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