A note on mergers and namechanges
I'd like to explain the guidelines I use concerning mergers and namechanges of teams. There are a
couple of scenarios to consider here:
1. The straightforward merger between two teams resulting in a completely new
one. One example is Rotherham United in England. That is a merger between
Rotherham County and Rotherham Town. In this case the results of Rotherham
United is not counted on any of the teams forming the merger, but on Rotherham
United as they are a completely new team.
2. The 2nd form is also a straightforward merger resulting in a new team. But the
difference from nr. 1 is that here the new club after a while takes the name of
one of the merging clubs. Here we have for example IFK Luleå/Luleå FF in Sweden. As
long as they are called IFK Luleå/Luleå FF I count the results on them, but when
they changed name to IFK Luleå I count the results on IFK Luleå instead. I
follow this when there is a namechange of the merger to one of the old merging
teams (as in the Luleå case) or if there is a regular split up (as in the case of
Gefle/Brynäs).
3. A third form is the "swallow up". In this case an already existing team takes
over another. Then there is no namechange. Here I obviously count the
forthcoming results on the old team as the name have not changed and a merger as
such cannot be said to have taken place. This has happen, for example, with Groclin Dyskobolia
Grodzisk and Polonia Warszawa. There Groclin cease to exist and Polonia continue with their
original name.
4. The fourth team is a regular namechange. This is very straightforward it
might seem. But the difficulty can be to determine if there has been a
namechange or a merger.
5. Yet another thing that can happen is that two teams merge and form another
team and then later on (while the merged team is still in existence) one of the
clubs making up the merger in the first place re-forms. Then the reformed team is separate
from one of those making up the merger in my tables. In that scenario I use the terms "old" and
"new" to distinguish the teams from oneanother.
6. Another variant of nr.5 is the case when a team changes name and then later on another team
takes the former name of the 1st mentioned club while the team is still in existence. In those
cases I use the terms "old" and "new" to distinguish the teams from oneanother. One example of
this is Kilikiya of Armenia. There you have two teams with that name in the table, one old and one new.
7. A seventh kind has emerged over the last couple of years in Sweden and Denmark. This is
when several teams (usually three or more) combine their forces into a new team.
The difference between this and a straightforward merger is that here the teams
concerned in the merger usually continue on at a lower level and use the new
team as a spearhead. Examples include the Swedish team Carlstad United BK & FC Fyn of Denmark.
Why do I explain these then? Well, apart from the obvious that the issues need explaining; it is
to distinguish myself from the Swedish (and in part international) tradition. In the
alltimetables done by the Football Statistics Federation in Sweden other principles apply. There
if two teams merge they count the results of the new team on the merged team playing highest in
the pyramid. This is completely wrong in my opinion. A merger is a new team and that's that. Why
should an old team with a better record have the upper hand in such a case?, it's ludicrous.
Their principles on mergers is one of the reasons why I haven't join their organization. (The
other reason is that they don't construct alltimetables for levels but for names (with some
exceptions). An example is the Swedish level with the name division 3. Before 1987 this was 3rd
level, 1987-2005 it was 4th level and from 2006 it is 5th level. But the organization I
mentioned have an alltimetable for division 3 that count the series that carries the division 3
name and disregard the level in question.) For Swedish readers I can refer to the
following webpage:
Bolletinen
An example (of many...), they count the merger of Visby IF & IF Gute as a
continuation of IF Gute and not as a new team. I know that many teams that were
the result of mergers, for example in England, count their roots back to the
oldest of the merging teams. That may be, but they are not the same team.