Many thanks to Pete at CFC-Net for sharing with us some of the trials and tribulations of running an independent football website:

CFCnet's enthusiasm comes in the form of Rob Hobson (Editor) and Jez Walters (Media Liaison).

Rob came in at a time when the good ship CFCnet was sinking fast. Rob asked me if he could write for the site and sent me some examples of his work with a promise that he could write most days if required.

I also felt that Rob had no hidden agenda and was not strongly opinionated when come to football. This is very important as you can alienate many fans by moaning un-constructively about a particular player or club decision.

N ow, I know that mission statements are a little 1990s but I feel that we needed to be pulling in the same direction. So I kept the one written by the original editor and founder member of CFCnet, Mark Wheeler.

"We provide a forum for fans to share their views and our agenda is simply to reflect the diversity of their opinions."

Rob accepted the role of Editor and I decided to invest some of my own money into sponsoring the kit for a player which meant that we would get our URL into the match day programme every home game for the whole season. Worked out at around £30 per issue. Each print run is around 35,000 copies per issue. (6.31% of our correspondents first heard of CFCnet via the match day programme.)

Jez has been involved with CFCnet since day one in a previous disguise when it existed to promote one of the Chelsea fanzines. Jez was a good friend of Mark's and luckily he stayed on board when Mark gave up the editorial hot seat.

Jez talks to the press and media on our behalf and promotes the site. Also, if available, Jez will always talk to media. This means giving up some of his spare time and sometimes rearranging his day to suit radio and TV requests. If he's
not available then Rob will step up to the plate. This has been essential to our success to the extent that CFC's very own radio station (Big Blue) uses CFCnet for interviews before every game. 8.28% of our correspondents visit us due to our mentions on Big Blue.

In fact CFCnet hardly ever refuses a media request this of course means that they nearly always come back to us. Just imagine the requests we got when Roman came in and took the club over. Welcome aboard Theo Boyce to help us cope with the constant media attention.

Developer or Designer? One thing I'm not is a designer. I struggle to match a shirt and a tie for work most of the time. Rob and I and new addition, Theo Boyce, decided we had
everything in place. Content, media coverage and of course that magic word... enthusiasm. Many people had commented on the design of the site and we decided that it needed to be changed. I thought if it needs to be redone then it needs to be done properly. For example not by me. Luckily I have a web background and approached an old colleague name Penny Morgan.

I think that the reason the design works so well is that the designer is not a sports fan and designed the site purely as a designer. I gave the designer a brief and we had an initial choice of three designs. We merged the three together and then agreed the final design over a period of around 2 months. You can't hurry these things.

In December the brand new design was launched on the world and the compliments came rolling in.

If possible we make no changes to the site without running them past the designer. Sometimes you just have to step back a step or two and let people who know make the decisions.