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The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was no consensus. There is a clear consensus that the qualification "since 1945" is problematic, but there is no consensus this can't be fixed other than by deletion. Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 12:01, 4 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

List of non-league clubs in the Fifth Round of the FA Cup since 1945

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List of non-league clubs in the Fifth Round of the FA Cup since 1945 (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)
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Prod removed so moving to AFD. A trivial list based on a single Guardian article which identifies a curious set of intersections, namely non-league clubs, with a specific round of the FA Cup with a specific year. Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. The Rambling Man (talk) 08:46, 24 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 17:12, 24 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. It looks like I am likely to get out-voted here, but it seems to me that the notability of this information is decided not by editors' preconceptions but by the sources, and here we have multiple sources which have reported on this magical little group of non-league clubs enjoying unusual success in the Cup. In addition to The Guardian I quickly pull up stories about this from ITV[1], The Sun[2], and the FA Cup official website[3]. (See also a 2008 TheFA.com story on the same subject, which I found on the Kidderminster website[4]). In any event I appreciate Dweller's efforts to maintain the information.--Arxiloxos (talk) 20:12, 24 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Point of information, first three links don't mention 1945, the fourth is dead for me the fourth now says "since the war". No indication of 1945. So a good start would be to recommend removing the "since 1945" caveat perhaps? The sources don't back up the title, and if we did remove "since 1945", who else would be included in this intersection of intersections? The Rambling Man (talk) 21:28, 24 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • Are you disputing that "since the war" means "since 1945"? It's hardly original research to interpret that statement in the obvious way. Phil Bridger (talk) 19:52, 26 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        • Sorry, there have been many wars.... Why might it not be since the First World War? The Rambling Man (talk) 20:00, 26 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
          • In British English the phrase "since the war", without qualification, has for the last sixty-something years meant "since World War II". Once again, do you seriously believe that the use of that phrase on the FA web site means anything else? Phil Bridger (talk) 20:42, 26 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
            • This isn't British English Wikipedia, you know that, right? And actually, working with many military veterans, they all have various interpretations of "since the war" so perhaps you need to think again. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:47, 26 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
              • I've just done a literal 2 second Google search, second hit was this - British source, "since the war" - yep, it's about...the Falklands War. GiantSnowman 20:55, 26 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
                • That's obviously not comparable, because the context of the Falklands had clearly been established before the phrase was used. The same question to you: do you seriously believe that the use of that phrase on the FA web site means anything else? Phil Bridger (talk) 21:47, 26 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
                  • Does it matter what one or two of us "believe"? Verifiability is the key. It appears that "since the war" is not synonymous with the Second World War for everyone in the world. Perhaps in your world, but not in mine, and not in everyone else's. You're probably right, that's probably want the person who writes pages at the FA meant, but it's not directly equivalent to saying 1945, as I'm sure you now know. Sorry. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:51, 26 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. Disputing the title isn't a reason to delete the article. It appears that it has already been established by Arxiloxos that the list is not based on a single Guardian article. The content is verified by reliable sources per policy and is unusual enough to only have six instances in over sixty years. If the title is not suitable then this can be discussed in an appropriate place. Cloudz679 09:00, 27 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Why "since 1945" then? Why not "since 1930" for instance? What's the justification for the cut-off point? The Rambling Man (talk) 14:07, 27 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Actually, "since 1945" plays an important part here because, as far as I can tell, this "intersection", trivial as it is, is entirely unnecessary. The sources variously use "since 1945", "since the war", "ever".... Prior to the Second World War I could find no record of any non-league club making it to the "fifth round", either because there were no non-league clubs involved or because there wasn't a "fifth round". So yes, it IS an important part of this discussion. The Rambling Man (talk) 18:28, 27 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Arxiloxos argues persuasively that the intersection is notable. Cloudz points out that even if the "since 1945" is disputable, that's not grounds for deletion. I tend to concur, but am interested to see more discussion before changing my opinion. --Dweller (talk) 13:53, 27 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Coming out of hibernation for this, and apologies for the rather long comment. (Nice to see so many people from the rather brief previous discussion at WT:FOOTY joining in here; as promised last year, a golden raspberry to The Rambling Man for nominating this for deletion ;-p There is also some relevant historic discussion with Dweller here, but he seems to have changed his mind about the value of this article since last year.)
The Rambling Man's original rationale seems to be that the topic is not notable. In itself, the presence of a non-league football club (from the fifth level of the English league system or below) in the last 16 stage of the premier English football knockout competition is unusual and is reported upon extensively each time it happens or when one of the relevant teams has another good run in the FA Cup; for example, [5] We even have a separate article on a relevant fourth-round tie, Yeovil Town v Sunderland (1949). A fortiori, the collection of such instances into one article is notable. (If not, you could similarly question the notability of List of Scottish football clubs in the FA Cup or List of Premier League hat-tricks or York City F.C. Clubman of the Year, which are all featured lists, and the latter survived an AFD in August 2010. I know, other stuff exists, whatever.)
In addition to questioning notability, TRM also seems to be saying that there are no or not enough reliable sources (or possibly that the sources do not verify the content), and that someone (who?) should write a different and better article instead. On the last point, if I had the time and the inclination, I might write something better on "giant-killers" (which is clearly a notable topic - see for example [6] and [7]) or Non-league clubs in the FA Cup proper, but I don't see how the non-existence of a different article affects the argument about this one. Someone else is free to do better, of course, if they wish, but until they do, this all we currently have. On verifiability, there clearly are some sources, which are reliable. I have just updated the ones in the article, and added one by John Motson. This is precisely the sort of thing that you might find in an football encyclopaedia. Whether the sources verify all of the content surely does not inform whether the topic is notable. In any event, I think the sources do support the content, and demonstrate its notability.
To be frank, it seems a bit daft to be quibbling about what the Football Association means by "since the war". They clearly mean "since 1945", not the Falklands War or the Boer War or English Civil War or the Hundred Years War (nor indeed since the first (world) war). The FA Cup was suspended between 1939 and 1945, of course, so that creates a natural break, as does the period from 1915 to 1919. I would like the article to go back beyond 1945, as I originally thought it should be possible to do, but you quickly run into three issues if you go back earlier: (i) Spurs won the FA Cup as a non-league team in 1901, and Southampton was the losing finalist as a non-league team in 1902, and there may be other instances. (I note in passing that the third paragraph of FA_Cup#Giant-killers and the source relied upon there is factually incorrect without the qualifier "since 1945" or "since the (second world) war".) It would be a bit time consuming but hardly original research to go through the official FA Cup records to see which teams were in the fifth and subsequent rounds (or equivalent) of the FA Cup since 1901, or indeed since it was founded, and which league division they were in at the time. But I have not done that, nor have I located a source that has done so, yet. (ii) The expansion of the Football League, which only had one division from 1888 until 1892 (so all teams were "non-league" from the foundation of the FA Cup in 1871 until 1888), then two divisions until the Third Division was created in 1920, and then two Third Divisions (North and South) from 1921 until the reorganisation to the existing four sequential divisions in 1958 (ignoring the detail of the First Division becoming the Premier League in 1992). So "non-league" means a slightly different thing before say 1920 or 1921. By way of example, Southampton was a founder member of the Third Division in 1920, but was "non-league" in 1902. Spurs was "non-league" in 1901, but was elected to join the Second Division in 1908. So this is a reason to qualify "non-league" by a period of time, "since 1945" in this case. (iii) As I understand it, the names of the rounds in the FA Cup changed in 1926; before then, there was no "fifth round", so the title would have to be "last 16" rather than "Fifth Round".
On my talk page, The Rambling Man asks "[why] non-league clubs into the fifth round? and then, since 1945". As mentioned above, the list of non-league clubs involved at any stage in the FA Cup would be rather long, even if preliminary rounds are excluded. Feel free to write that article, if you wish, but the most notable participation of non-league clubs is surely their presence in the later rounds, and since 1945, that means the Fifth Round. But these are points of detail on scope and coverage, which might be relevant at WP:FLC, but not about the notability of this topic and its suitability for an article in the first place. -- Testing times (talk) 18:36, 27 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Refer to original referencing and multiple tenuous intersections. Many refs say "ever", some say "since the war" and "since 1945", thanks to Testing Times for clarifying the significance of 1945, but that's not necessarily clear in the article itself. The Rambling Man (talk) 18:57, 27 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep Non-league teams reaching the Fifth Round of the FA Cup seems to be a rare enough event for it to warrent its own article, and there is a lot of coverage when such an event occurs. The problem here seems to be the fact that the definition of "non-league" has changed significantly over time. As Testing times points out, non-league has even been at level two if you go back far enough. A discussion may need to be had about whether the article has the correct name, or whether the article goes far back enough, but they aren't reasons to outright delete it. Del♉sion23 (talk) 22:08, 27 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Fine, but the name defines the inclusion criteria, which defines the article. It's fine to say "we'll give it a new name later" but what are we actually talking about? Do you want to just keep a generic article about non-league teams progression in the FA Cup or are you particularly interested in their progress since 1945 or are you interested only if they made it to round 5? What are you expecting from this kind of article, specifically? The Rambling Man (talk) 22:11, 27 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment The list would be the same if you would go back to 1925-1926, the first season using the current format. Before WW1 it was very common for non-league clubs to reach this stage of the competition. Non-league clubs played in round 4 or better (present day round 6) on 35 occasions between 1889 and 1914. Source: The Guinness Record of the FA Cup by Mike Collett page 597 (published in 1993) Cattivi (talk) 12:16, 28 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
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