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.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

Just a quick note to say Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all Web Teams webmasters and all visitors to Web Teams.

We hope you manage to get some games in over the holidays and the weather isn't too bad (see pictures below). All the very best with your clubs in 2009!

The Best Football Scene in a Movie

What is the best football scene in a movie?

Here are a few clips below...

1. Kes

Anyone over 30 in the UK will remember PE lessons like this. No coaching, just a school kid of a PE teacher playing out his dreams on the football pitch.

Billy Casper is last one in the line up to be picked for the team, the teacher fills him with confidence "Casper, I've got to have you. Come on..."




2. The Great Escape

A collection of the football clips to music below. Pele and Sylvester Stallone in the same film!




3. Bend It Like Beckham

Keira Knightley before she became a Hollywood superstar and Jonathan Rhys Meyers before he became a young Henry VIII.




4. Bedknobs and Broomsticks

Every Christmas there used to be a Disney special on ITV with clips from different films, this football clip from Bedknobs and Broomsticks was always there.



Can anyone else think of any great football scenes from movies?

Small Tweaks to the Match Report Page

A few tweaks have been made to the match report page. The screenshots below show the "before" and "after".

Any comments on this please reply to this blog post.


Before...



...and after

So, what are the benefits of these changes?

1. Sometimes the previous layout spread across the browser wider than the banner at the top of the page. Check out the "Before" picture above. This was always a minor irritation.


2. When a large match report was written it didn't wrap around the squad details area. Check out the white space to the bottom left on the "Before" picture above. This white space continued to the bottom of the match report.


3. If a match video was embedded in the match report, it was very squashed on the page. Check out the screenshot below to see this looking much nicer.

Great video

On a final note, check out how the webmaster from Soham Town Rangers has embedded the video above on his match report page:
http://www.webteams.co.uk/MatchReport.aspx?team=sohamtownrangersfc&mid=match54.xml

A great record of a super strike from Soham's Paul Jones.

For more details on how to add video content to your match reports and news items see:
http://webteams.blogspot.com/2008/06/post-your-videos-on-web-teams.html

Please let us know what you think when we make small changes like this.

Your Pictures On The Homepage

A couple of weeks ago we asked if you'd like a picture of your team on our homepage:
http://webteams.blogspot.com/2008/11/your-team-on-webteams-front-page.html.

Since then we've had some really good pictures emailed into us. However, rather than pick just one, our homepage now randomly picks a picture every time you visit:
http://www.webteams.co.uk

If you think you have a picture as good as one of those below and would like it on our homepage then please email it to support@webteams.co.uk - it must be good quality and not have a huge sponsorship board in front of it :)

A selection of some of the best photo's from you is below...


Sam from Horsley and Clandon FC sent this picture in. Non league football at its best
webteams.co.uk/horsleyclandon



Niki from Leeds City Juniors FC sent this great picture in. A super shot of youth football. Check out their site too for some excellent use of videos within their news items.
webteams.co.uk/leedscityjuniorsu13a



Liz from Poppleton Ladies FC sent this shot in. Even though it looks utterly freezing, everyone still has a smile on their face!
webteams.co.uk/shlfc

WebTeams.co.uk in the Top 50

Sites such as Alexa.com give rough statistics on how many visitors a website gets.

There are also companies out there who package together statitics such as these into categories and sell these to marketing/advertising companies.

Well we have managed to get hold of the list of the UK's most popular football sites in October 2008 and are delighted to see that WebTeams.co.uk is in the Top 50!!!

A summary of the results are below. The values are in "absolutely unique visitors per month".

1. BBC.co.uk/Football - 5.8 million unique visitors - the biggest and best!
2. SkySports.com - 3.8 million
3. PremiumTV.co.uk - 2.0 million (these are the chaps who do Virgin Media and official sites for Man City, Sunderland, West Ham etc.)
4. 365MediaGroup.co.uk - 1.8 million (these chaps do football365, teamtalk, rivals etc.)
5. UK.Eurosport.Yahoo.com - 1.5 million
...
7. The Sun Sport - 853,000 (top of the list for the tabloids)
...
8. ManUtd.com - 743,000 (top of the list for the official club sites)
...
11. Guardian Sport - 567,000 (top of the list for the broadsheets)
...
45. NUFC.com - 145,000 (top of the unofficial club websites)
...
and
48. WebTeams.co.uk - 129,657 absolutely unqiue visitors (actual figure, not estimated).

So, we've just managed to sneak into the top 50!

Considering how many official Premier League football websites and how many extremely well financed media outlets (from ITV to The Times) there are in the UK - we're very proud.

As a final note...

...add a few rugby, formula one, american football and WWE wrestling websites into the mix and we move down to the number 63rd most visited Sports website in the UK.

Your Team on the WebTeams Front Page?

How would you like a photo of your team to be on the front page of www.webteams.co.uk?

We get 1 million unique visitors every year. To get your team photo or an action shot from one of your games up on the front page then please email a picture to support@webteams.co.uk by November 30th 2008.



What we want doesn't have to be perfect quality, but it must show the spirit of amateur football.

Fundraising Case Study

A few teams have now opted to raise funds for their club using EasyFundRaising (see Make Your Website Earn Your Club Money).

Two of these are Penyffordd Panthers and Barrow Celtic Football Club

Penyffordd Panthers
The Panthers have used Web Teams for three seasons now, they get around 700 visits to their homepage each month.

Webmaster Paul Cain has decided to give the EasyFundRaising idea a go and explains,

"So far we have raised around £8 in the first month. We placed the video on the News Items and had 500 business cards printed, which we have given out to players families to try and encourage people to use it.

With Christmas coming up I'm hopeful that people will use the system when doing Internet orders as you could potentially raise about £5-£10 per month which could be £100 a year (useful to put towards additional kit, or equipment) for very little effort.

We sent out reminders when giving out letters to players for the next match, I think the key thing is getting someone to do it once (first spend) and then they see it's actually straightforward. I might try and do a simple step by step instructions for those who thinks it's going to be complicated or find another YouTube video that explains it better."


Example payments



Barrow Celtic Football Club
Barrow Celtic have also started encouraging their site visitors to use EasyFundRaising. Webmaster Stephen Quinn also believes it will be possible to make £10 a month that will help with equipment and club funds,

"...We've only just started using it, but i think £10 a month is possible in a couple of months when people get used to using it. ive advertised it on the site and also our Facebook page and will be printing some of the pre written info available on the site, for our players meeting on Saturday."



From a Web Teams point of view we see this as being a nice little idea that can supplement fundraising activities such as domino cards and betting sheets for any amateur team. It probably does need a little bit of effort in persuading players/fans/parents to go through "the system" - but it's not a bad idea to make your website earn a little money for your club.

Finally, one other thing we've noticed is that lots of Web Teams sites are posting their club sponsors within their page. Why not see if these sponsors are willing to pay £10/£20 for this advert and it may bring in a little bit more. It'll maybe help with buying some balls, or cones, or bibs, or the end of year tour to Blackpool...



If anyone other clubs have any fundraising tips - please add your comments to this blog post.