To see the fledgling databases, you should be able to click on the "database"
label in the box on the left of the soccerdatauk home page (not the
soccerdata.com website, though I plan to add pages to the web site later to add
more details on the evolution of the laws of the game and the players involved).

The yahoo database limits me to 10 fields, which are currently set to season,
competition, date, home club, score, away club, score, ground, and notes,
leaving one spare. The version on my computer has more fields of course,
including the player names. However, there's a good deal of work still to do on
the names before it's ready to be published - by including club matches as well
as FA Cup games I'm hoping to iron out differences in spelling and other obvious
errors.

I'm interested to hear of the work you've done in collating Sheffield football.
If you'd like to add your findings to the yahoo database that will be good; I
haven't tried a 'bulk input' yet, but it looks a simple matter to convert my
existing data to a comma delimited format, whence it can be sucked into the
yahoo database. The big advantage to this approach is that anyone can add to
the database; I haven't got the technology to allow this to happen on
soccerdata.com.

There's an issue of 'copyright' and 'intellectual property' of course. Speaking
for myself, I'll be pleased to see a 'fixtures, results and dates' database in
the public domain, even if the full database of scorers and line-ups is retained
for private use. My data is "fairly" comprehensive for "association rules in
the London area to 1874" thanks to Bell's Life and some extracts from "Field".
I have little on Sheffield-rules fixtures though imagine there was more activity
in the 1860s than in London. Yes, we should state the rules adopted when known,
and someday I'll try to establish exactly what "Nottingham Rules" were! I'm
happy to make the tenth field "code followed".

My FA Cup data to 1888 is comprehensive, with Keith Richards and others kindly
been combing Field and Sportsman for more details. However, I have done little
work on 'other games' in the period 1877 to 1888, largely because (as you will
appreciate) of the big upswing in the number of games played. Certainly, by
1885 or so, we probably need to be in a "match by match" type of format for the
leading clubs. In the upcoming weeks I'll post "what I've got" for this period
and perhaps others in the group will be happy to join in.

Regards, Tony




--- In soccerdatauk@yahoogroups.com, "bty958590" <i.nannestad@...> wrote:
>
> Tony
>
> What fields are you using already? One possibility would be to give details of
the type of association code played: London, Sheffield, Scottish or other (which
will usually be a local code). That will provide a better picture of the extent
of the Sheffield code and whether it was more popular than the London code. I
have details of games under Sheffield rules stretching from Birmingham in the
south to Middlesbrough in the north and across to Grimsby (but not on the other
side of the Pennines).
>
> Ian Nannestad
>