Web Teams looking great on your Mobile

I've been playing about on my Ipod Touch looking at Web Teams and have made a few adjustments to the low graphics page.

The font size is now bigger so it is more readable in both portrait and landscape mode...





Of course, the normal site is fine when you zoom in and out in normal mode on an Iphone/Ipod too...

Merry Xmas and a Happy New Year from Web Teams

Merry Xmas and a Happy New Year to everyone visiting Web Teams. We wish your team all the very best for 2010!!!

Stand Out Fixture

Dan from Tipton Town emailed in suggesting that the list of fixtures should have their own page.

We had a think about this and agreed.

So...

There is a new menu option on the left hand side of the page:

The latest fixture is displayed in your main news area of your homepage:

Clicking on either of the links will take you to the fixtures page:

Get the most out of Web Teams

The Web Teams blog has been going for a little while now and we have posted more than 50 articles.

This is our main method of communicating to all of you that run Web Teams sites.

For those of you that aren't that familiar with blogs, you may wish to read the tips below. They will help you get the most of Web Teams.

1. Searching
To find blog posts of interest to you simply type in a search term and click to search.

For example, try "mobile" for stories on how to get Web Teams on your mobile phone:



2. Labels
Two the right of the blog you can click on a topic that interests you. You will see all posts about that topic.

For example, click "new development" to read all of the posts on recent developments to Web Teams:


3. Posts you may have missed
Here are a pick of 4 or 5 of our many blog posts...

• Improvements to your Home Page - read about little changes we make to the site to keep on improving the service.
  
  
• Google Map on your Site - embed the fabulous Google Maps tool within your site.
  
  
• Customer Survey 08/09 - Results - read about what our thousands of users think of us.
  
  
• Another Fund Raising Case Study - find out how you can easily make your website make money for your team.
  
  
• Go Go Web Teams Gadget! - you like Windows Vista or Google gadgets? - download the Web Teams Gadget for your site.

4. Get the blog content elsewhere
You can add the Google Web Teams Blog gadget to your Google home page:

You can get the Web Teams Blog content within your RSS reader of choice:

5. Comment on the blog posts

If you have an opinion on any blog post - let us have your feedback - it only takes 10 seconds to add a comment and you can share your thoughts with the rest of the Web Teams community.

Web Teams Continues NonLeagueZone.com Support

Web Teams have continued their support to the popular non-league football forum NonLeagueZone.com.

A team of six or seven dedicated non league football fans run this super community with almost 10,000 members!

Stephen from Web Teams used to be a bit of a contributor to the Northern League section of this site back in the late 1990s when involved with teams such as North Shields, Prudhoe Town and Dunston Fed.

Over the last year or two Web Teams helps with the running costs of this site and are delighted to continue to do so for the 2009/10 football season. In return, Web teams gets a banner advert at the top.

If your team or league is involved in the UK non-league pyramid and you want a discussion forum that is part of a wider community - please go to NonLeagueZone.com and get in touch with one of the moderators.

Web Teams Goes Video Crazy!

Just over a year ago we allowed YouTube videos to be added to your Web Teams match reports and news items.

http://webteams.blogspot.com/2008/06/post-your-videos-on-web-teams.html

Flicking through many Web Teams team sites over the weekend, I noticed that loads of sites now do this.

All digital cameras have video functionality these days and it seems many of you take video clips on the side lines, upload them to YouTube and then embed them in your Web Teams sites. Some of you even make nicely edited movies with background sound tracks and titles (presumably using Windows Movie Maker).

Flicking through the first 15 or 16 sites I came across I found the following 4 videos...

St. James AFC

http://www.webteams.co.uk/NewsItems.aspx?team=stjamesafc#id10

Centre AFC

http://www.webteams.co.uk/NewsItems.aspx?team=centreafc#id19

Hafod Ranger AFC

http://www.webteams.co.uk/MatchReport.aspx?team=hafodrangersafc&mid=match33.xml

Norton Sports

http://www.webteams.co.uk/NewsItems.aspx?team=nortonsportsfc#id51

Improvements to your Home Page

The improvements to your home page outlined below will go live soon. As always, please let us know your thoughts!


Before


...and after

What are the key differences:

• The latest news item has a snippet of its content on your front page. This gives your site visitors more of a "teaser" of what the story is about and encourages them to click through and read it.
  
  
• The latest match also has a snippet of content now on your home page.
  
  
• The titles of these two main stories are in larger text and bold - again drawing your visitors attention.
  
  
• The player/staff pictures on the front are now the relevant individuals mentioned in the news item or gaining the player of the match. This means you're not seeing the same old faces always on the home page.
  
  

Remember, to keep your home page looking really good - try and add a new news item each week and make sure you add at least one paragraph as a match report when you enter your latest result.

Bohemian Rhapsody on the Danny Baker show

From last year, but quite funny. The version of Bohemian Rhapsody on the Danny Baker show where Freddie's lyrics are replaced with random footballer names...



I see a little silhouetto of a man
FACEY BA LYTTLE SILVA ETO HUTH HAMANN

Scaramouche, scaramouche, will you do the fandango?
DIARRA BRUCE DIARRA BRUCE BRILL KANU HAMANN BRANCO

Thunderbolt and lightning, very very frightening me
YOUNG KERR HOULT SAND BRIGHT KING VIEIRA VIERI FREI LING LEE

Galileo, galileo
BAILEY MAYO

Galileo, galileo
BAILEY MAYO

Galileo figaro-magnifico
BAILEY MAYO FIGO LAW HAGI ZICO

Google Map on your Site

If you've added a post code in your site details area then you automaticaly now get a Google Map on your home page.

The pictures below show how this appears to a site visitor:

1. Click on the "map" hyperlink


2. An inline Google Map is displayed in your club details area of the page


3. All the functionality you expect from Google Maps is available - you can move it around, zoom in and out and display road map or satellite map


If you want to try this - we took the screenshots above from:

- webteams.co.uk/glenrothes

10 years of Web Teams

It's now 10 years since Web Teams was formed. For a bit of a history about Web Teams see the blog post below:
- http://webteams.blogspot.com/2008/05/brief-history-of-web-teams.html

But to celebrate 10 years, here are some early designs...

1. Early teaser holding page
The imagery below is from September 1999. The rest of the web world had horrible "under construction" animated gifs. We were inspired more from the Starship Troopers trailer at the cinema in the late 90s.

2. First team home page design
Again from 1999, this was the design for the homepage. Nice and simple with the main core features that Web Teams was all about: News, Results, League Table, Squad details and Stats. The Newcastle College side was the team that Pat from Web Teams used to play for in the North East Sunday League.



3. Team home page design Mk II
It was quickly decided that something more impressive was needed for the homepage and the main feature links were moved to the left hand side. An overview of the content and a team photo where quickly drafted into the main area of the page. The Wallsend Comrades side was the team that Stephen from Web Teams used to play for in the North East Sunday League. Wallsend Comrades used to regularly thrash Newcastle College :)



4. First real site
The first "real" site filled with proper data was the Durham Ladies football site for 2000/2001 season. This acted as a test site along with a number of others as the Web Teams user base slowly started to grow.



10 years has gone by very quickly. But on behalf of Pat and myself we'd like to thank all of those who use the service and make it what it is. Throughout each year we appreciate all of your suggestions for improvement and kind messages and we very much look forward to the next 10 years!

The Football Season Starts!

With the start of the football league this weekend and the Community Shield today, the 2009/10 football season truly has started.

We hope all of you have your Web Teams sites ready and are looking forward to your team challenging for a league title or going on a cup run.

Click below to watch the Match of the Day goals of the season from the 2008/09. My vote was for Torres' strike, I think Glen Johnson won it.



- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goal_of_the_Season

Sir Bobby Robson - RIP

RIP Sir Bobby Robson - Legend.

One of his best moments as a manager below...

Give your Club Staff a home on Web Teams

One of the most requested enhancements from you in the end of season customer survey was to be able to put pictures of your staff up and associate them with news items. You wanted to put the chairman up, the physio and the tea lady!

This is now possible by adding people to your squad and marking them as "Staff" in the drop down box.

These entries will have their one little area at the bottom of the squad page:


Visitors can click on staff members and they have their own page:


And you can associate news items with the staff members:


They will not appear in the player statistic pages. So if you do have a player-manager - please put him/her down as player and just write in the notes that they manage as well.

And yes, I support Newcastle United. The team without a manager, a chairman and an owner. All comments taking the mick will not be published!

Indicate Players who have left your Club

Mid-way through a season a player may leave your club.

Now it possible to indicate this on your site so that these players are not as prominently displayed on your squad page. Also, these players will have asterisks next to their names in the stats and fantasy points pages.

To mark a player has having left your club simply tick the "Has Left Club" checkbox next to the players name in the site admin page as shown below:



Please note that you should still take the opportunity to remove players permanently from your site when you go through the archive process at the end of each season.

Generating Reports from your Site

We've had a few questions from users wanting to generate end of season reports for their sites. Others have emailed in asking about taking copies of their data before they archive as a record of the season.

Well, since the start of Web Teams in 1999, we've always had the concept of generating printer friendly reports. These are simple views of your data that are fine for either printing or copying and pasting straight into Microsoft Word to format as you wish.

Just follow the steps below...

1. Click on the "printed report" link


2. Select the data you want


3. Either send to the printer or copy and paste to a word processor

Fantasy Stats - You either love them or hate them

When we did our customer satisfaction survey you told us you loved the fantasy stats. Some of you also, however, told us you hated them.

What do you like least about Web Teams?

• Give the option to lose the fantasy stats on setting up for the new season - its not good when teams are youth players - okay for older ones and mens teams - really dont like this bit of site and its not optional
• GIVE A CHOICE ON ADDING FANTASY STATS"
• remove fantasy stats as it puts some players down"
• THE FANTASY STATS DOES CAUSE PROBLEMS WITH PLAYERS AND PARENTS ALIKE. IS THERE ANYWAY THIS CAN BE GIVEN AS A CHOICE OF UPDATING IF WANTED ?

What do you like most about Web Teams?

• Everything really but the lads love the 'fantasy points' section
• fantasy stats and all automated from entering the league results
• Fantasy Stats and automatic generated table and stats
• Excellent website - generally very easy to use. It has made our team much more cohesive - and the fantasy stats have really motivated the players. Keep up the good work!
• Fantasy stats and the ability to print specific reports
• I really like the majority of the site, how it shows all stats n fantasy stats aswell.
• I like the automatic update of player stats and the lads love the fantasy stats, it bring a new dimension to Sunday mornings.
• The kids love the fantasy stats and are always trying to get points. I belive this has improved the togetherness at the team and makes it a bit more fun for the team.
• The fantasy points as we have a medal for the "most fantasy points" at the end of the season.
• Fantasy Stats..... There is a trophy for the leader at the end of the season

So what we've done is made it nice and easy for you to opt out of the fantasy stats.

Fantasy stats will be ON by default - but from your site admin area you can click to disable them as shown in the screenshots below and they'll be hidden...


Fig 1 - Click to disable the stats



Fig 2. The stats are hidden from visitors



...and if you change your mind - you can always toggle them on again.

22.31 - time for a cup of tea and a marmite sandwich...

Common End of Season Questions

At the end of each season we get a number of common questions asked:

1. What happens to my site at the end of the season?
You can archive your site from the current football season and then set up your new site for the up and coming season. See the blog post below for details:
- http://webteams.blogspot.com/2008/07/how-to-archive-your-site.html

2. My team name is changing, can I change my website?
You can change your team name but not your website URL. This is unique to your team.

So if your team is changing from "The Red Bull FC" to "The Queen Vic FC" then you can change the name during the set up process. But you can not change webteams.co.uk/redbull to webteams.co.uk/queenvic.

The two work-arounds here are:
A. Get a top level domain name to mask the Web Teams URL - see the blog post:
- http://webteams.blogspot.com/2008/06/get-proper-domain-name.html
or
B. Sign up for a new site from scratch

3. I don't know the names of the teams in my league for next season, can I still set up my site?
If you are unsure of the exact teams in your league next year - don't worry. Enter the team names you know and enter "Team 1", "Team 2", "Team 3" for those you don't. You can tweak these before the first game of the season.
Note: The same applies for players in your team - you can add "Player 1", "Player 2", etc...

4. Can I remove players who have left the club?
You can do this after you have archived and when you are setting up your site for next season.

5. My club wants more than one Web Teams site next year, can I have a club site?
Yes, see the blog post below for details:
- http://webteams.blogspot.com/2008/07/get-club-page.html

Customer Survey 08/09 - Results

Thanks to all who took part in our end of season survey. This brief report details what you like about Web Teams and what enhancements you'd like to see made to the service.

A. What you like about Web Teams

Our previous post on the survey gave some of the comments you made on what you like best about Web Teams:
- What you like best about Web Teams

The chart below confirms that it is the quality of the statistics (league table, player stats, goal scorer stats) that you get after entering your match data.


Fig 1. How important are the automatically generated site statistics such as league table, player and team stats

The best way to get users is through existing user recommendations. The chart below show how likely you are to recommend Web Teams to friends.


Fig 2. How likely are you to recommend Web Teams to a friend

An average mark here of 9.3 is just incredible. This relates to a Net Promoter (marketing speak :)) score of over 80 and we really, really appreciate this!

B. What Web Teams enhancements you want

The following requests were made by at least three or more users.

1. More characters should be allowed for news items and match reports
   18 May 09 - Done - News item length increased from 2,000 characters to 3,000 and match report length increased from 6,000 to 8,000.
   
   
2. The league table should have a simple view by default – the advanced home and away view should appear on request
   18 May 09 - Done
   
   
3. The fantasy stats should have an “opt out” checkbox for those teams who don't want them
   18 June 09 - Done
   http://webteams.blogspot.com/2009/06/fantasy-stats-you-either-love-them-or.html
   
   
4. Players who have left the club should be less prominently displayed on the site
   14 July 09 - Done
   http://webteams.blogspot.com/2009/07/indicate-players-who-have-left-your.html
   
   
5. It should be possible to add details and pictures of the manager, chairman, physio, tea lady and associate these club members with new items
   14 July 09 - Done
   http://webteams.blogspot.com/2009/07/give-your-club-staff-home-on-web-teams.html
   
   
6. The goal descriptions should have some new and varied content
   
   
7. It should be easier to move site links up and down
   18 May 09 - Done

We'll try our best to implement all of these improvements for the start of next season!

Thanks once again to everyone who took the time to provide their feedback

Customer Survey 08/09 - Initial Results

The Customer Survey 08/09 is now closed. Almost 20% of site administrators took the time to respond which is an amazing return for any email survey - so thank you!

We'll spend a few weeks reviewing what you have said and post a full report to our blog. But in the meantime, here is a quick list of answers you provided to the question "What do you like best about Web Teams?"

• The automatic stat updates, when I only have to enter the results and each game report! its quality, well done!
  
  
• No adverts. feels like it's 100% your site
  
  
• Easy to use, an update can take around 5 mins but gets all tables, stats updates, layout looks professional and if site is well run can put many other websites to shame.
  
  
• I think everything is excellent especially for the price but would say that the general user interface is the best thing about the service.
  
  
• Excellent website - generally very easy to use. It has made our team much more cohesive - and the fantasy stats have really motivated the players. Keep up the good work!
  
  
• Speed. I also use [other football website's name removed] to administer our 20 team club site. It is too slow on a weekend and keeps crashing. Your works brilliantly all the time.
  
  
• I like the speed of the site and the ability to look at how other teams around us are doing. I would recommend the site to anyone.
  
  
• The simple way to update the website! Takes a matter of minutes to update the whole thing, which is brilliant.
  
  
• I like the automatic update of player stats and the lads love the fantasy stats, it bring a new dimension to Sunday mornings.
  
  
• Everything, the service is superb, it only takes a few minutes to in-put league results and tables are updated in a flash. I always actively promote webteams sites as a super idea and everything is done for you which makes it more than value for money.
  
  
• Automatically generated stats and league tables. Also the site is very easy to use (myself being the administrator for the team) I find it an excellently developed site for its practical use.
  
  
• The Stats for each player is excellent, particularly like the pie chart features. all in all I think the website is excellent value for money and it’s so easy having all the averages and stats and league table automatically worked out.
  

Interestingly the Fantasy Stats featured just as highly in your answers to what you least liked!!! So like Marmite, some people love it - some people hate it.

What do you like least?
THE FANTASY STATS DOES CAUSE PROBLEMS WITH PLAYERS AND PARENTS ALIKE. IS THERE ANYWAY THIS CAN BE GIVEN AS A CHOICE OF UPDATING IF WANTED ?

We promise, we'll make this an optional feature next year. :)

Stay tuned for our full results!

Another Fund Raising Case Study

Currently a lot of clubs are reporting difficulty in finding sponsorship money.

Mark Russell manager of Penyffordd Panthers U13s from the Clwyd League contacted Web Teams to comment on how well his club had done financially this year from EasyFundRaising.co.uk.

[Sept 2008 - Original fundraising Web Teams blog post]

Mark emailed Web Teams...

Just to let you know the easy fund-raising site we use has helped us earn £120 so far this season.

This is encouraging and shows that it can work. Here are the recent spends (screenshot below), as you can see holidays and insurance boost the total. This is the area we tend to promote. I've realised the LOVE FILM trial pays £8 per person and currently trying to get people registered. Without the big spends we'd probably be looking at £40 which is still ok.

If we could get over £150 by the end of the season this will help replace any kit or training equipment we need as I guess in the current climate it's going to be harder for clubs like ours to find local sponsorship which we have always relied on in the past for new Home & away kit's.

Therefore the more the parents and families of players can do to help generate funds the better position we will be in.



As for the team we've done well this season. If we win the remaining two matches Saturday & Tuesday we will either finish 2nd or be in a play-off for 2nd place. Potentially we could still win the league as the current leaders have three games left (including a trip to our home ground) but only need a single point to clinch the title (Hawarden Rangers). We have been the only team to beat them this season in the league (last week 1-0 away) and also the only team to beat them x2 last year in the league, when they won it.

Only lost 3 games and one draw one but you can only afford to drop 6 points in our league to stay in contention.

This shows that the £15 charge for Web Teams can be easily pulled back through your website throughout the season. In fact in this case ten times over!

Pennyford Panthers are an under 13s team with a strong website that has encouraged parents and fans to support the club. An occasional news item and a link to the EasyFundRaising site seems to have done the job:
Pennyford Panthers News Item



If anyone else has any good or bad experiences with EasyFundRaising.co.uk - please leave your comments below for the benefit of other teams.

Crouchy - Pull out the Rope!

What must be the funniest football moment on TV since Ali G interviewing the Beckhams.

James Corden pokes fun at England's Peter Crouch for Comic Relief...

Crouchy. When I look at you, everything tells me that you should be rubbish at football. And yet you're brilliant. You know why? Because of this: The Robot, yeah? Where's it gone? You were hitting them right, left, centre, all over the park, when that was there. I know what's happened.

You’ve started to fear The Robot.

You’ve got to let The Robot fear you.

I’m talking like staple, tray service, swivel, can, open, drinkety-drink drink, yeah? What about some of these, a few turns in there. If you score a hat-trick, pull out the rope, pull out the rope, yeah?

Please take part in our Customer Survey

We are now running our customer survey. If you have two minutes spare, please answer the 7 or 8 questions for us to help make our site better.

To take the survey, (1) log on to your website and then (2) follow the link at the top of the page.



From our survey results at the end of last season we made a number of improvements. These were detailed at the time at the link below.

The summary of results from our 2007/08 survey

Many thanks to all of our Web Teams users - your feedback, as always, is really appreciated

More Fund Raising Ideas

One or two of you using the EasyFundRaising service have emailed in to say you have just received a cheque for cash you made in the fourth quarter last year. One team actually made over £100 which is pretty good for a three month period.

One idea for those using this service is their "Free Funds" section.

This basically is a list of merchants who'll pay your club money for simply requesting a brochure, siging up for a free trial, completing a survey etc... For not even spending money.

For more information visit EasyFundRaising and click the "Free Funds" tab at the top of the page.

• http://www.easyfundraising.org.uk

For previous WebTeams blog posts on this subject see below:

• Make your website earn you money
• Fund raising case study

UEFA Badges Quiz

There is a good little football quiz doing the rounds by email at the moment.

How many out of 100 badges from European clubs do you know?

Click the hyperlink or the screenshot below to download the quiz. Maybe worth printing out for the dressing room/club house/coach to an away game!

Download UEFA Badges Quiz



Any similar quizes - please email them in to us.

Web Slice up your life!

Last week the release candidate of Internet Explorer 8 (IE8) was released and it contains a nice new feature known as a web slice.

Needless to say, a few days after this release, Web Teams has been enhanced to take advantage of this. :)

Please note, you must be using IE8 to take advantage of this functionality.

Should you be using IE8, you'll notice that when you hover your mouse over the top header on a team's home page or on a player page you'll get a green box appear. Click on the green square and you'll be prompted to add the page as web slice.

The screenshots below show this:





Once added as web slices then you can quickly access a "slice" of this page by clicking the button to the top of your browser. In addition, when the page is updated, the button will appear with bold text.

The screenshots below show the web slices being activated by the user even though they are not on the Web Teams site.





All feedback appreciated and we hope those trying out IE8 like this new feature!

Display your Web Teams Data from your site elsewhere

WebTeams user Richard Ault contacted us asking if he could use the Web Teams data on his other personal home made website for his club.

We have never really advertised how to do this, but through use of the Web Teams Google Gadget this is actually very easy for webmasters of personal sites who know a little HTML.

Our Google Gadget page gives a nice user interface to achieve this:

- Web Teams Google Gadget

The screenshot below shows that you should click the "Get the Code" button and then copy and paste this into your HTML.



If any users are interested in taking this idea of syndicating content further (maybe player pages?), let us know. If there are three or four interested then we'll do a bit more work on this.

Awareness Test

With the festive period now out of the way, a quick awareness test below to check everyone is back to their sharpest.

Concentrate fully please.

Count how many passes the white team make.