Altrincham's Official Site (www.altrinchamfc.com)
Iain's Celtic Site
Accrington's Official Site
and of course the original non-league web site www.barrowfc.com
I know thats only four but the rest are pretty poor in comparison IMO.
It depends what criteria is being used. I imagine most fans like their own sites because the news is relevant. Other factors are speed and regularity of updates, ease of use and good looks (although this doesn't matter so muchas the other two).
My pet gripe is sites that have splash screen, in other words show a picture of the ground/playing squad/tea hut with the words, "Click picture to enter site" underneath. Why?????
Seriously,I think there are many good non-league sites, but although ours may not be the very best (close though!!), it is definately not the worst.
Which websites do you think are poor?
I think it's unfair to describe any club web site as por at non-league level. These sites are usually run by unpaid volunteers who are doing their best, often with little time at their disposal. Compare programme editors. Some of those clbs would not have a site at all if it were not for these people, and its grossly unfair to criticise their efforts when you are not aware of the difficulties they face in getting one up and running.
Altrincham (www.altrinchamfc.com),
Altrincham (www.altyfc.u-net.com),
Whitby Town (www.wtfc.freeserve.co.uk),
Radcliffe Borough (www.radcliffeborough.com)
and the two Burton Albion ones from last year (www.burtonalbionfc.co.uk) and (www.brewersnet.com).
Of course, the brilliant unofficial Tigers website may return later in the year.
What about Gateshead's unofficial site?
www.gatesheadfc.net
It is up to date, has loads of Gateshead related information. Reports, pictures of players past and present etc. plus directions to every unibond prem ground.
The site is maintained by one person who does it for the love of the club, as I guess most non-league sites are.
Surely all non-league sites are good, as long as they are up to date. No site should be like the magazines in a doctor's waiting room!
But there are websites that people setup and then leave to rot. Dont update and dont put any effort into. Its annoying to go to a club website and see old out of date information..
Its OK saying its a solo effort.. If there not going to update it for weeks on end and leave old information in then sorry.. they shouldnt have taken the task on.
I have seen a few like that but I wont be naming and shaming as thats not my point.. My point is you cant have "there not paid" as an excuse.
All IMHO of course and no insult intended to anyuone out there with a shoddy website
fair enough if people can't be arsed to update their page, then that is poor.
But the point i was making is its not fair to have a go at someone who has tried there best even if the page does look pants!
I know what you mean about pages not being updated, its dead annoying when you can't get any news about clubs.
Well as for not looking best.. what looks bad to one might look great to the next person so its a bit relative.
We should just be glad they havent all been taken over like the football league clubs have.. All look the same. all asking for money just to look at something and all break at the same time..
Some good sites listed anyway. I ahve been having a good old look round the ones listed:)
I wasn't intending to knock anyone's efforts, as running a website must be a difficult task, so sorry if it came across in the wrong way.
I meant which is the poorest in terms of up to date info and accuracy - but I understand it is not always possible to update a website all the time, so I take the question back.
Hats off to anyone who takes on the job of a webmaster!
I think the problem is that some people take on the job of doing a club website with the best of intentions, but without realising how much work is involved in keeping up to date, and they find they just can't live with it. In some cases, perhaps, club officials may be to blame for not feeding the webmaster relevant info to put on the site anyway.
I used to run 3 non-League websites, but now I just do 2. At the end of the day, 2 of them (the unofficial UniBond site and my Tameside football one) were left neglected because I couldn't find enough information and motivation to keep them going - I managed to get results up on the UniBond site but what's the point in that if you can get them from hundreds of other places? The Tameside one didn't really get started for some reason, but it's a shame because I thought it was a good idea.
As for the Hyde United one, that one stopped because I didn't see the point in having a site that was basically competing against the official site because it basically had all the same features but I've had plenty of emails since I closed it so I'm planning to get it started up again.
My problem was always changing the design of the Hyde site due to boredom, but a succesful site needs a simple design (like Altrincham's), no stupid 'Click here to enter' pages (as Brian said), regular updates and it needs to appeal to fans of all clubs, not just those of the club in question.
