Talk:Abe Waddington/Archive 1

Accompanying Hutton?

As a paid tourist at teh cost of MCC or did he have some duty? YellowMonkey (new photo poll) 04:09, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Not sure; it's a throwaway comment in the main source for the article, but I've seen it elsewhere (as a throwaway!). I suspect that he came either on his own initiative, or something to do with the Yorkshire players, but I've no idea. I doubt the MCC would pay! I'll do a bit of digging. --Sarastro1 (talk) 07:15, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

For anyone actually keeping track here, Alan Hill's biography of Verity suggests he only came to the grave trip. Also, Tyson's tour diary makes no mention of him, so I've tweaked the text a little and added a bit to it. --Sarastro1 (talk) 15:21, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Abe Waddington/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Brad78 (talk) 22:08, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

GA review (see here for criteria)

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   Fair representation without bias:

5. It is stable.

   No edit wars, etc.:

6. It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.

   a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):

7. Overall:

   Pass/Fail:

   An excellent piece of work. Immaculately written, well-referenced and clearly well-researched. It's thorough, very focussed without going into excessive detail. I've made a few minor changes, mainly to a few manual of style points, adding or changing a couple of wikilinks and just brushed up one or two parts of the text. There was one disambig link but I've fixed it; there are no broken external links. The only obvious point to address is the lack of images. If there any images available from newspapers or in books, they may be useable because copyright has possibly now lapsed - I'm not sure whether you can find such images mind. After making only a few minor changes, I will pass the article. Good luck with any future work on the article. Brad78 (talk) 22:45, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

Belated review comments

I missed the official peer review. Here are some belated comments (I have also done a little copyediting):-

Lead

I am not really happy with: "He continued to play at a lower level and worked for the family business, maintaining his connection with Yorkshire cricket. Waddington was successful in other sports, notably golf and football." You could specify that he played league cricket; you could say what the family business was. I wouldn't describe his participation in other sports as particularly "successful", although he was clearly competent. I'd replace the last sentence with something like: "In his younger days Waddington played several football matches for Halifax Town as a goalkeeper, and later enjoyed some success as an amateur golfer".

Early life

We could do with a sentence bridging his service in the Mediterranean in December 1915 and his appearance on the Western Front in July 1916

County debut

"Against Leicestershire, he took seven for 25 and ended the match with 12 wickets; against Northamptonshire, he took 11 wickets in the first game and bowled throughout both innings of the second to take 13 wickets for 48 runs, including seven for 18 in the first innings and a hat-trick." This is too complicated to follow. Can you find a way of simplifying his achievement?

Test selection

• "In all matches, he headed the bowling averages..." What, with seven wickets at 46.71? Presumably these were his first-class victims while he took buckets of wickets in the country games. I don't think this justifies the statement that he "headed the bowling averages", since minor matches are not normally included in career records.
• Why is the paragraph beginning "In 1921..." in the "Test selection" section? It has nothing to do with Test matches.
• The latter part of the sentence "In 1921, Waddington took 105 wickets at an average of 18.94, not reaching ten wickets in any of the matches he played" is a bit unsympathetic, manufacturing an unwarranted sense of failure.

Decline

This section contains the first indication that he ever batted. Although he was obviously primarily a bowler, there should have been some brief earlier mention of his (limited) batting. Where did he bat in the order? Was he left or right-handed? Against whom did he make his first 50? etc etc

Later life

• The lead says he "maintain[ed] his connection with Yorkshire cricket". The text says only that "He remained close to members of the Yorkshire team..." which is not the same thing, really. Was he active in the affairs of the Yorkshire club, and if so in what capacity?
• I don't want to spoil the Verity story, but Verity didn't play for Yorkshire until 1930. He and Waddington were never county team mates and shared no cricketing experiences as far as I know, so "mi' old cobber" seems a bit forced, though I suppose they may have become friends. I am inclined to the view that this is probably a sentimental myth.
• However, this sentence: "In 1954–55, Yorkshire player and England captain Len Hutton invited Waddington to accompany the members of the MCC team to Australia who visited the grave of Hedley Verity, the Yorkshire bowler who was killed in the Second World War." - needs a lot of attention. At present it makes no sense at all to those unaware of the backgound: that Verity's grave was in Italy; that the 1954–55 touring team went to Australia by sea nad that Italy was a port of call. Complete rewrite necessary, I'd say.

I hope these comments are helpful. Brianboulton (talk) 17:59, 21 July 2011 (UTC)