Talk:Sam Longson

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by MeegsC (talk) 15:06, 16 July 2021 (UTC)

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• Comment or view
• Article history

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• ... that after the resignation of Brian Clough as Derby County F.C. manager club chairman Sam Longson gave impromptu press conferences from a hotel near the Baseball Ground while wearing his pyjamas? "Thursday marks the 14th anniversary of Clough's acrimonious departure from the Baseball Ground ... and the chairman, Sam Longson, having set up residence in a nearby hotel, was apt to give impromptu press conferences in his pyjamas" from: Lacey, David (12 October 1987). "Clough returns the Derby winner again". The Guardian. Newspapers.com. p. 28.
  • ALT1:... that Derby County F.C. chairman Sam Longson gave impromptu press conferences in his pyjamas during the aftermath of Brian Clough's resignation as manager?

• Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Battle of Hancock

Moved to mainspace by Dumelow (talk). Self-nominated at 15:32, 29 June 2021 (UTC).

• Article was mainspaced at the time. Long enough and generally well-cited. Hook is cited, and is present in the article. No copyvio detected, and QPQ is done. Good to go, prefer ALT1 for brevity. Juxlos (talk) 10:11, 1 July 2021 (UTC)

GA review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Sam Longson/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Nominator: Dumelow (talk · contribs) 11:18, 19 October 2025 (UTC)

Reviewer: AssociateAffiliate (talk · contribs) 18:11, 28 March 2026 (UTC)

Placeholder:

• I'll review this over the coming week or so. AA (talk) 18:11, 28 March 2026 (UTC)

Table:

GA review (see here for what the criteria are, and here for what they are not)
It is reasonably well written. a (prose, spelling, and grammar): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists): It is factually accurate and verifiable, as shown by a source spot-check. a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR): d (copyvio and plagiarism): It is broad in its coverage. a (major aspects): b (focused): It follows the neutral point of view policy. Fair representation without bias: It is stable. No edit wars, etc.: It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate. a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):
Overall: Pass/Fail:
· · ·

Lead:

• The lead is thorough and provides an adequate summary of the main body.
• "...and also built and sold a hire purchase business." Do we know when he founded and sold this? Though perhaps, this might be better stated in the body.

Alas, it's not stated in the sources

• Could "Derbyshire" be linked - I know some people do link counties and some don't, always a fan of linking them!

No strong feelings either way, linked

• "...leadership the club won the league title in May 1972" Wonder if part or all of "won the league title in May 1972" could be linked to 1971–72 Football League First Division?

Agreed and linked

• "Longson's relationship with Clough broke down in 1973 and he accepted Clough's resignation after a disagreement over the manager's media appearances." Could the second use of "Clough" be substituted for "he"?

I would prefer to keep it to avoid any possible confusion

• "24 February" – might be useful to include the year after the month, as the following part of the sentence doesn't make it clear his resignation and continuation as president/director all occurred in 1980.

Well spotted, moved 1980 to the first part

Early life and career:

• Link "Derbyshire".

Done

• After "First World War", is a comma needed to make the sentence flow?

Agreed and done

• Do we know when he established the haulage company?

Good idea, managed to find a source and added this

• Link "barge".

Done

• Do we know when the hire firm was sold to Leslie and Godwin?

Unfortunately I couldn't find this detail - Dumelow (talk) 08:13, 2 April 2026 (UTC)

Derby County

• Nothing to add, looks good.

Brian Clough era

• Two "who was then" in quick succession in the opening paragraph. Would drop the second "then".

Done

• Comma after "clubs", I think?

Done

• Perhaps link ITV to ITV (TV network), for readers outside the UK unfamiliar with what it is.

Good point, done

Post-Clough era

• "Longson was due to retire as chairman in summer that year." Change "Longson" for "he", as "Longson is used only a few sentences back at the start of the paragraph.

Done

• "Longson resigned from the Derby County board on 6 May 1980. Change "Longson" for "he", as Longson is the subject of the previous sentence.

Done

• I've found some info on his funeral here and here, that might be useful.

Good find, added some detail. Good to know that the BNA is back in TWL, invaluable for these sorts of local British articles

References

• Spot check on a dozen or so references was fine, all references are reliable and match up to what is written.

Ref suggestions:

• Could book references be moved into a bibliography and sfn templates used to avoid reptition of full references?

Done

• Refs 3, 20, and 25 you might want to add Wayback Machine archive links to them.

Done

• Consider capitalising all the words in the title, except for prepositions and conjunctions.

Had a go at this

Images

• Fair use rationale seems stacks up on these.
• Add |alt= text to the images.

Categories

• As comprehensive as they can be!

Thanks for looking at this one AA, in the post Damned United I was surprised we didn't have an article on him - Dumelow (talk) 08:13, 2 April 2026 (UTC)

@Dumelow: You're welcome :) It's always a pleasant surprise when you stumble across a person in an article that is article-less and who you can build a fairly substantial article about! Have found an obituary here on Longson that might be of interest. Hope you find my review helpful :) AA (talk) 19:27, 2 April 2026 (UTC)

Hi AA, sorry I had missed this. I think Ive responded to everything above. Thanks for finding that obit, some useful stuff especially on his non-football life, which I have now added - Dumelow (talk) 06:37, 10 April 2026 (UTC)

No worries! You're most welcome with the new source, and is nice that the BNA is back up. Also just checked The Times archive, which has been down for nearly 5 months, that's back up as well. Good day all round for sources. Happy to pass the article :) AA (talk) 10:07, 11 April 2026 (UTC)