[Devongone]

No Matt, I still don't agree. The lay out of our site (and many other football sites) is confusing. For one thing, very old information reappears long after it has ceased to be relevant.

Pitchero sites are sometimes even worse. But our central problem is content. There is very little appreciation of what is news, what constitutes information, what is likely to grab the fans' interest, and the importance of being first with the news. MA himself tried to tap into this. I didn't like all this take care business, or the fact that no one had the balls to tell him when he was about to contradict himself ........... but he did want to reach out. If the team had performed for him then it would probably have worked.

My central complaint is really that the site and its content represent symptoms of our malaise. We clearly don't do things in general properly, from Paul McGinn, through the black strip, to recent FA fines over stuff like Joe Rowley FFS ....... we are careless and slipshod. I imagine SpireMatt in charge of a team, whether in the basement of the Hope Valley League or up in the National League, would be across every rule and regulation, checking out every signing, every transfer, every deal, making sure all was above board and squeaky clean. Matt mate, that's what you are like - you couldn't help it. (And you ought to be doing it!)

As I've said before there are clubs being run by volunteers who have given whole lifetimes to their clubs without ever falling foul of FA rules - yes they're sticklers - but they are worth their weight in gold. Their little clubs grow. The games are won on the field, but the players are there because they know they are at a well-run club at which everything is taken of. It's settled. Good players come and they stay. An ambitious manager seizes the opportunity and finds he's loving it.

[spireitematt]

No Matt, I still don't agree. The lay out of our site (and many other football sites) is confusing. For one thing, very old information reappears long after it has ceased to be relevant.

Pitchero sites are sometimes even worse. But our central problem is content. There is very little appreciation of what is news, what constitutes information, what is likely to grab the fans' interest, and the importance of being first with the news. MA himself tried to tap into this. I didn't like all this take care business, or the fact that no one had the balls to tell him when he was about to contradict himself ........... but he did want to reach out. If the team had performed for him then it would probably have worked.

My central complaint is really that the site and its content represent  symptoms of our malaise. We clearly don't do things in general properly, from Paul McGinn, through the black strip, to recent FA fines over stuff like Joe Rowley FFS ....... we are careless and slipshod. I imagine SpireMatt in charge of a team, whether in the basement of the  Hope Valley League or up in the National League, would be across every rule and regulation, checking out every signing, every transfer, every deal, making sure all was above board and squeaky clean. Matt mate, that's what you are like - you couldn't help it. (And you ought to be doing it!)

As I've said before there are clubs being run by volunteers who have given whole lifetimes to their clubs without ever falling foul of FA rules - yes they're sticklers - but they are worth their weight in gold. Their little clubs grow. The games are won on the field, but the players are there because they know they are at a well-run club at which everything is taken of. It's settled. Good players come and they stay. An ambitious manager seizes the opportunity and finds he's loving it.

The club don't design the website. The website will be designed by a web design company or a marketing company and I'm guessing they've included a system where it's easy for anybody to edit, create and upload content. I remember a few years ago the Football League owned and created all the websites for all the 72 clubs therefore they had the same design just in different colours depending on the team. The old information which reappears long after it is relevant is also what happens on local newspaper websites, there could be articles from years ago but it's still there.

If I ran a football team in whatever league whether that would be Hope Valley League or National League, you're damn right I would do everything by the book and make sure everything was above board. I mean it was common knowledge that in Non-League that the referee and officials wear all black when taking charge of a game, but someone at our club didn't know this information and ordered an all black kit probably on the fact it was cheap.

[Devongone]

I know there are design constraints from the provider chosen by the EFL and that managing the site is mostly merely uploading ..... but that should make it easier to provide good content, not harder. I've never researched who does the National League or whether everyone follows a pattern ....... I'm not that much of a nerd.

Nothing HAS to stay up on a site forever. I agree it does with newspapers ....... and there are some pretty crap local paper sites too. On football sites pretty much unrelated historic crap just floats in after you've finished the thing in which you were interested. Now there must be an edit function which would get rid of this stuff (which must also be clogging the site's capacity) because rules change, laws change, your site could be carrying content which has become illegal or embarrassing .... maybe an ad' for a former sponsor who went bankrupt and ate the neighbours' hamster.

Yeah course you need policy from the top, but I'd also like to see evidence of people at the bottom who are doing their best whatever is happening with DA and AC. Sadly at Chesterfield FC the malaise looks endemic, we're institutionally shite at the moment.

[spireitematt]

I know there are design constraints from the provider chosen by the EFL and that managing the site is mostly merely uploading ..... but that should make it easier to provide good content, not harder. I've never researched who does the National League or whether everyone follows a pattern ....... I'm not that much of a nerd.

Nothing HAS to stay up on a site forever. I agree it does with newspapers ....... and there are some pretty crap local paper sites too. On football sites pretty much unrelated historic crap just floats in after you've finished the thing in which you were interested. Now there must be an edit function which would get rid of this stuff (which must also be clogging the site's capacity) because rules change, laws change, your site could be carrying content which has become illegal or embarrassing .... maybe an ad' for a former sponsor who went bankrupt and ate the neighbours' hamster.

Yeah course you need policy from the top, but I'd also like to see evidence of people at the bottom who are doing their best whatever is happening with DA and AC. Sadly at Chesterfield FC the malaise looks endemic, we're institutionally shite at the moment.

The clubs themselves do there own websites in National League and below.

One website I like is Salford City's because it's straight to the point and accessible and you can find everything really easy. Also I like Leyton Orient's and Salford's Youtube channel for highlights of matches. Compare there Youtube highlights of games to ours and you'll see the difference. Our highlights looks like they've been filmed on a pocket calculator while Salford and Leyton Orient look like they are using a HD resolution camera and Adobe Premiere Pro for graphics.

https://salfordcityfc.co.uk/

[Devongone]

I like Salford and I found what I wanted when I accessed Orient last week.

We have no excuse for our site then ......... It is content and its organisation that does for me.