Talk:Jackie Milburn

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Untitled[edit]

Context unclear. Is he a sports player? What sport?--Woggly 19:59, 20 Jun 2004 (UTC)

He was a footballer for Newcastle United, and probally one of the greats of the sport. For further reference contact the Newcastle United Web site.

The goal tally sentence is scheduled to grow by one more contradictory clause every year.[edit]

Sorry for the sarcasm, but the last sentence in the section has become obnoxious, presumably as the result of an unusual edit war. Usually, each ofthe two edit-warring factions delete and replace the work of the other. Here though, a marginally more magnanimous approach is used that leaves the opponents' work visible; the sentence is merely extended with a clause that contradicts one or more previous clauses. The result of this magnanimity is this unfortunately obvious train-wreck,, that I will call The Claim:

He played 395 games for Newcastle, and is the club's second highest league and cup goalscorer with 200 goals; six goals behind Alan Shearer.[14] Shearer's European goals take his total to 206, there were no European games in Milburn's day, so he still remains the club's top goal scorer with 200 league and domestic cup goals, and 38 wartime match goals during World War 2, seeing his total record score 238 goals in 492 games.

If there are ever introductory one-year courses on Practical Wikipedia Editing at Night School/Junior College, the two sentences above will be the homework assignment for the first day. Here are a few pairs of items that are mutually inconsistent, proving that at least one of the pair is not true:

  • The first number in The Claim: Milburn played 395 games for Newcastle (necessarily the sum of Football League and FA Cup appearances).
  • The Career statistics later in the article provides his League and FA Cup appearances for each individual season. Their sum is 397 games.


  • The next number in The Claim: Milburn scored 200 goals for Newcastle. The sum of Football League goals plus FA Cup goals is 200.
  • The football info box in the article follows Wikipedia policy, of only League totals. The goal total for the League only is still 200.
  • Those two items can only both be true if he never scored an FA Cup goal during his Newcastle United career.
  • He scored two goals in the 1951 FA Cup Final. In the 1955 FA Cup Final, he famously scored after just 45 seconds.


  • The Claim states that "there were no European games in Milburn's day". which is simply untrue.
  • Real Madrid first few European Cup wins were "in Milburn's day". Newcastle just didn't qualify for Europe then.


  • Alan Shearer has had his Newcastle United European goal tally excluded from his overall total because ...
  • ... Newcastle United did not qualify for European competition when Jackie Milburn played for them. An obvious fallacy of effect and cause.


  • The Claim tallies Milburn's goals scored in the Second World War. Everybody clearly understood at the time they were designated as friendlies.
  • Alan Shearer's goal tally does not include any from friendly games. They shouldn't be, but Milburn's icorrectly are included.
  • The nature of a game cannot be changed from friendly to competitive after it has taken place. Players can claim they would have behaved differently, if they had known of its nature at the time.


  • The Claim ends with a Milburn total of 238 goals and 492 games.
  • 238 goals is insufficiently documented.
  • A 492 game tally cannot be achieved from any combination "selection" of existing data.

There are more inaccuracies! With thanks from ChrisJBenson (talk) 13:52, 7 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Work on the article[edit]

I'm working on improving the article. References I added to the lede yesterday are being removed as I slowly incorporate that information into the main body of the text. Please be patient as I carry on the editing - feel free to message me or comment here on the talk page if anything appears to be temporarily moved around Meetthefeebles (talk) 20:03, 2 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified[edit]

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Milburn's official registration as a Newcastle United player came on 23 August 1938.[edit]

This contradicts the proceeding paragraphs that describe in detail Milburn's trial for Newcastle in 1942.

In August 1938 he was just 14 years old. I suspect somebody lifted this statistic from a publication that was entirely wrong. 90.248.202.204 (talk) 09:13, 9 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]