Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Liverpool F.C. Reserves

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was no consensus to delete. Merging does not require afd, so if consensus on relevant article talk pages exists to merge go ahead. It should also be noted that 'delete and merge' is not a valid !vote. Merge means article history is kept, with a redirect left in place. Petros471 18:28, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Liverpool F.C. Reserves

A discussion has started on WikiProject Football concerning articles for English Reserves teams. Unlike in Spain, English reserves teams don't play in the main league so aren't themselves a notable football team. It is proposed English reserve teams articles are deleted and the information in them is summarised and merged into the main article e.g. Liverpool F.C. SenorKristobbal 17:48, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

The discussion can be found here.

IMPORTANT Could all people posting read here as several people with vested interest in the article haven't said so. Also note how this is not a vote SenorKristobbal 23:00, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

COMMENT, it should be noted that SenorKristobbal is a supporter of Everton F.C., who are the local, and often bitter, rivals of Liverpool F.C.. aLii 23:14, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Not in this case. As said already I have contributed to Liverpool F.C. talk about how to get it featured. If an Everton F.C. reserves page was made I'd be doing the exact same thing. This is nothing to do with liking/not liking Liverpool this is about notability and whether or not it belongs in Wikipedia. SenorKristobbal 23:19, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

• Delete For the reasons described above. SenorKristobbal 17:48, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
• Delete and merge into Liverpool F.C. --Angelo 18:17, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
• Keep Merging would only return a mass of information back to the article it was moved out of because that article is already too long. This article was primarily created as a place to put information on the subject of Liverpool F.C. which was considered notable/important (i.e. the list of the Reserve Squad, the trophies that the reserve team has won, where the reserve team plays and so on). However, it has to be recognised that the main Liverpool article is too long, and we simply can't cram everything on there. That is why seperate articles as in e.g. the history article have been created. It may or may not be said that the players in question are not notable; this is a seperate debate, but should affect only individual articles on those players.
  • This article allows for the retention of useful, verifiable and encyclopedic information, whilst not making the main Liverpool article so long that nobody can get to the end. We have been told to remove such information in previous FA reviews.
  • I would also like to make a point purely based upon the notability of a given team; Liverpool reserves participate in the Liverpool Senior Cup. This trophy is competed for entirely by teams within Level 1-10 of the English league system (the levels at which teams are deemed inherantly notable), with the 3 exceptions of the Liverpool, Everton and Tranmere Rovers reserves. I therefore would argue that there is a case for notability as a many time winner of this competition, which may well be deemed of minor importance to some people, but does still involve notable teams.

I would honestly like to ask what will be gained from this removal of useful information, citing the old cliche that wikipedia is not paper, and pointing out that the Reserves system is an important part of any successful team. Robotforaday 18:25, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

• If FA status is your reasoning, note Arsenal F.C., Everton F.C. and Manchester City F.C. are the only English featured football clubs and don't have Reserves pages. I could write an article about me with references and make it encylopedic...but I'm not notable. SenorKristobbal 18:53, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Comment It's most certainly not my only point of reasoning, as you can see. I do believe this information is useful, verifiable and notable. You could still make the case that it should be moved back into the Liverpool F.C. article- but as that article is being drastically reduced under advice, I don't think that all of the pertinent information from this article would remain were it to be merged. And what would wikipedia gain from the loss of information about an important element of Liverpool F.C.? This is a useful place to go from the main article for further information, just as the History of Liverpool F.C. and the article on Anfield are. They are places to put useful information that won't bloat the article out of all control. Robotforaday 19:03, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

• I recently worked on getting Everton F.C. featured and it had a reserves team list. More than one person told me to remove this list as the players were not notable according to WP:BIO. They didn't say start a new article for them and they won't have specifically said that for Liverpool reserves either. If reserves players don't qualify for notability by playing for a reserves team, then their team isn't notable either. I think it deserves a section in the article but when peer reviewed people who know what they are talking about say it doesn't so I accepted it.SenorKristobbal 22:52, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

• keep. we have plenty of articles on non leage teams. Reserve teams are at least as big as some of those.Geni 19:37, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

• Non-league teams are teams in their own right. Liverpool Reserves are not as they are part of Liverpool F.C.

sure but they still have a history.Geni 20:32, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

• Merge to a combination of FA Premier Reserve League and Central League (football), except for the squad list, which appears to be crystal ball material judging by the description. Oldelpaso 19:50, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
• There is useful information in the article, and only judging by the size of it, I'd call out keep, but reading through it more carefully, much of the information is superfluous, for example the last paragraph in the intro talking about famous players, however most famous players of today has played in a reserve team somewhere, most likely in the club where they became famous. The third paragraph of the intro should be merged with a culture or supporter section of the main article. The honours and the two first paragraphs of the intro can easily be merged into a section in the main article. So my vote is merge. – Elisson • Talk 20:24, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Whilst taking your points on board, this article has showed a steady rate of growth since its creation, and I would say has the potential for further additions, e.g. on the history of the reserve team (as I see has been suggested by others in the talk in wikiproject football). I would hope that rather than seperate out the information about this important aspect of Liverpool F.C., it could be left together, and allowed to develop more. Right now it might be considered a stub, but from stubs, extensive articles grow. Robotforaday 20:34, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

• Strong Keep. The nominator is disingenuous in his implication that any consensus has been reached about articles of this type. There has been a discussion for the past two days at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Football#Reserves teams, where I feel the argument was being won over the notability of the Liverpool FC Reserve team. I believe that this nomination is a vindictive attempt to allow majority rule to get the upper hand over common sense. Please see comments below.. aLii 21:29, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Strong Keep.

• If this article is deleted or merged where will the info go ? The Liverpool F.C. article is already overloaded and exceeds the recommended article size. Many articles on football clubs have become virtually unreadable because of their lenghth. Rather then delete this article similar articles should be started on the reserve teams of other Premiership teams to help keep article size down. Greater use should be made of Cat:Liverpool F.C. and other club categories and we should avoid putting everything about a particular club in one single article.
• Liverpool F.C. Reserves have won more trophies then most non-league clubs and several Premiership clubs, so how can anybody claim they are not worthy of article. Djln--Djln 22:25, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Are you suggesting Liverpool Reserves are more notweorthy than some Premiership clubs?SenorKristobbal 22:31, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

• In terms of trophies won, yes. They have won more trophies then most Premiership sides. You have failed to answer my main point about article size. Also I see from your user page that you are an Evertonian. This explains a lot and you have the nerve to challenge other peoples objectivity. Djln--Djln 23:08, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

• Look at Arsenal F.C., Everton F.C. and Manchester City F.C. for examples of how to cut down article size (all featured). None have reserve team articles. Winning trophies doesn't make you notable. My school team back in the day won a trophy. They don't have a wikipedia article though. Being an Evertonian is irrelevant I'd be doing this if an Everton Reserves article surfaced. Look at the Liverpool F.C. talk page I've actually tried to help in the past. SenorKristobbal 23:05, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

• Liverpool F.C. Reserves are obviously no-where near the notability of any Premiership team, however that in itself does not make the team non-notable. I have not yet seen one good argument from you on this point, and the revelation (for me) that you are actually an Evertonian makes this deletion attempt look even more vindictive than I initially thought! aLii 23:20, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

• Look at my contributions. This proves I am not vindictive towards Liverpool or anyone else.SenorKristobbal 23:30, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

• Two of the above articles exceed article size. The Arsenal one is well over. So whats your point ? No offense but maybe if your school won as many trophies as Liverpool Reserves someone would write about them. By your own admission they only won one. Comparing Liverpool Reserves to a school team is ridiculous. I would favour articles on all Premiership reserve teams, even Evertons. PS Removing tally not very democratic. It was useful as quick reference to see how discussion was going. Djln --Djln 23:23, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

• I removed the tally because of this. You may favour everton reserve team article but I don't. I don't favour any reserves teams articles which is why I put the Manchester United F.C. Reserves up for deletion as well. Again if an Everton reserves article appeared I would do the same. Players fail WP:Bio therefore the team does.SenorKristobbal 23:30, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

• Djln - you aren't helping I'm afraid.
• SenorKristobbal - various of the players quite obviously pass WP:BIO, but anyway that is irrelevent for judging whether or not a team is notable. WikiProject Football decided that any team down to Level-10 of the English league system is inherently notable. No player below level-5 or so will pass WP:BIO however, as the lower levels are not professional. This is exactly the kind of dumb circular arguing that we should have settled before this nomination for deletion. aLii 23:46, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

• I'll apologise here there does seem to be as you say a lot of "dumb circular arguing" and it has caused me to word things wrongly in that instance. The vast majority of the players fail WP:Bio like Stephen Wynne of Everton reserves looks set to be deleted. One suggestion I would make would be a category of reserves players that pass WP:Bio and a category of Liverpool players past and present that have been in the reserves. You probably know you can put text at the top of category pages and a watered down version of the article could work. Racecourse Ground wikilinked effectively gives ground location and capacity. Link to Liverpool main page gives chairman and as you have a staff list there also gives the manager. SenorKristobbal 00:00, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

• OK, good, some constructive suggestions. The idea for a category of former reserves is an interesting one, and perhaps worth pursuing. A category for current reserves makes little sense as my reading of the squad gives only five notable players, and therefore perhaps only five articles will remain of the current twenty-two. Even if they don't deserve articles, which they probably don't, then I still don't see why their names cannot be listed.
• The point that the information could be written more succintly is also true, but so is the point that it could be expanded. While categories can be useful, I personally would favour prose if possible. Categories always seem so regimented and dry to me. They aren't fun to read and it can be tough to pick out the highlights and important figures. At least we are moving forward :) aLii 00:52, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

• Our Evertonian friend is avoiding argument about article size. For me the notablity point is a non-starter. There are numerous articles on football clubs in Wikipedia who have been less successful then Liverpool F.C. Reserves. The fact that people have written the article and that others chose to expand it is proof that it is worth keeping. The main Liverpool F.C. article is just too long and this article serves a purpose in helping reduce article size. I can understand your reservations to a point regarding Manchester United F.C. Reserves as it is just a few lines. However people have actually spent time working on this one. I have counted at least seven different editors who have contributed, none of whom challenged the articles credibilty. Djln--Djln 00:34, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Comments:

Reasons this article should be kept:

1. It allows the main Liverpool F.C. article to be more streamlined in the same was as for example History of Liverpool Football Club. It allows this secondary list of players to be kept somewhere more suitable.
2. The players Salif Diao, David Martin and Besian Idrizaj pass the notability criteria on WP:BIO, but are not members of the main Liverpool squad. Deleting this page causes unnecessary orphaning of these articles.
3. "Merge" arguments only make sense if there is a minimal amount of information about the subject. This article is a stub, but much more could and given time would be written about it. There are many famous people in football that have been associated with Liverpool Reserves, but never made it to the full team, for example Paul Jewell.
4. The Reserve team commands regular press attention. Example.
5. The youth team occasionally commands press attention. Example.
6. My reading of Wikipedia:Notability would indicate that this article is about a notable subject.
7. There are no good reasons to delete it.

Arguments for deletion seem to amount to only:

1. The players are not noteworthy.
   • Salif Diao has played in the FIFA World Cup. Others have had careers at lesser professional clubs and so pass WP:BIO, and most of the rest have received national press and television coverage by winning the 2006 FA Youth Cup.
2. The information can be readily summised in two or three paragraphs.
   • Being a stub should not make something liable for deletion. There is plenty more information about the subject, but as yet no-one has written it down. The article as it stands has more detail than was deemed appropriate for the main Liverpool F.C. article, so merging it back doesn't solve the original problem, unless information is culled.
3. "Liverpool FC Reserves" are not a different club to "Liverpool FC".
   • No-one ever claimed that they were, and this is not a reason to delete the article. They are however a seperate team, that play at a seperate ground, in seperate competitions, with a seperate manager and a seperate Honours list etc.

I believe that this vote was instigated in bad faith, and it will be a very sad indictment of Wikipedia if it allowed to pass unchallenged by a majority of neutral observers, rather than me being out-voted by the very people that I was engaged in discussion with. This vote did not need to happen so soon.

aLii 21:29, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Please see also: User:Robotforaday/Notability of Reserve teams Robotforaday 15:30, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

• Delete - the two or three lead paragraphs are useful information that could be merged into Liverpool F.C., but a reserve team does not deserve a separate article in its own right. Qwghlm 22:57, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
• Keep - more notable than a lot of the things on wikipedia, reserves teams are coupled with their clubs and therefore in some respects shae some of the notability, we have to keep this standardized, and in some countries they compete as seperate clubs, and it would be wrong to merge these teams. Also it would only serve to add somewhat irrelavant information to the main club article. Philc _T^E_C^I 23:56, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

* We can't keep reserves teams standardised throughout Europe as they aren't standard!...The Spanish league is run completely differently to the English reserves wise. SenorKristobbal 00:06, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

• Delete per Qwghlm, and merge any worthwhile info into Liverpool F.C.. At best this deserves mention within it's parent club's article. –NeoChaosX [talk | contribs] 00:01, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
• Delete and merge per NeoChaosX. TJ Spyke 01:40, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
• Keep. I prefer not to judge the notability of the Reserve teams here at this time and instead give WikiProject:Football the chance to complete discussion and come up with a plan on how to deal with these articles.-- danntm ^T _C 02:08, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
• keep, notable enough for a separate article, not notable enough to clutter the main article with more than a paragraph or so. Kappa 06:21, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
• Delete Reserve teams in England are not notable, any info should be merged into the article on the main team. They are not a seperate entity as players are not registered seperately from the first team. Catchpole 09:50, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
  • The Liverpool F.C. Reserves regularly get attendances in the thousands, they receive a signifcant amount of reportage in the local and national press (certainly enough to meet any WP:CORP requirements). A google search also reveals a large and loyal following who put up match reports, etc. They compete in (and win) competitions in their own right, and in some of these competitions play against the first teams of clubs that we have deemed notable. Add to this that they are mentioned in various articles. Add to this that Liverpool reserves are referenced in other articles as a notable entity having a significant effect on that article. (e.g. New Bucks Head, St Helens Town FC (a 'notable team' according to WP guidelines who suffered their biggest ever loss against Liverpool Reserves, 8-1)). In short, if any other team met these requirements, people would not be pushing for deletion. I strongly believe that Liverpool F.C. Reserves, while obviously a part of Liverpool F.C., are an important part in their own right, and have their own history of success and own story to tell. If that was just merged into a couple of sentences in the main article, the potential of having that information on wikipedia would be lost. In short, Liverpool Reserves are notable, and I have not yet heard any convincing argument otherwise. Robotforaday 10:15, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
• Delete Per nom. Some players deserve pages but they can be listed on main article. Reserves deserve no more than 5/6 lines on the main article (if that). As per the arguement that they attract 100s of fans, none of those fans follow the reserves exclusively, they will all support the first team Dodge 13:25, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
• Comment I have gone into the arguments for keeping this article in more depth at User:Robotforaday/Notability of Reserve teams. Although I have already tried to make my opinions clear during this debate, please go and read what I have to say there. Robotforaday 15:28, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
• Delete Per nom. Information should be in main article.HornetMike 21:30, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
• Keep per aLii. Eixo 17:02, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
• Delete and move any relevant info into the main article. - Pal 00:27, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.