Wikipedia:Peer review/Steve Bruce/archive1

Steve Bruce

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This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've been working on this article on and off for most of this year, forever getting distracted and wandering off onto other things. But now I've knuckled down and I think it's nearly of FA quality. Please let me know what I still need to do.........

Thanks, ChrisTheDude (talk) 21:35, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Comments from Jameboy (talk · contribs)

Infobox

• Do we have to put single quotes around the 'B' in England B, given that they don't appear in that article's title? (ditto same in Norwich section)
  • Changed

Lead

• The second and third paragraphs begin quite similarly ("began his playing/managerial career"), so it may be worth a minor reword, just to make it more interesting to read.
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• "He twice led them to promotion". I'm not sure if it is clear enough who them are, but my judgement is affected by the fact that I already know the answer. I guess I probably would assume it was the last team mentioned in the previous sentence if I didn't know. It's probably fine, but may be worth just checking with someone who is not familiar with the subject, and clarifying further if necessary.
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Early life

• Newcastle needs disambiguating (or worse, according to Sunderland fans)
  • Changed - it's already wikilinked two sentences earlier in the quotation, so I just unlinked the second usage
• Ballboy actually goes to a dab page, so you'll want to point the link to the more PC Ballkid.
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Norwich City

• probably need link to 1985 Football League Cup Final (can't see one)
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• "Norwich won promotion back to the first division" - First Division should be in capitals (or you could have "top division")
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Man Utd

• Could do with links to 1990 FA Cup Final, 1991 UEFA Cup Winners' Cup Final, 1991 Football League Cup Final and 1992 Football League Cup Final
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• Is it worth mentioning United losing out on the title to Leeds in 1991-92? Given his injury, I'm not sure how big a role he played in the title chase or if he had any significant thoughts (ie quotes) on them losing out.
  • I'll have a look through the relevant section of his autobiog tonight and see if there are any quotes worth pulling out.....
• Bryan Robson says of Bruce: "There's no doubt he was one of the best English players not to be capped by his country." (p118 of "Robbo", Robson's autobiography) I think you have this aspect well-covered but I just thought I'd mention it in case you wanted to throw in another quote or reference. That's about all I could find on Bruce in that book that may be of use.
  • I think I'll hold it in reserve for now, but cheers for the heads-up!

Blues (as player)

• First sentence ("Bruce was among...") contains several facts, consider breaking it up somehow.
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Management

• "In his first season in charge the club (Huddersfield) came close to reaching the Division One play-offs," - if my memory is correct, I'm sure they were top at one point (maybe October/November?) but faded and ended up missing the play-offs, so it may be worth mentioning this, assuming that I'm correct and there's a reference for it. Actually it may have been Palace I was thinking of - didn't he take them to the top of the league and then leave? All the seasons blend into one after a while - I'll see what I can find out though.
• On April 29 2007 - should be 29 April 2007 (UK format)
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• He effectively "swapped jobs" with Trevor Francis (Francis succeeded him at Palace), but I'm not sure how you could mention this, if at all.
  • Probably worht mentioning, as it drew a lot of comment at the time, but I'll have to have a think about how to word this in such a way that I don't end up implying that any sort of formal "job swap" arrangement had been made......

Life outside football

• link "Hexham"
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I was very surprised to see that Tony Brown wrote The Definitive Gillingham F.C, but being a common name I assume it's a different one though! Cheers. --Jameboy (talk) 00:10, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

• • Cheers for your comments, I've started addressing them and will get to the rest later today........ -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 07:08, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Comments from Struway2 (talk · contribs)

• Lead. Too many spells
• more than 200 games better than over 200
• should promotion be linked?
• Early life section. without paying would go better after St James Park
• a bob maybe needs linking to something, for the benefit of non-English readers, or English readers under 30, probably
• Like many other future professionals from the area needs citing
• represented Newcastle at football Newcastle schools, or something else?
• Gillingham section. Do reserve team and first team want linking, or is that going too far?
• Should PFA team of the year be capitalised (along the lines of Gillingham's Player of the Year)
• Norwich City. Does own goal need linking?
• Perhaps state explicitly Norwich City's or the club's player of the year, firstly for clarification, and secondly to justify linking it to List of Norwich City F.C. Players of the Year
• The quote about Bobby Robson needs single quotes round Robson's words, not double
• Manchester United. Is all bar one a bit too colloquial?
• Not sure latterday is the right word (and if it is, it should be hyphenated)
• The Jack Charlton Ireland selection sentence could do with a restructure. And perhaps split the next sentence into two
• Perhaps As previous Double-winning captains Dave Mackay and Alan Hansen were from Scotland and Danny Blanchflower from Northern Ireland, ...
• Later playing career section has a couple of dates still linked
• Career stats. Had you considered putting club total rows, as here? Though that format probably works better when the player was at each club for several seasons
• Also, consider making the number columns all the same width as the Football League/Premier League one
• Early managerial career. Arsenal sentence goes on a bit. And it's probably worth mentioning that the game was declared void and replayed.

• Birmingham City. This section may contain elements of POV and OR, and you're welcome to ignore it.

• Bruce chose to remain at Birmingham because, according to the Indy at the time, "Birmingham let it be known that although there is a "get-out" clause in Bruce's pounds 1.5m-a-year deal, it can be activated only during a three-week period at the end of the season. Birmingham would be entitled to pounds 3m in compensation. The only other way Bruce could leave would be either if he walked out - which would result in legal action - or if Newcastle offered even more in compensation which would be hugely expensive."[1], or, according to Sullivan last year, "We priced Steve out of a move to Newcastle three years ago. In his contract there is a £7m compensation clause. The reality is that I don't know whether anyone would pay that."[2]
• 2 n's in Glenn Roeder
• Perhaps too much is made of the travelling Birmingham fans showed their support by chanting Bruce's name. Some travelling fans always did/do chant the manager's name whatever the circumstances, and I don't remember there being any more than a couple of "Brucie, Brucie" which stopped once he reacted. Though it's typical of the man (to be fair, possibly typical of any man under fire) that he reckoned those few were the "real" fans, as per your reference, "The supporters you saw today are all loyalist. They don't go on internet sites or call radio phone-ins."
• Too many sentences starting Despite.... Though you seem to have omitted the one that goes Despite going into the 2005-06 season with what the chairman described as "the best squad of players for 25 years",[3] Bruce was unable to make them play as a team, persisted with a "hoofball" style which kept Birmingham in the relegation zone for months on end, and presided over the club's record FA Cup defeat – a performance so dire that even he had the grace to be embarrassed – and the eventual, inevitable, return to the Championship. Sorry. Perhaps I've got that out of my system now.

• Wigan. Need to bring this section up to date, or at least up to the end of last season.
• Managerial stats. I'd take the flags out of the table. They contravene WP:MOSICON#Accompany flags with country names (I'm sure it used to be called WP:FLAGS...) in that flags should be accompanied by country-name on first use, and in this case they're purely decorative anyway (in my opinion).
• Personal life. Did you consider mentioning the accusations of nepotism which eventually forced Alex's move to Ipswich?[4]
• External links. Are you sure about the succession boxes? Particularly the Norwich one, where his predecessor is unknown.

hope some of this helps, cheers, Struway2 (talk) 10:57, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Excellent, cheers for that Stru, at least I won't be bored this lunchtime :-) -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 11:04, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Phew, think I've addressed everything except the table so far..... -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 12:37, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Done the table now as well. But is there any way to stop the last column spilling into the "grey area" at the right........? -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 08:19, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

If you add width: 90% or whatever into the style parameters at the start of the table, that'll bring the RH edge in. Do you think it's improved with the totals lines as they are at the moment, or not? not convinced I do. Also, should it be called Playing statistics, as opposed to Managerial statistics further down. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 08:45, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

I've taken out the totals by club, but left in the full career totals. Also, the problem with the last column falling into the gutter just seems to have been an issue with my browser...... -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 08:54, 12 September 2008 (UTC)