Just In Case You Don't Know What You're Doing

I know I did one a while back and fully appreciate that most of you are loyal regulars who probably know their way around this website, but I've done another "show and tell" guide to remind people of a few of the extra features that are sort-of hidden away. If you're a newbie then, of course, this will be a real help.

Apologies for the loss of detail in the picture but whenever you upload anything to YouTube it gets compressed to within an inch of its online life, resulting in a loss of quality. You should get the gist of it anyway....

Some (More) Stats About You, The Readers

I know I did this last year but things have changed slightly where this blogsite is concerned i.e it has a more "attractive" URL (web address) and is receiving more hits per month now than this time last year. So, I've taken it upon myself to have a nosey at the stats for this blogsite and share a few things about you, our precious readers......

* since 1st January 2007, this site has had 2,944 visits
* you spend an average of 5 minutes on it
* 36% of you are new visitors - welcome aboard!
* somebody out there views this website using their Sony Ericsson W850i mobile phone!!
* the most popular search terms for this website are the words "pole and polardin"; the slightly more relevant "cheadle town fc" comes in a poor second.....
* about of quarter of visits come direct i.e from those people who have this site in their bookmarks or favourites - the rest from Google and other "referring sites"
* Internet Explorer is by far the most popular browser used. When will you lot ever learn....?
* our furthest visitor is in Auckland, New Zealand
* this site has had absolutely no visits from Africa!
* you're a loyal lot - apart from the one-offs that have stumbled upon this website by chance, a vast majority of you have been here 50-100 times before
* the vast majority of you check this site every 2-3 days

Thanks for your continued readership!

Summer Break

Just to let you know that this blog will be taking its short summer break from tomorrow and will return again in two weeks' time on Saturday 23rd June.

On its return the footballing world will hopefully start to slowly wake up from its summer stupor and things may start happening; hey, there might even be news of some CTFC pre-season friendlies to tell you about.

Until then you're just going to make do without my irreverent rambles. If you get bored you can always take another look at last season's photos or wander over to the blog's video channel on YouTube.....or you could even see what Polardin has got to say for himself over at his blog.

See you in two weeks.

Blog Update

The main thing to tell you all is a change to the address of this website.

A while ago I bought the domain name cheadletownfc.com with the intention of someday changing this website's main address to something a bit more recognisable and trip-off-the-tonguey. Well, that day has now come.

The "old" address of cheadletownfc.blogspot.com will still work, but if I were you I'd update your bookmarks now to the new address of

www.cheadletownfc.com

which is much easier to remember, I'm sure you'll agree. Remembering where I've submitted this website's details so I can update things has been a royal pain in the arse, let me tell you.

Incidentally, there was one result last night. New Mills shifted up into sixth place by beating Norton United 2-1 at home, and they've still got plenty of games-in-hand to get through and all. A late surge up the table by the Millers? It's not beyond them....

5,000 Hits!

5,000 hits in nearly a year. I know some websites get that in a day, but I'm going to celebrate it anyway.

If you're one of our regulars - and I know we have them (Craig, Aaron, The Runcorn lads, Dave, to name but a few) - then many thanks for keeping the visits rolling in.

Here's to the next 5,000.

Blog(s) Update

It's the 1st day of a new month, so that must mean some tinkerings with the blog to tell you about.

As you know there's two authors to this blog - myself and Polardin. When we have our moments of wisdom we type up our posts and put them into a "holding area" and then I publish one per day so that we're not overwhelming you with too much to read. However, the problem that the "one-per-day" policy has is that I've now got a massive backlog of posts that need to go on...mainly Polardin's stuff about this, that, the other and James Joyce.

So, I've had to build the online equivalent of a "granny flat" to house all of Polardin's posts. Therefore it is my online duty to inform you all of this website's new "sister site" called Polardin's Province. The web address will be as follows:

worldofpolardin.blogspot.com

Because they are related sites, if you go to one you won't be cut off from the other. You'll notice that in the right-hand column of this site you'll be able to keep an eye on what's going on in the 'Province - the same will apply vice versa, too. (Geek bit: that's where RSS feeds come in handy!)

So it's here for Cheadle Town stuff and other words of Pole wisdom, and over to Polardin's Province for...well, you'll find out.

Updates n' Stuff

First of all, it'll be third time lucky as the Ashton Town away cup tie has been re-arranged for next Tuesday 19th December, 7.45pm kick-off. The match will now be played at Park Road, probably because Ashton Town FC are having problems getting any game under way at the moment because of a permanently waterlogged pitch!

Next, some blog tweaks to tell you about. A couple of new things on the right-hand column:
* a poll that you can take part in. I'm giving this a try, so please have a go - I want to see if it works properly
* the ability to look at posts by category (yes, it took bloody ages to categorize all of them!)

Blog Under Reconstruction!

During the switchover to Blogger's new software, the blog will look a bit different than usual. Please bear with me for the following week as I build the various bits n' pieces back onto it and make it look "normal" again.

Blog Update - Pictures

Just to keep you posted with a change to blog proceedings.

As from now I'll start hosting all of the pictures on Bubbleshare instead of Flickr. Not that Flickr isn't up to the job; far from it. It's just that on Bubbleshare I can sort the pictures out into one album for each match (if I want more than three albums I have to pay for a 'Pro Account' on Flickr, you see), which will make things easier for me and ultimately easier for you at the end of the day. Plus I can do all sorts of extra snazzy things with them, the results of which you will see all in good time.....hopefully for the next match report, if it doesn't get called off!

Blog Update

If you look over in the right-hand column you'll now find a record of Cheadle Town's goalscorers in all competitions this season. I could also put that out of Cheadle's 16 goals scored this season, 11 have been in the second half...but that would be a little bit too anal.

Are We There Already?

Good God. 2,000 hits already? It only seems like "five minutes ago" since I was posting about our landmark 1,000th hit...which was actually back on August 21st.

So, three months to get our first one thousand hits and then just one-and-a-half months to collect the next thousand. You don't have to be Einstein (see Polardin's post below if you don't know who he is) to do the maths and thus deduce that this blog's bush fires are burning that little bit quicker as each month passes.

And that's all down to you, our wonderful readers. Ta muchy! And I'll say the same again as I did back in August: here's to the next 1,000!

Cosmetic Changes On The Blog

I've been tinkering again. You've probably noticed the changes down the right-hand side of the page already, but here's the gist of what's changed:
* I've given the shop that I've set up a bit more prominence by moving the advert for it to the top
* that annoying, moving Flickr picture box has gone and been replaced by a simpler button that takes you straight to the Flickr page with all of our photos on it. In addition, for reasons I can't be bothered explaining, it means that I don't have to faff around as much when uploading the pictures onto Flickr after a match. What I was doing before was a real ball-ache...
* because said "moving" picture box has been removed, the blog page should load up a hell of a lot quicker now. Why? Because, that's why.
* ...and if you're wondering where the "Blog Guide" has gone, it's been shunted to the bottom, out of the way for the time being.

Unoffical CTFC Gear!

If you scroll down the screen and look inside the right-hand column you will see the new "skyscraper" banner advertisement for the shop I have set up. All you need to do is click on this banner and you'll be taken straight there. A few other points of note:
* the shop is provided by Spreadshirt.net
* if you want to bookmark the web address for the shop, it's ctfcblog.spreadshirt.net
* t-shirts are the main item on sale, although there are a few other bits n' bobs on there and all (lanyards, stickers, woolly hats etc.)
* all of the designs are of my own creative mind - more items will be added as and when said mind clicks back into creative mode
* the money that you pay for the t-shirts goes to Spreadshirt.net, not me - I've set this up purely for my own savage amusement, and because I can. I receive a small amount of commission for each t-shirt sold, monies which will go to Francis House Children's Hospice in Didsbury, just up the road from Cheadle Town FC.

Happy shopping!

Hundreds, Now Thousands

I'm pleased to announce that this website has managed to crash through the 1,000-hit mark. For a blog that is dedicated to a football team some nine leagues below the choppy seas of the Premiership and to do it all in the space of four months is some going, if we say so ourselves.

Thanks to all of those responsible: the plain nosey; the people who have found us by accident; friends and family who have had a look even if they aren't remotely interested in football; players and staff at Cheadle Town FC who we know have just started to read the blog; those who have provided links to this site on their own websites and finally - if you don't fit into any of those categories - you, the person who is reading this at the moment.

To mark the occasion, I've done a bit of tinkering. If you've already noticed the new banner at the top of the page and the fact that the word size is slightly smaller so that you don't have to scroll down the page as much, forget I spoke.

Here's to the next 1,000 hits.

A Helping Hand

I've created a little "show and tell" guide for the blog which shows you - and any other newcomers - what's on here and how to use it. We'd also like to receive more comments, so it shows you how to do that and all. Originally I added commentary on it, but I decided my mancunian accent sounded a little bit too mancunian over the airwaves, making me sound like a right rougharse.

You can watch it by clicking here, or by clicking on that little blue Blog Guide button that has suddenly appeared in the right-hand column. The button will stay there permanently, so people can go to the guide whenever they want.

For the geeks and remotely interested out there, the guide was created using Macromedia Captivate software. So there.

(A Few) More Photos from the Glossop Match

All the photos are now in! Click here to go to the photoset.

Picture Problems

Apologies for the problems you may have had with some of the pictures not showing. I've done a bit of tinkering so that the most recent ones are shown again (along with the page's top banner!).

Hopefully normal service can be resumed as soon as possible.

Mac Users: CTFC's Fixture List Available on iCal

If you are sensible, truly blessed and know what's good for you by using an Apple Mac, you can have CTFC's fixtures automatically downloaded onto your iCal calendar. Here's how to get started:

1. Click on this link
2. In the blue box in the middle of the screen, click on the underlined Subscribe bit
3. iCal should then take care of the rest. That's it, you've subscribed to the Cheadle Town FC iCal!

When the calendar gets updated by me, yours will automatically update and all! But because you're a Mac user, you knew that anyway....