Talk:Iffley Road rugby football ground

Deletion

This should never have been deleted. To say that this was done summarily and without reason is putting it mildly. Had the Wikiprojects Rugby Union and Rugby League been informed that this was up for deletion then it would have survived easily. The stadium was dismissed as a "non-notable football (sic) stadium" despite having hosted international rugby union matches, being the home of Oxford University's rugby union team (games vs Cambridge are televised) and hosting the one of only five semi-professional rugby league sides in the South of England.GordyB (talk) 17:42, 17 May 2014 (UTC) Oh and contains a listed building.GordyB (talk) 18:13, 17 May 2014 (UTC)

@GordyB: The article was deleted because it was put up for WP:PROD on 13 March 2014; the PROD expired on 20 March 2014 without it being contested, so it was deleted - here's the log entry. The WikiProjects were informed, through the Article Alerts system: here are the notifications for Union and League. Both were posted at 12:00 on 14 March 2014. --Redrose64 (talk) 20:24, 17 May 2014 (UTC)

THe thing being is that nobody looks at the automatic notifications. It's normal protocol to message the project if there is a doubt about notability.GordyB (talk) 21:20, 17 May 2014 (UTC)

If nobody looks at them, why do we have them? But somebody at WP Rugby Union and WP Rugby League must want the Article Alerts notifications, otherwise they wouldn't have signed up for them in the first place.

Anyway, the person to complain to is the person who put it up for PROD, which was Justlettersandnumbers (talk · contribs). --Redrose64 (talk) 22:48, 17 May 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, Redrose64, for the ping, and for explaining to GordyB a bit about how things work. A few comments:

• rugby football is a kind of football
• despite what is written in the article, there is no stadium at this address; it's a football ground
• the article has no references whatsoever
• our criteria for notability in this wiki are fairly clear; I believe that the only one that might apply here is WP:GNG, and the topic as described certainly doesn't meet that
• so I've nominated it for deletion

Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 19:13, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

Words fail me. Really. Have you never heard of Oxford University? Do international rugby union matches not count for something?GordyB (talk) 19:50, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

Yes, oddly enough I have; I studied there for 3 years, a few hundred metres from this ground. Have you heard of WP:COPYVIO? Many thanks to Sionk for noticing that, and dealing with the worst of it; I should have seen it straight away, as it's what brought me to the previous incarnation of this article in the first place. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 01:12, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

I've heard of WP:COPYVIO but evidently you have not heard of [1].GordyB (talk) 19:26, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

I don't think that the term stadium is necessarily inappropriate. My OED says "an athletic or sports ground with tiers of seats for the spectators" - there is tiered seating, it's along the eastern side, mostly under cover. There is no requirement that the tiered seating completely surround the ground - indeed, Kassam Stadium, also in Oxford, has seating on three sides - there is no spectator facilities at all at its western end. --Redrose64 (talk) 10:14, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

I think that's arguable, yes, though I think many people would expect a stadium to be something more like this; I also think it is incontrovertibly a playing-field, so I've replaced "stadium" with that word. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 11:38, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

No, they don't. There are only a handful of stadiums in the UK that share Wembley's 5-star status.GordyB (talk) 21:10, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

Magazine article

On the "eminently non-notable football stadium" published in Rugby League World (available on-line here http://www.totalrl.com/2728296/ ).GordyB (talk) 20:25, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

Oh and the BBC call the stadium "historic" in this article ( http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/rugby-league/19637094 ).GordyB (talk) 20:28, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

Sky prefer "iconic". ( http://www1.skysports.com/watch/tv-shows/boots-n-all/news/8601763/kevin-whately-explains-why-oxford-rugby-league-can-be-successful )GordyB (talk) 20:40, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

They seem to be getting it confused with the staium where the 4-minute mile barrier was broken. Sionk (talk) 23:36, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

They could equally have been referring to the Blues games or the internationals played there. The thing being that sports journalists seem to think that the ground is either "iconic" or "historic" and that would tend to suggest that it is notable. I'm not sure that "wrongly held to be notable" is even a thing.GordyB (talk) 19:30, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

Here is an article on professional side Leeds Rhinos' website. It's the rugby pavilion that is unambiguously described as "historic" and if you read the Rugby League World article (again unambiguously about the rugby ground), you might get some sense of why.GordyB (talk) 21:08, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

The Sky article is clearly inaccurate, plain and simple. It says "will play their home matches at the iconic Iffley Road, where Roger Bannister broke the four-minute mile in 1954." As you and I know, he raced on the running track in the sports stadium nearby. The RLW article clearly describes the correct football ground, but doesn't make any claims of 'historic' or 'iconic', as far as I can see. Sionk (talk) 21:35, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

The Leeds Rhinos piece is quite unambiguous that it is the rugby ground that is historic though. The reason being that the Grade II listed former cricket pavilion is now the "rugby pavilion". Actually that's not the only reason if you read the RLW article, it also talks about the ground being "how grounds used to be" and the rugby union memorabilia in the pavilion.GordyB (talk) 22:00, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

We're clearly reading different articles. I can't see anywhere that unambiguously says it is a historic Grade II listed ground. There's a big difference between a reliable news article unambiguously saying something and User:GordyB interpreting their own conclusions. Sionk (talk) 22:15, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

No, I said that the article called the ground "historic" and it does unambiguously. The old cricket pavilion that is now a cricket pavilion is a grade II listed building but I never said that the article claimed that. As for interpretation, it is your interpretation that the BBC and Sky articles were referring to the running track and Roger Bannister. They never mentioned either.GordyB (talk) 22:35, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

Here's one of the players calling the rugby grounds "historic" [2] - now I daresay that you'll say that the opinion of a player isn't a proper source and that's why I cited Sky and the BBC. Now you might think that the BBC are wrong to describe to the ground as "historic" as they are obviously thinking about something different, but that's you interpreting your own conclusion. There is nothing in the BBC article that supports this and has I have just shown other people seem to think that the stadium is historic in its own right.GordyB (talk) 07:32, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

But you'll surely agree that the Sky article is plainly inaccurate? And as a senior editor you'd surely agree that a number of very brief mentions in the press don't meet WP:GNG criteria? As for being Grade II listed, there's no evidence of this on the 'British Listed Buildings' website. Sionk (talk) 07:47, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

As a senior editor I'm aware that sources are not always available online and as WP:GNG guidelines say that a lack of sources isn't the same thing as something not being notable. Stadiums rarely get articles written about them in the press even if they are very well known. This usually only happens if the stadium burns down, gets sold off or has major work done on it. Certain aspects of this article are going to need written sources to fully reference them. For this reason sports Wikiprojects have their own definitions of what constitutes "notable".

The Sky article seems to consider the rugby ground to be part of the larger Iffley Road sports centre. I've come across this view quite a few times whilst doing research. The OU committee that met to discuss upgrades to the sports centre in 2010 actually met in the rugby pavilion. Now that isn't proof that the two places are one and the same but they are certainly associated though quite a few folk think that the rugby ground is iconic and historic in its own right.

The point about notability is that it is there to stop people writing articles about crisp packets that have fallen down the back of the sofa. It is not intended to stop people writing stubs or writing about things where "recentism" means that it's difficult to find sources for parts of the article.GordyB (talk) 08:13, 21 May 2014 (UTC)