reasons we are discussing here, and it makes no sense at all to quote his assumption as a reliable support of our own assumptions!; (3) you state yourself that the referenced web page, which is mostly about Ben Mee, does not even mention the subject of Greg's loan termination - so how could it possibly provide evidence for it?

Rather than being a PL mandate, it is simply the established norm within the football industry to omit recall clauses from long term loan contracts such as those for full-season loans. That is just one prime example of how long term loan contracts differ from short term and emergency loan contracts and totally supports my point that every loan contract is different depending on the players, clubs and the loan periods involved. I don't believe the inclusion or exclusion of such clauses could be mandated by the Premier League because the PL does not have the legal authority to determine what wording does or does not get written into a legal contract between other parties - because the wording of a contract is entirely the province of the two parties involved in the writing of that agreement. I would like to see some sort of RS support for your claim that "Premier League rules ... say that if a player signs on loan to another club ..., there must be a clause in the loan agreement stating that under no condition can the loaning club recall the player." Because I think you just made that up! :)

IMO everything else you stated was correct ... since there was no recall clause in his contract (which is the norm for such a long term loan) the only option for City was to request that Birmingham voluntarily terminate the loan from its end which it rather stupidly was unwilling to do. I say it was stupid of BCFC to refuse to do that because the club clearly wanted to have Hart on loan for another season, so since Birmingham also only had three more games to play and was in no danger of being relegated (nor had a chance of beating Liverpool to a Europa League spot) McLeish could have negotiated that additional loan as a quid pro quo for doing City a favor WRT its goalkeeper crisis. Or perhaps McLeish did go that route and Mancini was just unwilling to make that commitment. We'll probably never know what was actually discussed because that was all private negotiation between the two clubs. And yes, Zuiverloon could be recalled from Ipswich by WBA because he was on a short term contract which obviously did contain a recall clause (once again due to the norm for such contracts rather than as a result of a PL mandate). That was entirely my point. Mancini's Lasagne invite to Harry ^Talk 04:38, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Lavasa

Thanks for changing "Manchester" to "Manchester City" on Lavasa--even someone outside Europe like me knows that Manchester United is the larger profile team with "Manchester" in their title. Sorry you had to be the one to catch the error then. Fleetham (talk) 01:32, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

The Spurs F.A. Cup comeback game

I assume you have seen what I did with your text of this game. It is my understanding that the two-hour consensus *rolls eyes* to originally AfD that article was attained because most of the people voting to delete (who IMO either had an agenda or were totally unfamiliar with the game so voted in ignorance) claimed that the write-up of such a match should simply be covered in the corresponding season article in which it occurred because the game was not notable enough to merit its own article. So the other week I linked it in as a subpage to the "Season review" section of the 2003–04 Manchester City F.C. season article. I didn't want to cut anything out of it (indeed I added quite a bit to it) and clearly it was too long to simply be pasted into the review section given the amount of text that was already there.

Please take a look at the revision history for that subpage. Since I first created it there have been (at least) three attempts by AWB bots to flag that page as "uncategorized" each of which I've reverted (for the reasons I stated). Now read this post on my Talk page from the author of the last bot change I reverted. He claims that "Wikipedia does not do 'subpages' of articles" - is that true? Where is that rule stated? Accepting that it is true, then the only options going forward appear to be:

• (1) to remove the subpage and instead paste all that text and graphics into the "Season review" section of the season article (which I don't really believe is a viable option);
• (2) to do what one really should do when the material on a sub-topic in an article overwhelms the rest of the material in the main article topic, which would be to make the single match write-up an article in its own right that the main season article then cross-references (but of course that would then be a flagrant disregard of the prior AfD mandate!);
• (3) to go ahead and categorize the subpage (do you know how to do that, and what are the consequences of now listing that subpage in with other single match articles?);
• (4) to leave things as they currently are with the subpage tagged as "uncategorized" (but then, sooner or later, some other clueless bozo will come along and categorize the subpage/article for us, so this option really only leads back to option (3) on the principle that if you want a job done properly then you probably should just go ahead and do it yourself).

IMO only option (3) above is viable, therefore I now wish to better understand the consequences (if any) of going ahead and taking that option. I would like to hear your thoughts on the best way to handle this. Do you see any other options? Thanks. Mancini's Lasagne invite to Harry ^Talk 04:47, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Hmmm, while I was writing the above post to you, it appears Bearcat went ahead and re-added the "request for categorization" tag again. However, if you read his edit description he seems to have now backed right off from his unequivocal "Wikipedia does not do 'subpages' of articles" stance to a tacit acknowledgment that they can indeed exist, but if they do they must still be treated (e.g.,. categorized) like any other article in article space. So there never was a need to consider options (1) and (2) after all! Some people are just ********s! :( Mancini's Lasagne invite to Harry ^Talk 05:09, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Hey MLITH. I'll have to answer your query in two parts: a brief reply to your first point now, and then an answer to the question of what to do later, when I've had time to mull it over. To answer your question about "Where is that rule stated?", the ruling on subpages is made on WP:Subpages, more specifically the subsection Disallowed uses, where it states disallowed use three:

• Using subpages for permanent content that is meant to be part of the encyclopedia.

I believe that's what you were trying to do, I think? Anyway, my first inclination is to have a second go at making that article into a standalone article, preferably by adding as much info to it as we can so that it gathers fewer Delete votes next time. There do at least seem to be some good people on Wikipedia who are willing to cast a Keep if an article is of such merit and detail that it warrants inclusion as an exception to the rule. Of course, the risk is that simply it won't be good enough, and consequently I'm hesitant, because as we have both observed on enough occasions, this website doesn't exactly have the most lenient reputation for allowing content that users deem "not important or too trivial". As I say, I'll need to think about it though. I'll have to look into categorising tomorrow too. However, it's 5am right now so I'm going to call it a night now and get back to you on it. Falastur2 ^Talk 05:02, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Hmm, it appears your suggestion is that option (2) is the right way to go here. I would have thought that re-introducing an article that has been previously deleted would be heavily frowned upon. What is the point of having a process (as severely flawed as it is) for deleting articles if their authors can turn right around and recreate them again without any repercussions? I do feel that a big factor in the article's being voted for deletion last time around was its title. Folk just looked at the "4-3" title and made their decision based on that ... viz. 4-3 score lines may be infrequent in soccer but they are hardly "notable", as are comebacks, so just nix! Even after I tried to focus people's attention on the confluence of three objective factors that made this particular comeback very unusual - rather than just the score line - and issued my challenge for someone to come up with other examples where an away team missing its main striker and creative midfielder, down to 10 men, turned around a game that was in the eyes of even the City supporters "done and dusted" by half time, no one really got the point, and although a lot of rhetoric was subsequently written attacking my criteria (not to mention me), no one actually met that challenge.

People are still talking about that 4-4 draw between Newcastle and Arsenal earlier this season as being one of the most exciting and greatest turnarounds in the game ... WTF ?!!! Newcastle only managed to scrape a draw, they didn't win the game. They were also at home with 51,000 fans cheering them on, not the away side. And one of the main reasons they were able to pull it off was because Arsenal had Abou Diaby sent off right at the start of the second half and so were reduced to ten men for the second half of the game. Until Diaby was dismissed Newcastle didn't look like scoring. Also, two of Newcastle's goals were penalties. One of the main features of that Spurs-City game was the extremely high quality of the finishing of all the goals. In the speedy-delete debate no one seemed to appreciate the importance to City of Joey Barton's half time dismissal nor the earlier loss of Anelka in the game. Yet if Newcastle had pulled off that 4-4 draw having had Jonas Gutierrez limp off after 20 minutes and Barton dismissed at half time, and Arsenal had played the second half with eleven men instead of ten, people would now be efusing about that game even more than they are currently doing. Despite the fact that it would still be an inferior comeback to City's because Newcastle were at home and they only managed to draw! Plus there was nothing in that Newcastle-Arsenal game that was quite as sublime as Michael Tarnat's crossing of the ball in the Spurs-City game, which was the source of three of the four City goals. :)

BTW, I thought my solution of making the match write-up its own subpage was quite an elegant one. The only other solution I could think of was to put the whole article inside a collapsible table within the "Season review" section (kind of like I did with "Squad status" definitions in the current season article) - which, of course, would be option (1) above. To return back to option (3), the possible consequences that concern me are that if the article got categorized as a "great FA Cup comeback" - just for the sake of argument here, because no such category currently exists - then it would be listed within Wikipedia on a "category page" along with a number of similar articles that were (presumably) main articles in their own right. Would this be a problem? For instance, if that Italian chappy with sour grapes (because the team he supports has no games in their history worthy of such a write-up!) who initially requested the original article's deletion saw it listed on that "category page", would all Hell break loose? Since you are leaning towards option (2) here, it appears you don't think so.

Finally, if option (4) is chosen, since it has now been tagged as "uncategorized" I'm assuming that that subpage/article will now be listed on a "category page" containing some of the uncategorized articles (one such as this one CAT:UCGA) which hordes of Wikipedia editors will subsequently be set to work on, in an attempt to finally "categorize the so far uncategorized" articles. Is that your understanding too? BTW, let's just keep this discussion on your Talk page for now so that I dont have to keep double posting everything to both of our Talk pages. I'll take a copy of it back over to my Talk page once we are done. Thanks. Mancini's Lasagne invite to Harry ^Talk 20:25, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Never mind, I went ahead and implemented option (3) because I couldn't wait any longer. I needed to give Bearcat some sort of response within a reasonable timeframe. Here's my current thinking about this issue: The Spurs-City page has clearly been set up as being part of the 2003-04 season article where most participants in the previous deletion debate felt it belonged. Let's now just leave it that way. If others come along later and suggest that it really would be better if it was an article in its own right rather than a subpage of a season article, then we play hard to convince and strongly push for things to remain the way they are. If they accept that, then that's OK because that match report is effectively already in article space right now - it just has the additional feature that it is also linked in as a subpage of the associated season article. OTOH, if they insist that we must make it an independent article rather than leave it as a subpage then we will ultimately achieve what we wanted all along, only now we have the impetus, the concensus (for whatever that's worth!) and the moral high ground on our side, which was something we did not have last time around when we were all chasing our asses in that kangaroo court environment that was created by our Italian friend. IOW, don't try pushing this wet noodle ... let's just wait for others to come along and pull it for us.

On a somewhat different topic, do you think I should add a listing of Charity Shield wins to those other four trophy listings in the Infobox of the "List of MCFC seasons" article? I tend to feel that fans of other clubs that so list Charity Shield wins are being a little desperate because it only requires winning one game to lift it. Fans that list their club as being Charity Shield runners-up are most certainly being desperate IMO! :) Mancini's Lasagne invite to Harry ^Talk 04:12, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Hmmm. I was actually writing a response as you sent yours. Oh well. For the record, my response was this:

"Resurrecting articles is frowned upon, yes. We might be able to get away with it if the article we resurrect is a substantial improvement on the last one, however - though of course we both know that there's no guarantee it would ultimately be accepted whatever we did - there is an established bias towards deleting articles on individual matches. Changing the name would be nice but I'm not sure what we would change to...the game didn't really have a "name" like the Ballet on Ice or any such, and there are limited other ways of naming the article.

"Making this subpage was a decent idea, you just got unlucky in that it's something that has already been tried elsewhere and ultimately voted against. Honestly I can say I've never seen a subpage for an actual mainspace article so I have no idea how much people tend to chase these articles up or whether it might just glean a community-wide shrugging of the shoulders. Certainly there's been no AfD nomination yet, which is a start. I have to say I somewhat favour making it a standalone article or merging with the season article (i.e. not keeping the subpage) but I don't have strong feelings so I'll run with whatever works. If it got categorised it would either be put into a category for something like [[Category:Football matches]] (I have no idea if that exists, it was another example) and [[Category:FA Cup]] and then probably into a new category for City matches or comebacks or somesuch where it probably would be on its own. That category would then have to be categorised so it wasn't just an orphan. I don't know what the ethic is here for creating categories with only a single article in them but I suspect it's not encouraged, so that idea might be rejected if (whoever did it) couldn't find more like-minded articles to categorise into the same. I don't think it being categorised would really affect anyone's opinion of the article though. The one thing that might affect peoples' judgement right now is that it will (in its present form) show up in categories as "2003–04 Manchester City F.C. season/Spurs 3-4 City" or however the subpage is actually named, given the / in the name.

"Yes, I'd say it will currently be located in an overarching "please categorise these pages" category. I don't know how long it would take for it to get sorted, but it would probably be put somewhere generic. Better to do it ourselves, I guess.

"Sorry my thoughts were a bit disjointed but I was answering the points as they came and...well, better English just didn't quite flow from my fingers as I typed. Hopefully I addressed all your points. I'll settle for just keeping the subpage if you want it, though I think that page would be best served by being redone - with as many citations as possible - and expanded upon, so we can argue a case for it being reincluded into society, so to speak. Having an article AfD'ed isn't a permanent sign that that article should never exist, it's merely a suggestion that it shouldn't exist in the state it's in. Generally speaking most articles that get deleted will be kept the second time around if their quality and/or level of detail is substantially improved."

As for the Charity Shield, I always considered it a notable trophy. Yes, it's a single game, but it requires winning a trophy to qualify in the first place (ignoring those early years when some teams refused to play). To this end, I'd consider it more of an accomplishment than winning the trophy which qualified you for it. Similarly, would you question the worthiness of the European Super Cup? In fact, because some teams initially didn't enter, City were instrumental in making the Charity Shield the respected competition it is today by taking their place in the competition twice. You could argue that of all the teams to have ever played in it, we should be the ones most ardently defending it. Falastur2 ^Talk 05:27, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

OK, done ... and then some. Please check out my textual additions re "first double" and "last English team" and if you know of an RS citation to support either claim please go ahead and add it (them). For the record, when I created that subpage I did not realize I was actually putting that match write-up back in article space. I thought the subpage would be entirely "internal" to the season article (i.e., only accessible by clicking on the link I provided in the "Season review" section) in the same manner that archive subpages of User and Talk pages (in fact, the main User and Talk pages themselves too) are not considered to be in article space. Even when the first two AWB bots found it and flagged it as "uncategorized" I simply assumed that the logic of the bots was in error and they had misidentified the page, which is why I reverted those updates the way that I did. Although my goes-around with those bots did make me suspect that the subpage was indeed being viewed as an article in its own right. It now appears that what I have created is an interesting odyssey and hopefully it will only, as you say, "glean a community-wide shrugging of the shoulders."

You appear to be under the misapprehension that the original article was deleted for "lack of quality". It may have had a few spelling or grammar typos (but what article doesn't!) yet overall it was better written and presented than the majority of such articles that happily remain in article space. It was deleted entirely due to "Wikipedia politics" plus possibly a large dose of poor timing. As you have yourself mentioned above, "there is an established bias towards deleting articles on individual matches." I suspect that that, plus possibly an anti-City bias (due to envy?), was what motivated our Italian chappie to nominate it for speedy-deletion in the first place. His now infamous "two hour consensus" was laughable and it demonstrated a complete lack of integrity on his part (which is why I suspect him of having an anti-City bias). If I had my way, he would be stripped of his admin. privileges for that action alone.

By "poor timing" I mean the fact that you had created just the two individual match articles at about the same time, both featuring City and Spurs, and both titled based on the two teams and the resultant score line. It may have come across to some neutral observers that you were just a rabid Man. City fan looking to push a City fanzine agenda (e.g., attempting to stack the article space with unmerited match articles favoring City). None of the participants in the previous deletion discussion appeared to have got as far considering the quality of the content of the articles in question. Almost all of the brief comments by those voting for deletion were along the lines that high scores and comebacks were just not notable enough to merit a whole article on such a game. That was also the overall gist of the rationale of those voting for deletion that bothered to also provide some rhetoric to justify their vote.

Once into the AfD process the severe failings of that process took over. Anybody can vote in such a process - you don't have to be a contributor to that topic or even a subject-matter expert in that topic. You don't even have to be intelligent! Many of those voting to delete have never before or since contributed to a Wikipedia article on the topic of soccer, let alone English soccer or Manchester City or Tottenham Hotspur. They just enjoyed wielding what little power being permitted to cast a vote in such a debate allowed them. It was an easy ego boost for a minimum of effort or involvement in the topic at hand. The very nature of the AfD process also means that it was all done and dusted by the time that a lot of people, who might well have wished to vote in favor of keeping the article, found our about it - if they ever did, because it is hard to find out about something that no longer exists! I only knew you had written those articles and they were up for AfD because gonads had posted a message about it on your Talk page ... if that message had been posted by anyone else I might well have passed right over it and never discovered the whole AfD process that was going on. BTW, you mentioned above, "Certainly there's been no AfD nomination yet, which is a start." How soon after you created those articles in article space were they listed for AfD?

So what do we learn from that previous AfD go-around? The biggest lesson is not to give those articles titles with score lines nor to refer to them by their score lines ... because neither of those games were "notable" (which is also a very subjective and nebulous concept that is ill-defined!) due to their having resulted in seven or five goals. A much better title for the 4-1 game is "Ballet on Ice" which was one of my comments at the time. For the 3-4 game, a possible title is "Greatest FA Cup comeback" because the "FA Cup" qualifier deflates much of the potential hyperbole that such a title might otherwise be interpreted as containing. As an extension of the season article I did not feel that the comeback article needed to justify its own existence by establishing the notability of that game in the opening sentence (after all, I didn't believe it was even in article space), but that may well have to be redressed now that we have discovered that it has indeed already got one foot in article space! If by improving the quality of the article you mean that it must clearly establish the notability of the game in question in its lead-in, rather than this be done retroactively for the article via rhetoric desperately posted in its defense during the last day of the AfD process, then with that assessment I would quite agree. :)

Finally, if you agree with the modifications I've made to the article so far, may I suggest that you update your local copy of it with the latest public version just in case we do go into another AfD process. I could make a local copy of it too, but that would presume a focus on "me versus you" WRT the article, when I feel the focus should clearly be on "us versus them" (whoever they may be!). Mancini's Lasagne invite to Harry ^Talk 23:33, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

You have me wrong in what I was implying, I assure you. I didn't mean that it was AfD'ed last time for being poor quality. What I meant was that it was AfD'ed last time because the editors who reviewed it read the article and said "doesn't deserve its own page". The only way to combat this is to prove that the game was unique by giving it a write-up other games can't match, complete with references to what makes the game such a stand-out. I didn't mean it was generally shoddy, because it obviously wasn't. Of course, as both you and I have said, it may still not be enough to escape the Deletionists' Brigade, but that's what I meant. For the record, I've been through your last several days of changes to various articles, and it must be just me being stupid but for the life of me I can't find anything about a "first double" or a "last English team". If you could give me a link to the page you are referring to, I'll try to fill in some citations, but I guess it's just me being tired but I honestly cannot find these edits (my fault entirely).

I agree fully about the careful naming of articles, the only thing is I'd question what title we could use for this game. I'm not so sure bout "Greatest FA Cup comeback" as that title is itself highly POV and that's one of the tenets Wikipedia tries to outright avoid. Also, that kind of name risks vigilante editors with their own ideas and a lot of time on their hands turning it into "List of games that could be considered the greatest FA Cup comeback of all time", and while that may actually make quite an interesting article, it completely dilutes our original article, namely the single match.

I agree with your edits so far, though I will say that if you follow this handy link to my own subspace version you will see that I've made a couple of edits of my own. Nothing major but I rewrote the leading section to more strongly emphasise the claim to being the greatest comeback ever (while leaving enough of a conditional phrasing to mean it shouldn't be POV). I then followed up by spending an entire hour researching links so that no-one can ever again claim what was claimed in the AfD vote, that the game has not received significant coverage to warrant having its own article. I also added a further quote from Keegan after the match, which further adds to the idea of it being a match for the ages. I'll leave it in your hands if you want to accept my changes or not. Tomorrow I will probably go over my subspace article again with a toothcomb and try to polish it as much as I can just to give it the best chance it has at being accepted in future. However, I agree with what you've done so far, and I have indeed ported your changes over to my subspace. Falastur2 ^Talk 03:42, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I hadn't realized that my references to "first double" and "last English team" were not clear. They refer to changes I made to the "Background" section text in the List of Manchester City F.C. seasons article at the same time that I added the Charity Shield win years to the Infobox (the "done" portion ... the additional text changes were the "and then some"). I know what I've written there is true, I just don't have RS references to hand with which to support it.

I agree entirely with everything you just wrote re the Spurs-City game and what I'm now seeing in you own subspace area looks great. I wanted to change what I wrote in my last message (re my suggested name for the article) when I gave it the final read through before posting it, but I was too tie-red (as Roberto would say) and just wanted to be done with it, so I left it as it was. I agree that any title with a superlative in it will always potentially smack of POV and is likely to attract vigilante editors as you stated. Although I was too tired and couldn't think what I wanted to suggest there instead at the time, I have been thinking about it in the back of my mind ever since. How about "Making the impossible possible" as a title? I believe that each of the commentators in both of the posted videos of this game independently came up with variants of that phrase.

The other video version is the one that was posted on the MCFC OWS as part of its "comebacks" series used to "psyche" everybody up for (what was then) the upcoming Dynamo Kyiv 2nd leg game. It was the posting of some of those earlier games in the "comebacks" series on the OWS that made me think, "Well, if we are talking comebacks, then nothing betters that Spurs-City game, and something really needs to be done about pasting a write-up of that game into the 2003-04 season article" - which was the impetus for my initially adding that subpage. So I wasn't quite as prescient as I made out that I was in my "edit summary" for the season article when I substituted a link to the MCFC video for the link to the YouTube video that I had initially added to the match report for this game. Originally, the YouTube video was accessible via the "External links" section of your match report and ALSO the match report summary in the season article that linked to it. I initially thought about adding the MCFC video in both places too but decided that that might be a bit of an overkill, so I just exchanged the links in the season article so that a different video version was available at each level (see, I still think of the subpage as existing at a sub-level to the main season article that links to it!).

Anyway, the MCFC video ends with the commentator saying, "The impossible has happened." The YouTube video ends with the commentator saying, "They have made the impossible possible" (which I've already added to the "Quotes" section). Both of the commentators also independently suggest in their commentary that this game is surely one of the greatest FA Cup comebacks of all time, and up until now we've focused on that latter superlative which, as you state, appears dangerously POV. So perhaps we should choose the "impossible made possible" aspect instead? Note that whatever we choose as a title, it will only replace the current score line title above the Infobox (which is sort of redundant anyway since the score line appears again emblazoned in large numerals directly below it in the Infobox), because the subpage title should IMO remain as it is. Should we ultimately be forced to cut this write-up off from the season article and make it an independent article in its own right, then our new title will also be the new title of that article page. Make sense?

Re: "Tomorrow I will probably go over my subspace article again with a toothcomb and try to polish it as much as I can just to give it the best chance it has at being accepted in future." You keep talking about the article being accepted "in the future" as if it was not in article space yet. I (inadvertently) put the article into article space when I copied it over into the subpage that I had created for it because I didn't realize at the time that the subpage was in article space (as explained earlier). So the article has effectively been in article space - and accepted - since March 16. Which is why I asked you earlier (but you didn't answer), how long was it before your original article got AfD'ed?

WRT finding as many media references to this game as possible, I seem to remember that, at the time of the AfD debate, Stevo1000 posted a whole slew of them on the AfD page as a kind of last ditch defense. I no longer know how to get to that AfD page (I used to access it via gonads message on your Talk page) in order to revisit them, so let me ask this - have you made sure you've captured all of the media sources that Stevo1000 originally found and posted?

Finally, although these last two points do not have anything to do with improving the quality of the article WRT to clearly establishing the notability of this game, they do pertain to the improvement of its content. First, do you know of a way to better represent the striped shirts that City wore in that season (viz. lighter sky blue stripes alternating with darker sky blue stripes)? The inability to properly represent these shirts has been bugging me ever since I started thinking about how to improve the team kits in all the season articles. If you could custom design that shirt in Photoshop that would be a vast improvement IMO. The other point pertains to the Spurs kit. I've already added the thin white stripe that belongs on the shorts, and the blue cuffs on the shirt sleeves, but the aspect of the Spurs' shirt that most distinguishes it is the dark blue circular collar. Do you know of a dark blue collar image that already exists, or better still, can you create one that can be assigned to "pattern_b" in the Football kit box (perhaps by modifying the extant _blackcollar image)? Mancini's Lasagne invite to Harry ^Talk 07:09, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

I've added a reference for the "first double" bit, although turns out that Leeds United did it first the season before with a different two cups. I couldn't find a reference for the other fact to save my life though. Falastur2 ^Talk 04:39, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

I suspected that the "other fact" would be the much harder of the two. WRT to Leeds United beating City to that "first domestic-Euro double" distinction, technically they did not win the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup (which is NOT the same as the UEFA Cup as that reference claims, although it was a precursor to it) in the same season that they won the League Cup. The two legs of the final of the Fairs Cup were played in late August and early September 1968 which means that both those fixtures were played AFTER the end of the season in which Leeds won the League Cup (March 1968), although the two-legged final was indeed won in the same year. City won its European Cup Winners' Cup single-game final in April 1970 just a few weeks after winning the League Cup final in March 1970, which means they did the double in the same season AND the same year, and were thus the FIRST club to achieve the "domestic-Euro double" feat in the same season.

I guess it really all depends how you phrase the "domestic-Euro double" achievement as to whether City were the first or second English team to claim this distinction. I fully realize that it's a bit of a persnickety semantic point, since all of the games leading up to the 1968 Fairs Cup final were played in the 1967-68 season, and the Aug.-Sep. final was the culmination of that process. However, that is how the Fairs Cup was organized back then; the finals were played all over the place anywhere between April and September. If I remember correctly, that was the last Fairs Cup final played on that Aug.-Sep. schedule. I think that the next year (1969) the next English team to play in the Fairs Cup final (Newcastle?) played the two legs of that game immediately after the end of the 1968-69 season was over (late May and early June?) - however, it too was still NOT in the same season! - while the season after that (1970) the next English team - this was an era when English teams completely dominated this competition - to play in the Fairs Cup final (Arsenal?) played the two legs of that game even earlier still, such that the final was completed whilst the 1969-70 season was still in progress.

If I'm not mistaken, the year after that was the last year of the Fairs Cup competition - after which UEFA took it under its wing (as it did later with the Intertoto Cup) and turned it into the UEFA Cup. Note that the Fairs Cup was NOT an UEFA-organized competition, because back then UEFA only ran the European Cup (for national league winners) and the European Cup Winners' Cup (for national cup winners), so the UEFA Cup (for national league also-rans) was a new undertaking for UEFA back in 1971. It's a bit unfortunate that that "Multiple Trophies Winners" reference confused the two competitions like it did, although to be fair, within the popular consciousness the UEFA Cup was always seen as being the continuation of the earlier Fairs Cup, despite the fact that UEFA has never regarded it in quite that manner! BTW, this was never intended to be a "trick topic" - even if it sort of turned out that way! :) Mancini's Lasagne invite to Harry ^Talk 05:51, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes, and I was tempted to do something about it but I added that reference at about 5am and was just too tired to reword it. Confusion of the two is a problem of course - but then, many don't even know the Fairs Cup existed, let alone that it is what became the UEFA Cup - but I guess a careful reword could allow us to claim the first double which crediting Leeds with a non-UEFA double before. Falastur2 ^Talk 15:21, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

"Making the impossible possible" is along the right track, though I fear it's a little...ambitious a title. For a start, it is not immediately related to football nor the subject it is talking about, and it's a bit of a questionable title as that name is fanciful and Wikipedia prefers to be straight-forward and unambiguous. What to actually call it is a tough one though. Better would be a title such as "Manchester City FA Cup comeback of 2003-04" but I don't like that title enough to want to use it, either. I'll have to think about it. Honestly, I've started debating with myself whether we'd be best served merging it with the Ballet on Ice article and turning it into a new article called something like "Notable Manchester City games" - we could add the play-off final, too. I really don't know. I'll need more time to consider. I guess since you point out that the whole "impossible possible/happened" thing comes from commentator quotes, it would be far more acceptable, with retrospect, though if we use that idea then the article title should ideally be a direct quote from one of those two commentaries (so either "The impossible has happened" or I guess that "Making the impossible possible" would work as a paraphrase. (Yeah, this kind of contradicts what I said above, but it supersedes it. I'm answering your comment paragraph by paragraph and I'm tired, and I'm sure you understand where I've got to here.) If it's just going to be the title to the infobox then it works even better, though ideally the article should be adapted to specify exactly where that title has come from or else another enterprising editor will delete it as an attempt at glamourising the article. If we make a new article, this is doubly important.

You're right, it has existed longer than I thought it would. I believe the last article lasted around four days before being hit with an AfD vote (votes always last one week, if done right, and not a speedy delete of course) so this subpage has done well so far. In fact it seems it's broadly showing good survivability, in the way it hasn't picked up a raft of edits or complaints from other sources. Still, I wouldn't break out the champagne yet as I still think that eventually it will face some sort of complaint, probably linked to an AfD, even if it takes a few months. In general too, I'd feel more comfortable if it were its own article, I guess, but that's just me. I don't feel strongly enough on the matter to actually act, which hopefully gives you all the information you need on how important I view this as being (i.e., not all that).

Thanks for the idea of searching Stevo's AfD vote defense for the links by the way. They've now been added to the collection and we're up to 20 references.

I'll see if I can make those shirt designs tomorrow. Falastur2 ^Talk 04:39, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

I've replaced the image on the article. I felt like going all out, so I added logos and sponsors and everything. However, that image may be taken down because it has the sponsor's name clearly readable on it (the kit manufacturer and club badge are blurred enough to be acceptable under free licensing, but that's beside the point) so incase people complain about its use, I made a second version with only the stripes, and you can access it by simply removing the _embellished from the name of the design. Falastur2 ^Talk 15:21, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Two more for you. I'm not quite as happy with these, but in the tiny versions that you see on Wikipedia they look alright I guess (in a full-screen image, as I had expanded it to design it, they look rubbish, especially the writing on the sponsor). As always, remove (_embellished) to get to the cut-down version. I've already added the more elaborate one to the article. Honestly, I'm finding making these fairly fun. Maybe I will "update" the current graphic to include the sponsor and the umbro/club logos tomorrow? That's only a maybe though.

Tottenham Hotspur

Tottenham Hotspur

Article AfD

Today that article was put up for speedy-deletion. See latest section on my Talk page for all the standard blurb that gets posted to the person that originally created the article (which is now me, I guess). I have already added a "hang on" banner to it but have not posted on the Talk page yet. The next thing I did was save a copy of the article to a subpage of the relevant season backup in my personal work space. Sending you this message was my next action. You might want to notify Stevo1000 about this process too. I would have also suggested bringing it to Oldelpaso's attention but his recent actions make me not trust him very much. This whole thing has come as a bad time for me because, as I posted on Oldelpaso's Talk page, I'm not very motivated to be a party any longer to the subverted crap that goes on in this area of Wikipedia. You are one of the few people here that conducts himself with fairness and integrity. Did you ever receive my email message? If not, my Wikipedia account is (supposedly) configured to receive external emails - although I have never received one to date - so you can send one to me using the "Email this user" option on the left hand side of your screen. I believe it is me that has to post that "hang on" banner so I went ahead and did so, but I don't have a lot of time or motivation to spend on fighting this issue. The timing of recent activities suggest a hidden "anti-City" agenda being executed here which is why I have suggested above that we use email communication instead. Mancini's Lasagne invite to Harry ^Talk 23:16, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

OK, I've posted a pretty long "hang on" justification on that article's Talk page. It's the best I can do right now. Feel free to edit my response if you think I've overstated the case, or to better emphasize the points I do make. I assume that you can also post your own additional arguments there if you think I've overlooked anything. Good luck.

P.S. City really sucked against Liverpool today. Now I'm concerned about the FA Cup semi-final game. I'm just praying that this is all part of some clever Mancini-Kidd-Platt plan to fool United into a false sense of security! :) Mancini's Lasagne invite to Harry ^Talk 06:49, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Progress to date. You are conspicuous by your absence. Mancini's Lasagne invite to Harry ^Talk 22:30, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Article rating

BTW, are you aware that the 2008–09 Manchester City F.C. season article was recently added to a survey of selected articles where users are being asked to rate it on its quality? Go right to the bottom of the article and be the first to rate it (unless someone else has beaten you to it by the time you read this). Please vote generously and please vote often! Because I've put a lot of work into that MF! :( Mancini's Lasagne invite to Harry ^Talk 07:28, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Done and done. I had actually seen that yesterday, but I never acted on it. I have now. Falastur2 ^Talk 04:39, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Given what's currently going on I'm now wondering how representative that vote is. How up to date are you on Cypriot U21 footballers? Mancini's Lasagne invite to Harry ^Talk 22:20, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

New kits (2010-11)

I thought the new embellished kits look very good. I went ahead and updated the kits in the current season article. With one exception - the home kit socks. You used a slightly darker sky blue for the custom home shirt - and I assume there ia a good reason for that - and you made the body of the socks the same color to match. But the new sky blue tone doesn't match the old sky blue at the base of the current maroon sock tops, so I left the main portion of the socks the old sky blue color (which does match). In what you posted to me, the way you had the socks with a change of blue tone in the middle looked a bit too funky IMO. However, the fact that the socks are now a different tone of blue than the shirt is not that noticeable because the gap between shirt and socks allows us to get away with it. We could not do that, for instance, if the shorts were a slightly different blue to the shirt because, being adjacent to each other, the human eye will discern the difference in tone much more readily.

One other thought I had ... I can't help thinking that if you had set up all the items in the "_embellished" layer (viz. the Umbro diamond, the City badge and the Etihad logo) on a transparent shirt color we could have overlaid the "embellished (transparent) shirt" over whatever colored shirt we already had in each of the existing kits (in most cases if not all). Because the design assigned to the "pattern_b" parameter in the "kit box" would then, being transparent, still allow whatever design or color had be assigned to the "body" parameter to still show through. I don't know for certain whether you can color things as being "transparent" (rather than say "yellow") in Photoshop, but I thought you could. What that would effectively allow you to do (if you can indeed do it) is make what I'm assuming is an "embellished" layer (that you have to set up for each individual shirt in Photoshop) into an actual transparent shirt instead, which could then be laid over each of the existing shirts - that require those same three diamond/badge/logo items added - in the manner described above.

Anyway, that might be something that you want to consider for the future. The main advantage of that approach is that you then don't have to suffer near misses WRT existing shirt colors because Photoshop does not support them - viz. the sky blue sock issue, or the different (lighter) green or darker gold of the away and third GK strips. Or did you specifically change those colors because you felt the new colors are more accurate? Mancini's Lasagne invite to Harry ^Talk 02:22, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

I did change the colours because I felt they were more accurate, but that shouldn't detract from that I did consider your approach. There were two reasons I ultimately rejected your idea. One was my own fault, the other was a problem of application. The first reason was that, for a reason I just couldn't get my head around, I could only get white or black to apply onto a picture using a transparent layer. I truly don't know why this is, but it's definitely just a case of inexperience on my part because I've seen it done. It would be fine for the Umbro logo and the Etihad bit but the club badge just wouldn't look right in all-white. The other problem was that some kits wouldn't work with this style. Examine for instance the GK 3rd strip, and the outfield 3rd. The latter has its Umbro badge and club logo in a different position and the sponsor name is tiny and completely relocated. The former (and also notice that this also applies to the Umbro logo on the latter) is that on that GK kit, notice the logos are a different colour - namely, black. While you can set background colours for each segment (i.e. body, left arm, right arm, etc) you can't set a colour for transparencies added over the top so there would be no way of getting those logos to come out right except to do what I did. It is theoretically possible to add the ability to set the colour of any design added over the top by transparency by going into the Template:football kit code and altering it, but that is probably beyond me, and it still wouldn't make the City logo work. I admit that an alternate idea is just to do those few kits where these problems exist as I did them and to create a transparency to be used on the majority where it works, but...well, I didn't think that far ahead, and I had my problems as referenced above. I'll try to make a proper transparency as I have another idea of how to get it to work, but...give it a few days, I think. I've just started a new job, tend to go out on certain evenings of the week, and I'm generally feeling a bit too tired to play around with it right now. What I might do is to add those kits to articles where the kits are still in the old style, though - such as the club's main page, and the Ladies team page, etc. Falastur2 ^Talk 17:08, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Oh, btw. The sky blue sock thing isn't actually my fault. Whoever created that sock design (wasn't me) already put a band of blue on them already, but didn't extend the band down to the bottom of the socks. If you check any page still showing the old sock (i.e. all of them) you'll see there was already a colour-clash, it's just harder to spot. That is of course very easy to remedy - far easier than the colour of the logos issue, but again, I'll need some time. Falastur2 ^Talk 17:12, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

WRT the gold color of the third GK shirt it looks more like a Wolves or Hull City shirt on my screen. I believe that shirt is a much brighter yellow than that. However, given all the silliness going on right now WRT those kit upgrades, plus the fact that that shirt has only been used twice this season (and one of those was in a pre-season game) this is probably a moot issue right now. I also believe the alternate GK strip is somewhat darker than you showed it; but once again this is now moot. Those were the basis of my accuracy question at the end of my post. WRT the "sky blue sock thing", I already knew that. Mancini's Lasagne invite to Harry ^Talk 23:42, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Why have you added so much detail to those kits? Isn't that against the long-standing consensus at WP:FOOTY? – PeeJay 16:09, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

The problem with Wikipedia consensus is that any three (or more) people can claim they have it. That's hardly a consensus. You are just fooling yourself. People that are knowlegeable on the topic should be requested to contribute to the consensus, not just the first few that decide to discuss a topic, or those that just happen to be browsing a Talk page that day. In many cases people simply use that term to ram their own personal opinions down the throats of others. On any different period on Wikipedia the consensus on a topic will quite likely be different. Mancini's Lasagne invite to Harry ^Talk 00:10, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I think it's to do with the issue of sponsorship. Including a trademarked logo, however small, is a violation of copyright, I think. I raised the issue at WT:FOOTY, as I think that if we're going to include logos, we may as well increase the resolution of the images, but GiantSnowman just said to revert the kit images to the plain versions. – PeeJay 21:05, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

I don't think so. I think for an image to pass WP:NFCC#8, the article has to make specific mention of the image, as the Manchester City F.C. article does. The logo is integral to the identity of the club, therefore to omit it from the club article would be silly. But there's no need for it on the season articles, as the identity of the club can be established in those articles merely by its name. – PeeJay 22:43, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of Codicote F.C.

The article Codicote F.C. has been proposed for deletion. The proposed-deletion notice added to the article should explain why.

While all contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, content or articles may be deleted for any of several reasons.

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Please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. The speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. Delusion23 (talk) 15:18, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

2010–11 Manchester City F.C. season

In my opinion, there's a difference between doing things a little differently and being blatantly different from other similar articles. I am in agreement with Digirami that all club season articles should use the same infobox; the advantages of using a infobox template far outweigh the potential loss of info. After all, we can always add parameters to the infobox if the community deems them necessary. As it happens, I don't think any of the info specific to the City infobox is actually that necessary to include in such a prominent position (I can explain why I disapprove of each one if you'd like, but I'll leave that for a more appropriate venue), but if the community agrees, changes can be made. To be honest, I actually agree with each of the changes that have been made to the article since 10:13 (UTC) yesterday. Although it can make the encyclopaedia look a little bland to some, a level of uniformity between club season articles also makes the encyclopaedia look more professional. So while I don't think that we should be Nazis over the level of standardisation, I do think that we should come to some sort of agreement over the Manual of Style for football club season articles. – PeeJay 23:39, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Also, I saw your most recent message on Mancini's Lasagne's talk page, and just so you know, I'm not an admin :-) – PeeJay 23:40, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

I am in full agreement with what PeeJay says here. This is a discussion that should take place at Wikiproject level, so that the same business does not have to be rehashed for each and every club and season. Note that while I am an admin, my opinion carries no more weight than that of any other editor in content matters. Oldelpaso (talk) 15:44, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Orphaned non-free image File:Asian cup 2000.PNG

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Manchester derby all-time results tables

Hi mate. Since the conversation at Talk:Manchester derby#All-time results seems to have ground to a halt, I wondered if you had anything more to add to it. Any new thoughts about the situation? – PeeJay 21:59, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

I've left a reply on my talk page. – PeeJay 21:37, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

Note

I have nominated List of Manchester City F.C. seasons for featured list removal here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets the featured list criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks; editors may declare to "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Strawberry on Vanilla (talk) 13:33, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Tony Coleman

Hi there, have you got any MCFC books so you can improve the above article by adding in-line cites? It seems the MCFC-stats website is down. Regards. Eldumpo (talk) 06:58, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Season styles

The formatting of tables, templates and the like is rarely an area I pay close attention to, and its usually a case of copying the format of another article when I require it. So I don't have a strong opinion as to which format is preferable. As to the dispute itself, I can't see any attempts to discuss it with the IP, whether on talk or user talk (yes, there's edit summaries, but they barely count). So that has to be the first step. Certainly nothing warranting protection at the moment.

In other matters, have you seen this? Ric from Bluemoon and Gary James have got together to create a set of definitive online City stats, and since its essentially an updated online version of the statistical section of the Complete Record book, its wp:reliable too.

On a tangent to this I've been working on and off at Manchester City F.C. in Europe (looking at nominating it for GA fairly soon). When I get around to a section on the non-UEFA competitions, I intend to remove the Tennant-Caledonian Cup from it. This was essentially a pre-season tournament of the type that is now commonplace, but as they were unusual in that era, some sources counted it as a proper first team match. A while back I asked Gary about this, as it is listed in the "other competitions" section of Complete Record but not in the totals for player appearances. In essence he only included it because previous books had done so, and said in future books etc. he'd probably leave it out as it wasn't an FA sanctioned competition. Looking at the Bluemoon history section, it has indeed been left out. Oldelpaso (talk) 14:45, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

2012–13 Manchester City F.C. season

Hey man. Yeah, it's been a while. Hope you're keeping well too. As it happens, I'm completely on your side on this. A number of established editors have expressed a preference for a particular format, which is the one that should be stuck with. To be honest, a Manual of Style for club season articles is long overdue, and would have nipped this problem in the bud. As things stand though, you need to engage the IP in a discussion on their talk page or the article talk page (edit summaries are definitely not enough, as Oldelpaso says) to show them that their contributions are contrary to established consensus; if they still can't see that they are in the wrong, then the article should be protected and the IP blocked. I actually prefer your style of article, although I can't say I'm a fan of the collapsible footballbox templates – what's wrong with a good old template like in the Man Utd season articles? :P – PeeJay 21:56, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

Meh, if he's carried on editing since you tried to contact him, maybe you should report him at WP:AIV?

And yes, I've had dealings with MLITH, and I think it's fair to say we didn't see eye-to-eye on a few things. To be fair, the table in the Man Utd articles is pretty simple to understand, given the column header – the score of the team the article belongs to is always given first and the match venue is given in a separate column. I don't really see the need for pointing out who the referee was or what time kick-off happened, but it's hard to find that sort of info reliably before about 10 years ago; I can see the value in having opposition goalscorers to a degree, but again it's hard to find the info in club-specific sources, so for a degree of consistency in the Man Utd articles, I elected to leave it out. – PeeJay 22:46, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

Alf Farman

Hi mate! Seems like every time we talk, we always comment on how long it's been since the last time! Thanks for the heads-up about the Farman fact. I'm not with the majority of my reference books at the minute, but I will be in a week or so; I'll check it out then. Drop me a message to remind me just in case I forget :P – PeeJay 21:32, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Nothing sinister, I promise. I'm actually home from uni for a couple of weeks over the Easter holidays, so I've left all my reference books down in Cardiff. Heading back on Monday though, so we should be fine then. – PeeJay 21:51, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Wow, a month passes by quickly, doesn't it? Right, I've done a bit of research into Farman's penalty claim, and it seems that the first ever penalty was scored by Farman in a game against Blackpool, but in a friendly on 5 September 1891, not in the FA Cup. According to my source, which I have added to the article, the first competitive penalty in English football was scored by a man named Heath for Wolves. As for your other article, it looks pretty good. I would change the opening sentence, however, as it looks like it has been cobbled together just so the title of the article appears there, which isn't necessary. Per WP:BOLDTITLE, I would suggest omitting any bold from the first line and just saying something like "In Manchester City's early years, they played at five different home pitches and grounds" (or words to that effect). The title itself, however, is fine. Other than that, I can't really think of anything that needs adding, and it's certainly an article that deserves to be created. – PeeJay 23:38, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

New club season templates design

Can't say I'm a fan of grouping by decade, but that might just be years if conditioning by other users. Nevertheless, if I were to make any edits at all to it, that would be the only thing. I like the use of kit colours, although I'm sure some purist wankers would say it makes Wikipedia look unprofessional to have so many colours. But like I say, I like it. Good stuff! – PeeJay 01:04, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

I don't think we can say with certainty that the merged West Gorton played in scarlet and black (or Belle Vue for that matter). As far as I know the original source for this is a booklet from the 1940s, and nothing from the time has been found to corroborate it. Paul Toovey simply states "The club colours were reported to be scarlet and black". Gary James goes into a little more detail and expresses his uncertainty. The 1884 black kit with the Maltese cross is the first for which there is no doubt. In any case, I'm not sure a season article for anything before 1887 can be justified. There's just so much that isn't clear. We don't even know for sure how many matches were played. Possibly a case for an Early history of Manchester City F.C., but not individual seasons. Essentially, there's only Gary James and Paul Toovey who have published worthwhile research about this period. There's only so much detail we can go into before it becomes tantamount to plagiarism of their books.

Your early grounds article is something I've thought about doing before, so its good to see what you've done. My one concern is whether there is sufficient in-text attribution of the sources used. Its the same issue I ran into when writing Hyde Road, and the one I alluded to above: the sources are few and even with appropriate paraphrasing it needs a lot of caution to avoid unintentional plagiarism (to be honest I should myself probably revisit Hyde Road and rework to make the attribution side of things more explicit). Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2009-04-13/Dispatches has some good advice on that side of things. Oldelpaso (talk) 13:23, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

I've replied by email, as I've included some correspondence that I wouldn't want to put onwiki without permission. Oldelpaso (talk) 16:33, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

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Proposed merge for New York City FC with Expansion of Major League Soccer

Please join the discussion about a possible merge at Talk:Expansion of Major League Soccer#Proposed merge with New York City FC. Thanks. --Mosmof (talk) 16:21, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

NYCFCDYK

Go for it. It meets the criteria. And it ought to be capable of a hook that genuinely deserves the Did You Know? tag, as opposed to one of those contrived DYK for the sake of it efforts that come across more "Do You Care?" Oldelpaso (talk) 17:52, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

Looks mainspace ready to me. Might be an idea to add a summary style section to Hyde Road (and to go around inserting links in appropriate places in other related articles, naturally). I've got a lengthy userspace project of my own going on, in the form of complete player lists. Based (or should I say shamelessly ripped off from) the format of featured lists that are similar. Maybe then I'll revamp the main player list, which I've largely left alone ever since a disagreement with Mancini Lasagne. Plenty to keep me going in the long close-season, anyway. Frankly with no football and no more marathon training I need it, feeling a little lost with all this free time ;) Oldelpaso (talk) 11:51, 25 May 2013 (UTC)

Just had a very brief run through, apologies if it was a bit teacher-with-red-pen. I've had a thing about avoiding run-on sentences ever since a uni assignment where (most justifiably) I got absolutely savaged for it. For this sort of thing the guide at WP:1A is a page I cannot praise highly enough.

No, I didn't watch the friendly. While my appetite for things Manchester City might seem limitless, I draw the line at matches deemed so unimportant that Richard Wright plays ;) Plus I don't have satellite and had the Great Manchester Run in the morning. Though this seems to have been one of the rare occasions it was actually worth watching. That said, after a couple of months cold turkey I'll be rabidly consuming any worthless pre-season nonsense to get whatever watered-down fix I can. Friendlies, the methadone of football. Oldelpaso (talk) 09:08, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

I have the opposite problem. Coming from a scientific background, its an environment where writing with conciseness and precision is elevated to such a degree that creativity and descriptiveness is stifled. Things get a bit limp and functional. Did it in 48:01, a PB by a long way thanks to the marathon training, but frustratingly a single second outside the target I'd set myself. Oldelpaso (talk) 09:46, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

DYK for New York City FC

Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 08:05, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

No idea if this was your Main Page debut, but if it was, congratulations. I'll stay out of the Early grounds nom. Unlike GA or FA, DYK is a process that only needs one person to check for eligibility before it can go ahead. I'd prefer that person to be a fresh pair of eyes rather than someone like me who is already familiar with the article. Oldelpaso (talk) 10:05, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

DYK works on a "first in, first out" kind of way – the oldest nominations hit the Main Page first. Sometimes there is an excess of candidates, and it takes more than five days, but as far as I'm aware a valid candidate with a decent hook will not get overlooked – its the date of nomination that has the time limit. It rises up the page until its one of the oldest noms, then a DYK-updating admin will prep for the Main Page. Oldelpaso (talk) 16:37, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

Denis Law

Hi mate, how's the Early grounds DYK nomination going? Had any more responses yet? I wonder if you might be able to help me with Denis Law's stats table. The MCFCstats website is claiming that Law played in three "other" matches for City (i.e. not league, cup or European), but I can't find evidence of any of those matches. Are they saying that Law played in the Anglo-Italian Cup or the Watney Cup or something? Either way, I was hoping you might have some better knowledge of Law's City record. Cheers. – PeeJay 11:56, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

Hi, yes I should have let you know when OEP replied, so sorry for that. I think we've sorted it, although there may be differing opinions about whether the Texaco Cup counts as official. Nevertheless, I reckon the discrepancy has been explained. Cheers. – PeeJay 19:03, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

Hmmm, I suppose it's not so much a case of what I count as "official" as what the different statistical authorities do. For example, what do the old Rothman's books say? I think each club has different ideas about what counts as official too. Perhaps, though, it's not even an issue of official-ness, but whether the authorities think it's worth noting certain fixtures; the Texaco Cup certainly doesn't have any semblance of longevity as far as I can tell, but I'm not sure if longevity is a measure of importance. – PeeJay 20:03, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

Sock vandal

Hi there FALASTUR, AL from Portugal here,

it speaks volumes of you that you have sent an apology to this "user" (please see here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Lejlabrahimi#An_apology), but don't be fooled, he's a sock vandal (User:Ensarux, User:Steadyfingers, User:Yandex1, User:Aciyokrocky, User:Aciyokrocky1 to name a few), glues ALL sentences in storyline, removes refs, overlinks like no tomorrow and reverts people when they try to cleanup his mess. Now, with this account i see, he has also discovered the wonders of the "undo" button.

In a much more serious twist, he added and continues to add, in spite of several warnings, copyrighted images to players' articles. You sir, have been briefed.

Attentively, have a nice week --AL (talk) 14:24, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

• Question1: i know he is a sockpuppet because of all the accounts i mention just above (the community always found out it's him because of the similar editing patterns), and he shows no sign of stopping so it seems. Observation1: i apologize for my hastiness, and i'll elaborate as to why i acted the way i acted: the first thing i do whenever i log in is reply to any messages i might have, so i (wrongly) assume that people who have logged in already and don't reply immediately to me must be upset.

By the way, i don't think i was insulting or similar in my mentioning of you in Mattywhite's page, a bit of a crybaby i agree 200%. Hopefully you can accept my sincere apologies and we can work together if the occasion arises. --AL (talk) 20:51, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

DYK nomination of Early grounds of Manchester City F.C.

Hello! Your submission of Early grounds of Manchester City F.C. at the Did You Know nominations page has been reviewed, and some issues with it may need to be clarified. Please review the comment(s) underneath your nomination's entry and respond there as soon as possible. Thank you for contributing to Did You Know! Prioryman (talk) 12:12, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

DYK for Early grounds of Manchester City F.C.

Gatoclass 16:04, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

Talkback

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JMHamo (talk) 09:47, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

OSC membership

Saw your edit summary. The OSC website's figure is well out of date, but I don't have a better cite. The most recent membership figure I have is 14,000, but you won't find that in anything citeable - that's from searching my email inbox for mentions in the meeting minutes of my branch. Oldelpaso (talk) 09:57, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

Talkback

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JMHamo (talk) 10:54, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

Possibly unfree File:Bucks Head sign.png

A file that you uploaded or altered, File:Bucks Head sign.png, has been listed at Wikipedia:Possibly unfree files because its copyright status is unclear or disputed. If the file's copyright status cannot be verified, it may be deleted. You may find more information on the file description page. You are welcome to add comments to its entry at the discussion if you are interested in it not being deleted. Thank you. -mattbuck (Talk) 12:29, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

BX Brussels

I have removed further unreferenced material; please only add back the info if supported by reliable sources. GiantSnowman 09:53, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

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November 2013

Please do not add or change content, as you did to Thomas Agyiri, without verifying it by citing a reliable source. Please review the guidelines at Wikipedia:Citing sources and take this opportunity to add references to the article. Thank you. GiantSnowman 18:13, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

How is the average reader going to know that the external links are there to verify the table? I didn't. And if they are, why not cite the information directly as I have now done? FYI Transfermarkt is not a reliable source, hence why I have removed it. Finally apologies if my above warning message has offended/upset you - not my intention. Regards, GiantSnowman 18:38, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

Past discussions at WP:RSN. GiantSnowman 18:49, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

re: NYCFC colors

I saw the message you left at NYCWikiKid's talk page regarding NYCFC's colors. I wanted to respond, but he has asked me not to post on his talk page anymore, and I want to respect that, but I disagree with you that navy will barely be used by NYCFC because Manchester City barely uses it. Remember, NYCFC is also part owned by the New York Yankees, and they'll likely play in Yankee Stadium at first (and it's looking good that the new stadium will be right near it, too) The Yankkes' primary (really only) color is navy, so I would also expect navy to be a far more significant part of the NYCFC look than it is for Man City. Don't expect them to be clothed exactly the same way; New York will far more accept them as linked to the Yanks than to Man City (says this life-long NYC area resident), so treating them as a full on clone/farm team is unlikely to work. Heck, pinstripes seems likely, even!

All that said, everything either of us has said on the matter is pure speculation.And that's why it is utterly inappropriate to include any colors in the navbox; to do such is pure WP:OR and WP:CRYSTALBALL issues. That's why I've reverted them so many times. oknazevad (talk) 23:04, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

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Results by matchday

Hi. When making updates to 2013–14 Manchester City F.C. season I noticed you put ManC first with this edit, despite they are now 2nd after the matchday and will be second according to the source. Please be aware of this in the future and follow the given source. QED237 (talk) 20:17, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

Also make sure you update the date when the statistics were updated otherwise it is considered disruptive. QED237 (talk) 20:22, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

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Re: Fix to Template:fb r

Hi Falastur,

I have added nowrap to the template and apparently it has fixed the problem. Thanks for the notice! —WiJG? 08:05, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

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The one who edited Man City

Sorry I was only going to make it more accurate. --88.105.200.188 (talk) 11:05, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

The one that edited Man city 2013-14 (2)

Suppose I'd give you extra feedback.

• I apparently made the home kit lighter, because I thought it was meant to be that shade.
• I made the green goalkeeper shorts the same colour as the arms, because it was originally the same shade as the body, and that's inaccurate.
• What are those lines on the shoulders you speak of? (I didn't realise about them).
• I think we should have only one yellow goalkeeper kit and not two of them, since we are only giving readers the rough idea of what the kits could be. And besides, I have only seen one with grey lines on it (never seen one with white lines). And by the way, is it really meant to be the fourth kit, because when the outfield black away kit was launched, the website showed a photo of the squad wearing them with hart wearing the yellow kit (go on google image and type 'Manchester city away kit' if you don't believe me). And also, the league handbook said it's third.

From --88.105.200.188 (talk) 15:03, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

Soccer = football again

I have begun a thread at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Football in Australia)#Full names of soccer clubs to discuss how we should use the "fullname" parameter in the Infobox template. Unfortunately it seems to be being used by some to continue to now sneakily press the claim that their game is called football. Please join the discussion. HiLo48 (talk) 08:54, 11 July 2014 (UTC)