Talk:Ireland national football team (1882–1950)

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Good article Ireland national football team (1882–1950) was a nominee for good article, but did not meet the good article criteria at the time. There are suggestions below for improving the article. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.
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Contents

[edit] Bloomfield Park

I am trying to add images to this article per the request at the top. I would assume there is something to commemorate where Ireland made their international debut, but I have no idea where it is, anyone know anything about this ground? (I am assuming someone has built houses on it) Fasach Nua (talk) 17:13, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Well after running round Bloomfield, this was the best I could manage Image:Bloomfield park sign.PNG, but if the IFA have to fly out to Zagreb to talk to the FAI, you can hardly expect them to have money left over to pay for a sign commerate something like their first international! Fasach Nua (talk) 14:56, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Good Article Status

I was looking at the Wikipedia:Good article criteria and I think djln has laid excellent groundwork to getting this up to GA.

(Ignoring the intro) (yikes!!!)

I think the GA failings are

  • 3(a) lack of coverage of football(not other stuff) 1919-1950
  • 3(b) unnecessary details with the disputed internationals, could be reduced to one sentence
  • 6 Images - The badge is from the 70s, in keeping with the 1950 infobox theme I would suggest the shamrock badge (I don't have an image of this), The Blue plaque at Bloomfield park would be nice, if anyone knows where it is!

Anyone else think this is feasible? Fasach Nua (talk) 15:31, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

I agree the article is shaping up well, kudos Djln. A couple of points:
  • The name should be Ireland national football team (1882-1950) but guidelines are unclear whether it's a hyphen or endash separator Wikipedia_talk:Naming_conventions_(numbers_and_dates). I'd favour endash with redirect from hyphen equivalent.
  • I've got a bit more info for the 1950-54 split which I will add when I get time -- a bit pressed at the moment.
--jnestorius(talk) 10:00, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

On the issue of images, I think the article is a bit bare, anything pre-1923 is usable via Template:PD-US-1923-abroad. Is there a photo of of the meeting at which the FAI was establishment? There is an iconic picture of Merrion square, but that was only used after the 1930s, and probably isn't very relevant. Windsor Park is another possibility, but whether a stadium full of plastic seats is relevant to an era ending in the 1950s is questionable Fasach Nua (talk) 16:16, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

I was looking at some of the comments in other football FA and GA reviews, and the criteria covers being "broad in its coverage", which seems to mean relating to areas outside the topic seems to be something that gets picked up on. The UK and RoI relationships are covered thoroughly. I think a bit more background to the players might be needed, eg relating to their club performance, (without going into excessive detail)
In other stuff, nifg thinks they might know where Bloomfield park is, so I will try and run down there at the weekend and get a photo. Fasach Nua (talk) 10:34, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
Where I think we are at is:
There are two automatic fails on this article
  • A citation is needed for the 1910 date on the kit
  • The Former Coaches section is tagged for expansion, I dont know if it can be expanded but if the tag is left in it is an automatic fail.
On the would be nice improvements
  • there is a reference "an, op. cit. pg 59." which I think was Ryans book, but the Ry got chopped off.
  • A shamrock badge for the infobox (might have to crop a photo)
  • Jnestorius has some more history on the 1950-1954 period to add
  • I want to get a photo of Bloomfield Park
  • A good copy edit from someone outside this article, possibly Wikipedia:WikiProject League of Copyeditors
Aside from that a submission to Wikipedia:Good_article_nominations#Sports_and_recreation Fasach Nua (talk) 18:15, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Good work by Fasach on providing pictures and on his attempts to find out more about Bloomfield Park. However I have some concerns about the downplaying of some important issues. The fact that the FAI also referred to their team as Ireland should be at least mentioned in opening section. It is unusual for two rival associations to claim simultaneous jurisdiction over the same territory and Ireland (IFA) needs to be distinguished clearly from the Ireland (FAI). I have come across dozens of articles were players have been linked to the wrong Ireland team. It is misleading just to say the Republic of Ireland team also existed as the FAI did not refer to their team by this name until 1953. It should also be mentioned why this team evolved into Northern Ireland and why the FAI team became the Republic (i.e FIFA ruling). Regarding the kit, I don’t think it is necessary to include an exact date in box title. Maybe just replace it with just Early Ireland kits. Not sure were 1910 date came from ? I am not sure it is necessary to expand the list of coaches other then add more coaches and add/write separate bios on those mentioned (i.e. removing the red links). Regarding the missing Ryan link. I think it is not wise to include exact page numbers as the book has been reprinted at least once and page numbers change with reissues. If Fasach could identify exactly which info they think came from Ryan and is now missing a reference, I can check it out. Please do not give reference number as these change every time someone adds a new one. Djln--Djln (talk) 16:25, 1 February 2008 (UTC)


I have no objection to the FAI Ireland team being mentioned in the intro, but I think it needs kept short, the old intro was too long, I think the whole of the FAI coverage should be no more than one sentence in the intro.
The date needs to be in the info box for the stats, I think I know where to get a picture of the badge, hopefully I will have it over the weekend.
I dont think it is worth metioning why the team became NI in the intro, it is very complicated and very difficult to summerise, I like the shorter punchy intro. I think its enough to say that it is a fact and let the reader find out more in the article,
The 1910 came from here if that is any help, the IFA brought out a blue shirt for the 125th aniversary, which I had assumed was the original one from 1882, thats why I tagged that date.
On the issue of references, the cite book gives a version and year, so pagenumbers should be used, and they will be needed if this is to progress to Featured status
I have never seen any list of coaches prior to 1950, so I dont know if anyone even bothered to keep a record of them, so it may not be possible to expand the section. Fasach Nua (talk) 17:04, 1 February 2008 (UTC)


I have put in a request for a copyedit at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Football#Copyedit_request, the league of copyeditors has a serioooouuuuussss backlog Fasach Nua (talk) 15:29, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Kit

I was looking through some photos for a good badge picture, I think the kit had a white collar (it did in '38 and '54) Fasach Nua (talk) 21:11, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

see this image [1] Fasach Nua (talk) 21:48, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Logo

Im having trouble getting the logo (assuming that it's use even meets wp:nfc), the current logo is from the BHC team of the 1970s, and therefore wrong anyway, so I have swapped it with an Image of Ireland. This at least lets a nomination procede for GA, and if they pick up on (which I dont think they should) then we can deal with it. Fasach Nua (talk) 07:21, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] GA review

Unfortunately, I don't think that this article was ready to be nominated at this time. There are some fairly major concerns that still need to be addressed.

  1. Quality of prose: This needs to be addressed by a thorough copyediting. Looking through the article, several sentences don't end with punctuation. Other Manual of Style concerns are the incorrect use of hyphens instead of en dashes for scores, incorrect capitalization for section headers (except in the case of proper nouns, only the first word is capitalized), and the use of unexplained jargon such as "whitewash". Remember that the article has to be easily understood by everyone, including people who don't follow football.
  2. Verfifiability: Much of the article is unreferenced, including entire sections. The article must be thoroughly referenced to reach Good Article status.
  3. Images: They add to the article, but it is recommended to stagger them a bit (some on the right, some on the left).

The article is off to a good start, but quite a bit of work is necessary before it is ready for promotion. Please thoroughly source the article and have it copyedited (at least once, preferably including someone who is not an expert on football). Peer review is also a great option, and I'm sure it would generate some suggestions that would help the article pass its next review. I am failing the article at this point, because sourcing and copyediting the article is a fairly major task. I urge you to address these concerns and then renominate, as the article is interesting to read and I think it definitely has GA potential. Best wishes, GaryColemanFan (talk) 15:05, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Looking at this I think the assessment is fair, it only really falls over in two of the six critereon (I have staggered the images). I think we can fix the refs ourselves, and then pass it over for peer review Fasach Nua (talk) 07:54, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Sections to remove

I submitted this article for PR, and we are getting some good feedback. There are two sections I dont like, Former coaches, as it really doesn't have a lot of content, Crone is mentioned elsewhere as the first manager EVER, but it really doesnt seem worth keeping the rest. The other section is Selected former players, I know it is in the MoS, but is completely unreferenceable, and is WP:OR (I've put a note there) Fasach Nua (talk) 16:24, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

I have removed both sections, if you oject undo [[2]] Fasach Nua (talk) 16:12, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Cannot understand why list of former notable players and coaches have been removed. All articles on national football team have similar lists and the team was among the earliest national teams ever to appoint coaches for games. Yet World Cup record and picture of World Cup has been added and deemed valid. List of former players is much more relevant then info about a competition the team only ever played three games in. Also links to Celtic Cup are not particularly relevant to this team either. I will add more refs when I get chance. Is there any particular section, para or line you are concerned about which currently lack refs Djln--Djln (talk) 23:14, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
  • PS Also mystified at why the concern about refs, article has 39 at the moment. This is considerably higher then the majority of articles I have seen on Wiki. Djln--Djln (talk) 23:30, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
  • PPS The article could do some proof reading and tidying up. A lot of recent edits seem sloppy and standard of article has dropped. Djln--Djln (talk) 23:45, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
If you can reference the notable players then great, I think that is a big issue, it needs to be clear why these players are notable, and others are not? The Scotland and Derry articles which are both at featured article standard have not included such a list, I have requested help here andhere
You are right about the trophy, I was going to remove it.
The refs were picked up in the GA review(I added them for the 1800s section), but they were tagged in the PR too, I suspect the things we might take for granted might not be taken for granted in the wider wikiworld Fasach Nua (talk) 00:08, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
On the issue of the drop in quality, the recent edits were almost exclusively, References and MoS issues, including referencing after punctuation marks moving hyphens to en-dashes, reformatting dates, staggering pictures and fixing puctuation marks. I am finding it difficult to get someone external to copy edit ... Fasach Nua (talk) 09:22, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
  • I disagree with the tag on the notable players section. It is not original research. All the players listed played for this team and this tag implies they may have not. They are listed on various websites including www.rsssf.com and Northern Ireland’s Footballing Greats as having played for team. All are notable and/or mentioned in the article. Their individual articles explain why they are especially notable and their contributions to the teams history. These are also well referenced and it would be excessive to reference them all here. I appreciate your efforts to get the article to GA standard but that doesn’t mean we have to copy verbatim the style of similar articles. I also think the tag only serves to undermine the credibilty of the article and should be removed ASAP Djln --Djln (talk) 21:23, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
It needs to be explained why they are notable and others are not, all European and S.American International teams that have such a list have been tagged as OR, the same as this one, Wales does this quite nicely, but I cant see what can be drawn from it Fasach Nua (talk) 21:37, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Their individual articles explain why they are notable. I see discussion at the footy talk page seems to favour these sections Djln--Djln (talk) 13:32, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
It is not just a case of inclusion, but also exclusion, how do you know why people were excluded. It could be reasonably argued that Samuel Johnston is notable, but he doesnt have an article, but there is not a great deal of point discussing it here at this point. We should see where the wikiproject goes and then review after that, I can't see it passing GA/FA with the section as is Fasach Nua (talk) 13:43, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Managers

I dont think a section on managers/coaches is warranted, not when it is only sentence long (I know its in the MoS), could we merge it into either the British champions or 1800s sections? Either way it needs referenced. Fasach Nua (talk) 07:28, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Comments

Some comments on the article, following a request from Fasach Nua:

  • The notable players section either needs inclusion criteria or removal. An approach I have used in similar situations is to use records to focus on individual players. The success of this approach can depend on the sources available. It worked well for Scotland, but less well for Luxembourg. The complication here is the 1950 cutoff, but the infobox lists record holders so presumably it can be framed in a suitable manner. Perhaps the coaches section could be merged into such a section too.
  • I don't see the relevance of club or county teams in various sports wearing blue, as none of them represent the entire country. I'm dubious as the the reliability of one of the sources used, what makes ourweecountry.co.uk reliable? Using the phrase The official reason given for the change implies an ulterior motive.
  • Some other sources give reliability concerns. footballtriv.com is a deadlink, [3] does not have an author listed. [4] and [5] are blogs.
  • From the beginning Ireland wore a variety of colours, including green, white, and blue. Needs rephrasing, as it could be interpreted as a colour scheme in the style of Harlequins.
  • Things requiring citations:
    • This result remains the record win for England and the record defeat for an Ireland team., unless this is covered by the ref at the end of the next sentence.
    • although Ireland went on to lose 7–1, the goal also saw Johnston became the youngest ever international goalscorer.
    • These losses, together with the initial loss to England still constitute the record wins held by each of the other home nation teams.
    • however it was later discovered that Reynolds was actually English
    • However the foundations for that success had been laid over a decade earlier when Ireland had pioneered the use of national team coaches.
    • Three weeks later, on March 25 one of these four players, Archie Goodall, aged 34 years and 279 days, became the oldest player... and other examples pertaining to records being set or broken, or other firsts.
    • Amid these political upheavals, a rival football association, the Football Association of Ireland, emerged in Dublin in 1921 and organised a separate league and later a national team.
    • it was rare for professional players to turn down an opportunity to play at international level.
    • played for two different associations in the same FIFA World Cup tournament.
    • All UK-based players from the Republic were pressured to sign an undertaking not to play for the IFA.
    • ...this had been replaced in the 1930s until the 1950s with a Shamrock badge. This change occurred at a time when the IFA was competing with the FAI to have the true Ireland team, and at this time the shamrock was also being worn by the FA of Ireland's international side.
    • Use of each stadium for international matches.
  • In 1923, during a period when the home nations had dis-affiliated from the governing body, - Which governing body?
  • "However" should almost always be followed by a comma.
  • From then until the 1949–50 season the IFA regularly selected five to seven players born in the Free State and were rewarded with some respectable results - "rewarded" implies a moral justification.
  • At least three coaches were appointed, on a match by match basis, they were... - if there may have been more than three coaches but only three are known, the second part would be better rephrased as something like "the three known coaches are...". Oldelpaso (talk) 14:07, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for the feedback, that is exactly what we need to procede! Fasach Nua (talk) 14:15, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Fasach Nua has no support for his crusade against "notable players" sections, people should feel free to undo his removals, which are part of a single user campaign, and have nothing to do with this article specifically. 14:45, 8 June 2008 (UTC). MickMacNee (talk) 14:46, 8 June 2008 (UTC)