Sunderland A.F.C.

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I'm not really common with taking an article past GA, so I'd like to list this for peer review to help get some comments on how to improve this article, to eventually take it to featured article status. I'm in the process of asking someone to copyedit the article as we speak, so that should shortly be sorted. Thanks. Sunderland06 (talk) 18:08, 15 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from ChrisTheDude (talk · contribs)

Might not get all the way through before my lunch break ends, but here goes anyway......

Lead

• The first sentence in the lead refers to the club in the singular, but almost everywhere else the club is referred to in the plural - be consistent. Done - Is -> are.
• "in 1936, when they became the last team wearing striped shirts to win the league" - is this really a noteworthy fact? I'd hesitate to mention it in the article at all, never mind in the lead. Done - Removed.
• "the league's birth in 1888" - a league cannot be born, choose a different word. Done - Birth -> inauguration.
• The bit about the England games which have been played at the Stadium of Light has no relevance to Sunderland as a club and shouldn't be in the lead. Done - Removed.

History

• Wikilink Perry Barr Done - Linked.
• I see that the slangy term "top flight" is linked to wiktionary, but personally I'd simply not use it Done - Changed to highest divison.
• "Sunderland won their last major trophy in 1973 courtesy of 1–0 victory" - should be "courtesy of a 1-0 victory" Done - Corrected.
• In the next sentence, wikilink Second Division, don't think it had been linked before Done - Linked.
• Wikilink and/or explain "volley", for those unfamiliar with footy terms Done - Linked.
• "In 1990, they were promoted back to the top flight, after losing to Swindon Town in the play off final, Swindon's victory was revoked....." - grammatically incorrect run-on sentence, split it into two Done - Changed.
• Next sentence is unreferenced Done - Referenced.
• "Peter Reid was brought in, and quickly turned things around" - specify what role he was brought in to do, as it could have been anything from chairman down to tea boy (I realise the next sentence mentions him being manager, but it should be mentioned earlier) 'Done'
• "The Stadium capacity was later increased to 49,000." - very short sentence, culd it not be expanded or merged with another sentence? Done - Merged.
• "Sunderland returned to the first division as champions" - they did not return to the First Division. They may have returned to the top division in English football, but this should be written in a way which is not potentially confusing Done - Corrected.
• Wikilink Luton Town Done

Colours and crest

• "an all blue strip, somewhat different from their red and white stripes of today" - the latter clause is a bit "stating the obvious"...... Done - Removed.
• "In front" is two words Done - Split.

Back for some more later........ -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 13:10, 25 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Struway2 (talk · contribs)

General advice, from a person who talks like an expert despite only having half-shares in one featured article :-)

FAs aim for brilliant prose, not convinced they often get it :-) but the featured article candidate does need to be well written, and it will need a copyedit. So I'm not going to pick out every bit of prose that I think needs tweaking, because your copyeditor can do that themselves. Have a look at the WP:Featured article criteria, and the advice articles linked from there. And check out the structure and content of other featured football club articles. Arsenal F.C. has the balance about right, to my taste: enough detail to be complete, interesting and informative, without space-filling woffle. FAC takes quality of referencing more seriously than GA or FLC.

• Lead. SAFC is a professional club, not team. Done - Changed to team.
• History. What's an "unhealthy" rivalry? Done - Changed.
• 1973 cup final. You'll need a more obviously neutral reference for the "greatest save" stuff than a Sunderland book. Done - Referenced with the FA and changed to "most famous save".
• And there are better sources for the result/scorer than the not-always-accurate fa-cupfinals.co.uk (if you look at their 1931 Cup Final, their Birmingham team is actually the Newcastle team from the previous year): try The Times archive, or The FA. Done - Changed to The FA reference.
• "Since 1973 only two other clubs ... have equalled Sunderland's achievement of lifting the FA Cup while playing outside the top tier of English football." needs citing. The current references cite that those clubs were lower division; they don't cite them being the only lower division clubs to do it. Done - Changed reference.
• Friendship Trophy needs explaining. Done - Created a smaller section in Honours section, then linked to from history section.
• I'd be tempted to add a non-Sunderland source for Swindon being relegated for financial irregularities. Done - Changed to Swindon source.
• Relegation to Third Div. Third Division needs linking. Better say just "for the first time": anything like "first and only" would need an "as of" date. Done - Linked.
• Too much recent detail (and too little ancient-history detail). You've got three times as much detail of SAFC winning the Second Division in 2007 as you have of them winning three league titles and three league runners-ups in the 1890s. - Comment - I've revisited and expanded the earlier years quite a lot, I feel there's a much better balance between the beginning and current periods of the club.
• Colours and crest. Ref #49, which seems to know what it's talking about, says there's no evidence for South Bank giving them the striped kit, and ref #50 isn't what I'd call reliable, being a Q&A column where answers are variously submitted by readers, come from Wikipedia, and/or are totally unsourced. Does your book, or Historical Kits, not say anything on the origins of the striped kit? Comment - I'll have a look in my book, but the page with the Sunderland logos on is solely for the images.
  • Now numbers 48 and 49, which may be what's confusing us. The Roker Park one says there's no evidence, and the Guardian one is IMO unreliable.
    • Removed about South Bank.
      • The book says we first played in red and white stripes in the 1886-87 season, I've added it to the articles.
• Stadiums. Add a ((main)) for Roker Park and SoL. Done - Added.
• "After renovating the Main Stand, the club were nearly bankrupted as a result of it, and Roker Park was put up for sale." Did anyone buy it, or what? Done - Added some.
• Maybe some of the detail on the SoL from the History section belongs here? Done - I've moved the part about the Davy Lamp.
• Supporters. Hooligan firm needs linking. Done - Linked.
• The brawl quote. The name of the person saying it isn't important: his job, a lawyer for the Crown Prosecution Service, is what makes his words relevant. Second, according to the cited source, it isn't a continuous quote. The first half came from the CPS lawyer, but we aren't told when; the second half came from the trial, but we aren't told who said it. Maybe too much detail? Done - Split quote.
• The cited source for banning orders refers to people banned by the courts, not the club. And the two references could be combined, they're only two pages of the same report. Done - Changed to court order, and they're two references because it links to a specific part, and takes trawling through different parts out of the equation.
• Programme price needs an "as of" date if included. Done - Included.
• "The current fanzine of choice" needs rewording. Done - Changed.
• Nicknames. "Sunderland do not have an official nickname". Is that not what the vote was for? Oops - That was old news, changed.
• "As expected" needs either citing or removing. Done - Removed.
• Maybe a bit much detail about the renaming of the battery? could some perhaps go in a footnote? Done - Trimmed, left a bit info, and relevent info to Black Cat battery.
• Managers. You don't need a full list of managers here, only duplicates the main manager list. Either write a couple of sentences mentioning achievements of particularly important managers, or cut the table to a well-defined subset (those having won a trophy, perhaps). And if you keep the table, the flags column isn't MoS-compliant: see MOS:FLAG. Actually, neither is the use of flags in the players section, but as that's standard football-club-article usage hopefully it's not your problem. Comment - It doesn't include all the managers in Sunderland's history, I already cut the table down to a minimum of 50 games which cut the list from 33 managers down to 21.
  • You're right :-) I looked at the long list and failed to read the words. Still seems a lot to me, but that's a matter of taste. If you're keeping the flags column, though, you do need to add the country name alongside the flag.
• Honours. If it was me, I'd lump the second-tier titles all together, as Second Division / First Division / Championship (level 2), but that's just a matter of taste. Either way, the section needs sourcing. Done - Added references.
• References. ISBNs need a hyphen in the middle, not an endash. It took me ages to work out why they weren't linking like they're supposed to. Done - Changed back to hyphens.
• Documentation for cite templates now requires the publication date to be in the same format as used for dates in the main article. Comment - Sorry I don't quite understand, could you point me towards where this happens.
  • That's me not making myself clear, just for a change... In the article you correctly write dates in the non-US format 28 November 2008. If you look at Template:Cite web etc, in the reading it now says that the "date" parameter should be entered in the same format as used in the main text of the article. What that means is, instead of writing Cite web |date=2008-11-28 you need to write Cite web |date=28 November 2008.
    • I've done that, and changed book references too.
• Categories. Need to be mentioned and sourced somewhere in the article. There's no mention of "United Soccer Association imported teams" or "Companies formerly listed on the London Stock Exchange" in the article, as far as I noticed. Done - Removed.
• Things you haven't got. Maybe a bit more on ownership?

Please don't take all this as things you need to do now. Much of it is just suggestions. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 20:30, 28 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Peanut4 (talk · contribs)

Lead

• "making them one of the most successful clubs in English association football." Could probably do with a reference. Done - Removed, strangely I couldn't find a reference despite it being here.
• "Prior to the Second World War, Sunderland were league champions six times: in 1892, 1893, 1895, 1902, 1913, and most recently in 1936." This seems to be simply a repeat of the previous sentence. Done - Merged with previous paragraph.
• "Sunderland stayed in the top flight until 1958, a record which only Arsenal, in 1992, surpassed." What's the record? Successive seasons or total seasons? Done - Successive.
• "which translates into English as "Stadium of Light"." Any need for the italics? Done - Removed italics.

History

• "Glasgow-born and Sunderland-based school teacher James Allan started the Sunderland & District Teachers Association Football Club in October 1879." I don't think you need to link 1879 here. It doesn't really add much. There's quite a few similar to this. Done - Unlinked.
  • A couple more years are still linked for unobvious reasons. The two I can see, are "In 1904" and "In 1913". If you feel they are necessary keep them, but I fail to see any reason to link there. Peanut4 (talk) 15:07, 4 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• "Sunderland Albion F.C." Other clubs are referred to by their commonname rather than XX F.C. It's probably best to be consistent. Done - Piped.
• "They finished the season as champions after gaining 42 points, they were labelled by The Times newspaper as "A wonderfully fine team"." Two main verbs. I've had to re-read this three times and I still can't find the emhasis. Also I don't think "A" should be capped. Done - Uncapitalised the A, but as its a direct quote, can't really do anything with it.
  • The problem isn't the quote, it's "They finished ..., they were labelled..." Peanut4 (talk) 13:08, 4 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • I think I've sorted this out now.
• "before West Brom acheveied the same feat in the 1919–20 season." Should spell out team names in full. Should be West Bromwich Albion. Done - Spelled out.
• "The club won their fifth league title in the 1901–02 season, after finishing second in the previous campaign, they finished just three points above Everton to secure the title." Again two main verbs. Probably a best idea to put a semi-colon after "campaign". Done - Added semi-colon.
• "Due to the outbreak of World War I in 1915," Br. English prefers the First World War. Done
• Similar with World War II. Done
• "for the first, and only, time to date." first is redundant. Simply say "for the only time to date." Done - Changed.
• "They won the first leg 2–1 at Roker Park but were defeated 2–0 in the away leg, meaning they were knocked out of the competition 3–2 on aggregate." Might be best to wikilink aggregate. Comment - It is linked in the previous sentence.
• "After having lost to Swindon Town in the play off final," Very awkward wording. Done - Simplified.
• "They stayed up for one year before being relegated on the final day of the season." I'm confused if they spent just one or two seasons. I guess it's two seasons, in which case it ought to read "final day of the following season." Done - Changed.
• "Sunderland's last outing in a major final came in 1992 when, as a Second Division club, they returned to the FA Cup final." Perhaps wl 1992 to 1992 FA Cup Final. Done - Linked.
• The history section seems a little weighted towards recent events.

Colours

• "Sunderland began playing in an all blue strip since their formation in 1879." Probably best as "from their formation." Done - Changed
• "The club played in a strip with red and white halves,[56] until the 1886–87 season," I'm confused. It says they played in blue in the previous sentence. Done - Changed.
• "The crest also contains two lions, the black cats of Sunderland and a banner reading the club's motto Consectatio Excellentiae which means In pursuit of excellence" Might be a good idea to put "In pursuit of excellence" in quote marks. Done

• • "Sunderland began playing in an all blue strip from their formation,[55] until they changed to a red and white halved strip,[56] until the 1886–87 season, when they gained the red and white stripes they currently play in." Two uses of "until" in the same sentence. Can you provide a year when they changed from blue to the halved-shirt? Finally, you shouldn't finish a sentence with a preposition. Not entirely sure about the use of currently either. I suggest changing it to "...red and white stripes in which they now play." Peanut4 (talk) 15:07, 4 December 2008 (UTC) Done - Added year, split and reworded sentence.[reply]
    • Just a thought. Have they played in red and white stripes since 1887? If so it might actually be better to change the final part to "...in which they have played since." Peanut4 (talk) 16:04, 4 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      • Changed to that.

Stadiums

• The club then moved from Blue House Field to Groves Field in Ashbrooke in 1882," then is redundant. Done - Removed.
• "The club's third stadium was Horatio Street in Roker which became the first Sunderland stadium to be north of the River Wear, the club played a single season there before moving." Again two main verbs. Perhaps add a semi-colon after Wear. Done - Added.
• "Roker Park was one of the venues for the 1966 FIFA World Cup and witnessed games between; Italy and Chile,[67] USSR and Italy,[68] USSR and Chile,[69] and the quarter final between USSR and Hungary." Are the actual games relevant to Sunderland? Best for that info to be at Roker Park but not here. Done - Removed.
• "It hosted its first England match on 10 October 1999 against Belgium as England won 2–1, the attendance was 40,897." Again the details aren't relevant to Sunderland. Done - Removed.
• "the stadium hosted its first competitive match, when England and Turkey played in a Euro 2004 qualifier infront of 46,667." First competitive international match surely? Done - Removed as that is too irelevant.
• "From 2004 the Stadium of Light has been used as a host for graduations from the University of Sunderland." Again not relevant to Sunderland AFC. Done - Removed.

Supporters

• "The Seaburn Casuals and Newcastle's firm, The Gremlins brawled, with Kingsley Hyland OBE" I suggest re-writing. On first read I thought Seaburn Casuals and the Gremlins had a fight against Kingsley Hyland. Secondly, who is Kingsley Hyland? Done - Split sentences and indicated who Hyland is.
• "the jury stated it was "like a scene from the film Braveheart" in a previous trial." Is this definite? Juries don't normally give any verdicts in trials. Done - Resolved.
• "Sunderland has a small number of supporters who have had Banning Orders placed on them by court order for unreasonable behaviour." Who says it's small? I suggest re-writing to indicate a reason to say small. Done - Removed small part completely.
• "The Sunderland fans were voted as the loudest ground in the 2007–08 season following a survey which was carried out at every ground in the league, the highest peak volume was measured at 129.2 decibels." Again two main verbs. Done - Semi-colon to split.
• "Tyne–Wear" and "Tees–Wear" should have dashes not hyphens. Done - Added.
• "Sunderland proposed that the gate money to be donated to charity, Albion declined and Sunderland won the match 2–0." Two main verbs. Done - Semi-colon to split.

Sponsorship

• "Sunderland A.F.C. is currently sponsored" Should be are to be consistent with the rest of the page. Done - Spelled out.

Friendship Trophy

• "Each time Sunderland and Norwich City meet, they contest the Friendship Trophy," Why the bold? Done - De-bolded.

Sources

• What makes catstattery.co.uk a reliable source? - Statistical based website, contains all players before the current season, and every season, manager, and head-to-head data. Similar to Ipswich Town's Pride of Anglia, apart from the graphics.
• Ditto kassiesa.com? - Used solely to illustrate images, as an alternative to uploading. Needed for reference to description.
• Ditto readytogo.net? - Unnoficial fan site with recognition from many well kwown sources. [1].
  • I think you'll need to be ready to provide answers per advice and policy at WP:RS if you want to pass this at WP:FAC. Peanut4 (talk) 15:01, 4 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hope this all helps. Peanut4 (talk) 23:29, 3 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]