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...