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New Website


andydick

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I've been building a new AFC Hornchurch website which I've shown to the club over the past couple of days.  We're happy to implement it but before we do I'd like to take feedback from the good supporters of Hornchurch.

 

Link is here: http://falcondesignservices.co.uk/

 

Don't worry about the URL (it's bad I know) as the website will still be afchornchurch.com when we're all done.

 

I've been maintaining the site from the start of the season so it's got all this season's stuff on it.

 

We've got the usual pages:

 - news & events

 - first team section - fixtures / tables / squad (this section needs improving with pictures etc)

 - all team section - fixtures have been added for a number of our sides but again we lack images (I'l remove the Boro promotion images before we go live !!)

 - commercial section + sponsors, 59 club etc

 - media (videos and photos).  Video - I need to speak to Rob M; Pictures I may remove these and add to flickr instead

 - info section

 

I've also added a few things you wouldn't normally get on a standard website e.g.

 - on the news page I've pulled in an RSS feed of Ryman Division 1 North news

 - I've added a couple of extra league tables to the First Team league table page

 - a Ryman league stats page

 - a "next match day page" comparing Hornchurch to the opposition

 - a live updates page showing our current live match (our Twitter, oppo Twitter) + a vidiprinter of latest Ryman North results

 

So, can you have a look and let me know:

 - what you think needs improving

 - what we need to add

 - performance (is it slow etc).  I am on the cheapest hosting package and we do plan to upgrade to the next package which will improve performance

 - does it look ok on all media - PC's, laptops, tablets and 'phones.  It should be fine as it's a responsive design but I have hacked at a few pages

 

Re maintenance, it's built in Wordpress so has a full content management system behind it.  To add content e.g. news items, it is the same as Pitchero in that you log onto the site, create a post and publish it.

I'm happy to set up profiles now so those who update the site (Dagger for example) can see how it works.  It is easy to update.

 

The fixtures are stored in a Wordpress plugin (called Sportspress) - this is the only area of the site I'm not particularly happy with as the match info screens and fixture lists don't look as good as I'd like  e.g.

http://falcondesignservices.co.uk/event/540/

http://falcondesignservices.co.uk/calendar/fixtures-results-2/

 

Let me know.

 

Thanks,

Andy

 

 

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Looks excellent to me on firefox - though some of the team pictures bear an uncanny resemblance to Middlesbrough FC.  Most peculiar :)

Seriously - I like the layout, and the Ryman stats and RSS feed are an excellent addition.  It's much cleaner and navigation is very intuitive.

Performance was fine - but probably not much traffic so hard to judge really.

 

I tried mobile via my iPhone 4 - all fine except that the nice feature of "Next Match" which displays fine on the desktop homepage is on the side panel and therefore gets pushed to the bottom - basically you'd have to be very patient to try and find it. (So do the rss feeds but that's not a problem).

 

My only gripe is the results show the same way as on Pitchero - i.e.the home team's score is always shown first,  I've always been used to seeing "my" team's score first so that an away Hx win is shown as 2-0,  not 0-2  (which confuses me).  Footballwebpages web site displays it the "right" way round - though I noticed their csv export gives the away score first so guess needs a bit of logic added.

 

Otherwise - fabulous.  Top work.

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Thanks for the feedback Cuppa / Jago ...

 

Re the "Next Match" and the RSS feed ...  each page on the site can be structured differently but basically I use 2 layouts.

 - a full width layout as per the fixtures / tables / videos pages

 - a page split 75 / 25 (approx) with the rightmost 25% as the sidebar e.g. home page, news, sponsors

 

For full width, all devices will try and show the full page - which may or may not always look good - so I try and minimise what's shown to prevent the info overlapping.

For 75 / 25 all but mobiles will show the full page.  Mobiles will show the first 75 as a full page and show the sidebar underneath .. it's how responsive displays scale the info .. so I try not to put important stuff in the sidebar.  I think I may need to re-design the home page though.

 

The fixtures and results are more tricky.  With Pitchero the Ryman league maintained the first team and U21s fixtures, results and tables.  We didn't update anything (except friendlies).  With the new site however, we're on our own; so I'm using a Wordpress plug-in (sportspress) to store all the fixtures and results.

The sportspress fixtures / results page isn't great though (see here) so I just wrote my own first team fixtures page. It's 100% manually updated so if the concensus is to swap around the scores that's no problem.  If we did always show our score first then we'd probably have no need for the coloured WDL (though I do quite like it as it gives an immediate visual representation of current form).

 

By storing all fixtures / results together across all teams we can do something like this which shows a consolidated calendar of fixtures at all age groups.  Needs work on styling / presentation but has potential.

 

Thanks,

Andy   

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Really like it Andy,

 

Not sure if this is possible but it it possible to have the Venue Hire a a main menu tab? rationale it doesn't scream out that you can hire the great club house. Also be great (again if possible) if people could leave comments i.e liked the club house, friendly staff etc , a sort like a trip adviser sort of recommendation. Oh and more pics i am sure we coudl all send a few of does that have happened in there.

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ive got a couple of Thommo singing on his 40th, that should encourage people.

 

 

To Stay away.

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Thanks for all the comments - much appreciated.

 

Digits - we have full control of the menu system so yes, we can put the Venue Hire on the main menu .. my only concern is we still need to add a Community section (for the AFCHSA etc) and potentially a Shop section so it may look congested - I'll take a look.

As a way of promoting the "Venue Hire" I'm in the process of creating a common "sidebar" which will sit to the right on most pages - we can add stuff to that for general info e.g. sponsors, facebook +  Venue Hire.

Example: http://falcondesignservices.co.uk/club-information/contact-us/

The way the sponsors rotate is quite neat (I've only added a few of them).

 

I've also changed the Venue Hire page so comments can be added at the bottom.  I'll see if there is a better way of storing testimonials.

 

Match Pictures - I'm taking these off the site as the pictures take up too much space and it's unlikely we'd be looking at pictures from games long since played.  So, I've put them all on flickr and linked the Photos page to our flickr account.  The flickr icon has been added to our Social Media icons

Flickr account: https://www.flickr.com/photos/147775576@N05/albums

 

In terms of content the site is ready to go but we need a lot of pictures adding - team pics, squad pics, manager pics, clubhouse pics .. we can't really go live with every team pic showing Middlesbrough getting promoted .. though I can just replace with a greyed out squad images for the time being.

 

Whilst we have loads more content to add especially around the history of the club + connections etc I don't really want to add this until we're up and running in case we have to do it all again.

 

Andy

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Given the lull in footballing activity now is a good time to start the process of transferring the afchornchurch.com domain from the current host to where the new site is being built (under falcondesign.....etc).

 

Over the next few days it will go from the current site > invalid domain > site in maintenance mode > running as per normal

 

There's still work to be done on the site but that can be done when live.

 

Andy

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  • 2 weeks later...

The website is now up and running.

 

There were a few issues during the transfer process which meant a couple of the pages had to be re-built but it makes sense to make it available now and fix some of the smaller problems as we go along.  It's also up to date as per the latest news.

 

Check it out and let me know problems / issues on here.  Don't send me a private message unless you really want to as I'd rather have all problems / feedback / enhancements in the one place on this thread.

 

I've removed a lot of the team pages (U18s and below) until I've discussed with the various managers re content.

 

Some pages need re-working (easyfundraising, links, venue hire) but I'll do these as and when.  We also need pictures, lots of pictures, as we are missing manager pics, player pics, team pics, clubhouse pics.

If anyone has any good pics that we can use then let me know.

 

Thanks,

Andy

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