User:Robotforaday/Notability of Reserve teams

On 27/7/06, I created the page Liverpool F.C. Reserves. I did this because the main article was already too long, and while I felt that information on the Reserve team was indeed notable enough to be included on wikipedia, it should have a place where it can be stored and developed away from the Liverpool F.C. main article. On 6/9/06 the article was nominated for deletion. So, should Liverpool F.C. Reserves stay or should it go? I strongly believe that the article should be retained, and this page is an attempt to set out the arguments for as I see them.

Q&A

How can you consider Reserve teams to be notable?

The attendance of some Premier Reserve League matches can be in excess of 1000, suggesting that enough people go to watch them to suggest that they are notable in their own right. The attedance records for Liverpool Reserve matches last season shows a fluctuating attendance, but some of those attendances are in excess of a thousand. If a thousand people turned out to watch me, I'd be tempted to claim notability myself.
The Reserve teams of Premier League clubs enjoy national and local press coverage in their own right. Reserve results are published in newspapers such as The Times, The Guardian and The Daily Telegraph, with additional prose reporting on events of note. Full match reports are published in local newspapers. A full match report of the most recent Liverpool Reserves match can be found here. This was published in the Liverpool Echo, which has a claimed readership of 400,000. In addition, a [google search] for "Liverpool Reserves" yields 44,200- many of these are detailed accounts of Liverpool Reserves matches and prospects written by committed fans.

If the above amount of support and coverage was being applied to any other entity, I believe it would be found to more than meet the guidelines of Wikipedia:Notability.

What about the specific WP: CORP Criteria for sporting clubs?

Herein lies the problem. In England, a reserve team is, of course, not a club in its own right. Liverpool Reserves are only a team fielded by Liverpool Football Club. As such, they do not participate in the English football league system under which a team's inherant notability is assessed. Nonetheless, I think arguments can be made that Liverpool Reserves could be considered notable given this policy.

The amount of matchday support and press coverage received by Liverpool Reserves is certainly in excess of the level of support and coverage received by many teams deemed notable enough for inclusion in Wikipedia.
Liverpool Reserves compete in- and regularly win- competitions competed for by clubs within the English League System. The Liverpool Senior Cup is a case in point here. All the participants are clubs within the English League System, and all field their first teams, except Liverpool Reserves, Everton Reserves and Tranmere Rovers Reserves. Liverpool Reserves therefore compete in their own right in competitions alongside and against clubs we have deemed notable.
WP articles for football clubs and stadiums include direct reference to Liverpool Reserves, clearly deeming the team notable in its own right. Of particular note here are the following: New Bucks Head, where it is stated that a Reserves match brought in one of the largest crowds ever seen there, and St Helens Town FC, a notable team according to WP guidelines who suffered their biggest ever loss against Liverpool Reserves, 8-1.

The players listed in the Reserves article are not notable

Actually, some are, for example Besian Idrizaj who has made 36 appearances for Austrian team LASK Linz, and won an Austrian young player of the year award. However, this is irrelevant. The central point is whether a team and its history are deemed notable, and this can be true even if its players are deemed non-notable as individuals (witness the fact that while WP:CORP deemed teams level 1-10 inherantly notable, Wikipedia:Notability (people) rules out all but those who have played for professional teams).

Couldn't this information be merged into the main article for the team?

The Liverpool F.C. Reserves article was started because the Liverpool F.C. article is already deemed too long, yet there is plenty of information which is notable and verifiable which could and should be included on Wikipedia, yet cannot be jammed into Liverpool F.C. without bloating it even further. This is also the reason that History of Liverpool F.C., Liverpool F.C. statistics and other pages were created.

While it is still arguable at the current stage whether the article could be copied and pasted back into Liverpool F.C., I would say that the central issue will still remain: the Reserve team, its achievements, history and personnel are notable, yet they are not notable enough to displace information in the main article, or make it bigger and bigger and bigger.

I believe that Liverpool F.C. Reserves will indeed grow; it has shown a healthy rate of growth, thanks to several contributers, since I created it on 27/7/06, and I believe there is a lot more that could - and will - be put there in time.

In short, Liverpool F.C. Reserves is a way of keeping verifiable, notable information on wikipedia without bloating the main Liverpool F.C. article.

What you're saying is all very well for Liverpool's Reserves, but what about other Reserve articles?

While it's clearly harder to support an article which is only a sentence or two, such as Manchester United F.C. Reserves, I would still say keep, as the subject would be notable for the same reasons as above, and the article could and should grow to reflect that notability. However, if the consensus is to delete, I would suggest that this be done without prejudice against recreation, so that if a more content heavy version were produced, it would be allowed.

What do you think?

I have just typed this all out fairly quickly so that I show people all the arguments as I see them. However, I am sure there is a lot more to be said, and would welcome feedback. Feel free to correct any spelling errors etc if you spot them (they're bound to be there), and if you have any questions, comments, arguments or whatever place them on the talk page here or on my talk page and I'll deal with them as best I can.

Robotforaday 15:22, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

My main comment is that this page is primarily about the notability of Liverpool F.C. Reserves, not reserves teams in general. While I believe that there is a fair argument for Liverpool Reserves I would be hard-pushed to agree that for example Marine F.C. Reserves are notable. Perhaps you could argue that any team in the FA Premier Reserve League is inherently notable, and other cases should be considered on their merits? It's certainly something that should be thought about. aLii 18:12, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Indeed, I think you're right. My intention was to get the arguments up there for retaining Liverpool Reserves right away, while that debate is still warm, as keeping that is my number 1 priority. I would hope then to broaden things out afterwards when (if) the discussion returns to wikiproject football and we can have a proper debate about whether and which Reserve teams are notable. Robotforaday 18:24, 7 September 2006 (UTC)