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