Talk:F.C. United of Manchester/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Harrias (talk · contribs) 12:48, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

Initial comments

• On the whole, this looks a good, well-written article. Personally, I'm not keen on the short paragraph style of writing: I think some of the paragraphs could be merged together to make the article easier to read (for example, there is a single sentence paragraph in the Northern Premier League Division One North section which would be better appended on the end of the previous paragraph.
  •  Done I've combined paragraphs which talk about similar topics. I've kept separate paragraphs for different seasons within the sub sections.

• The title of the article is "F.C. United of Manchester" but other than on the first use in the article, you then use "FC" without the dots: be consistent in the usage.
  •  Done I've changed all references to FC United into F.C. United.

• You also use "FC" throughout as a descriptor for the team throughout the article, but given that this stands for football club, I would suggest using the slightly longer, but more specific "FC United".
  •  Done I've changed all references to FC into F.C. United.

• Given that the Football Club History Database hasn't been updated for a few seasons, I'd remove the link to it.
  •  Done Link removed.

I'll read through the article and give more specific points over the next few days. Harrias ^talk 12:48, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for starting the review. Looking forward to improving the article. Del_♉sion23 (talk) 20:56, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

Lead

• "club, with the supporters owning the club and voting on how the club is run." – This is an example of "Noun plus -ing", and should generally be avoided. There is another use of this in the Criticism section. Take a look at User:Tony1/Noun plus -ing, and you should be able to remove them. This is something I find myself doing all the time!
  •  Done Thanks for the link, it'll help me to avoid this kind of mistake in the future! I've replaced the text with "The supporters own the club and vote on how the club is run."
• Given Marginson has also played for Blackpool and Rotherham, why is he described as "the former Macclesfield Town player"?
  •  Done I've replaced "Macclesfield Town" with "professional football" so as not to go into too much detail about his past career in the lead.

Formation

• "900 players applied to take part in the trials," – WP:ORDINAL states that "Numbers that begin a sentence are spelled out." Given the reference states "Almost 900.." I would suggest changing to "Just under 900," or similar.
  •  Done Changed to "Just under 900"

North West Counties Football League

• If you're going to use the abbreviation NWCFL, you need to place it in parentheses after North West Counties Football League earlier in the article.
  •  Done Added "(NWCFL)" after first mention in this section.
• "including the final match attendance of 6,032 which is still an NWCFL record." – I'm a little unclear as to what this means: was the league decided by a Final, or are you simply referring to their last league game of the season? Further clarification is needed.
  •  Done Changed to "including an attendance of 6,032 during their final league match of the season, which is still an NWCFL record"

Northern Premier League Division One North

• "They lost to Fleetwood Town 2–1 in the following FA Cup First Qualifying Round." – following seems the wrong word to use here: Maybe something like "They were eliminated in the next round of the competition, losing 2–1 to Fleetwood Town." Or something else of your own construction!
  •  Done Changed as suggested.

Northern Premier League Premier Division

• The second paragraph of this section goes into a lot more detail than is probably necessary, and is misleading in parts. It could be rewritten as something like: "F.C. United narrowly missed out on a play-off place in their first year in the Northern Premier League Premier Division. Before the final match of the season, they were level on points with Bradford Park Avenue and Kendal Town, with superior goal difference. When ten minutes remained in their match against Bradford, they would have secured a play-off place, but an equaliser for Bradford, and a winning goal for Kendal in their match granted Kendal the place instead."
  •  Done Changed as suggested. This section was a bit of a difficulty for me. It's one of the leftovers from when I first started editing the article and the history section went into way too much detail! You've put it very succinctly now, cheers!
• "In the 2010–11 season F.C. United went on their best ever FA Cup campaign," – how about "In the 2010–11 season F.C. United achieved their best FA Cup campaign," – they ever is redundant regardless of the other change.
  •  Done Changed as suggested.

Stadium

• No need for "with Bury F.C.." To have two full-stops!
  •  Done Removed full-stop.
• "Moston Community Stadium" shouldn't be in bold.
  •  Done Removed bold.

Records

• "Shortest league career: 19 minutes – Manager Karl Marginson played in the last home game of the 2006–07 season against Formby" – A bit too trivial I think, this should probably be removed. Harrias ^talk 15:54, 16 October 2011 (UTC)
  •  Done Removed trivia. Del_♉sion23 (talk) 17:22, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

References

• These are a bit inconsistent: sometimes the location of the reference (F.C. United official website in Ref#1) is italicised, and other times it is not (Ref#5). I would suggest using italics ONLY for newspapers and books.
  •  Done Made italics consistent in references.
    • Ref#33 is still inconsistent, and Ref#60 is broken. Ref#90 is currently dead. Harrias ^talk 19:38, 16 October 2011 (UTC)
      •  Done Removed italics from Ref#33. Fixed Ref#60. Replaced Ref#90 with a BBC News reference. Del_♉sion23 14:04, 17 October 2011 (UTC)
• Newspaper references, such as Ref#10, should have the publisher details (in this case Trinity Mirror) and the author details.
  •  Done Added publisher details to references.
• Ref#11 says Bolton News, but the link goes to the Lancashire Telegraph?
  •  Done Corrected source of Ref#11.

Once you've addressed these issues, I'll have another look through the article, but it's pretty close. Harrias ^talk 15:54, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

Great stuff. Finished the references now. Cheers! Del_♉sion23 (talk) 18:40, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

The article is looking pretty good; I've got a few questions about reliability of sources for the following:

• NonLeagueDaily
• tonykempster.co.uk
• mikeavery.co.uk
• footballwebpages.co.uk
• Under The Boardwalk

I would suggest that Bleacher Report definitely doesn't qualify as a reliable source due to its blog-like nature. Harrias ^talk 19:38, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

• NonLeagueDaily – replaced with one of the books in the bibliography. (I am in possession of all the books in it, actually working my way through them to get more notes for my eventual goal of getting the article to FA)
• tonykempster.co.uk – Website has won an award from the Football Supporters Federation. It's a great collection of football stats that is sadly no longer updated for new seasons as the owner passed away a few years ago. Trying not to invoke WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS here but it is used as a ref in Andover F.C., a Good Article.
• mikeavery.co.uk – Mike Avery's site was the replacement for Tony Kempster's work until Nonleaguematters was created to take over as the best site for football statistics in the lower levels of the league system. Think of these two sites as earlier incarnations of NonLeague Matters.
• footballwebpages.co.uk – replaced with NonLeagueMatters football stats website reference.
• Under The Boardwalk – website of the official FC United fanzine. The PDF is an article from one of their publications.
• Bleacher Report – removed. Already two other reliable references from the Guardian and the Telegraph pointing out that some Manchester United fans consider FC fans traitors.

Del_♉sion23 (talk) 20:08, 16 October 2011 (UTC)