In the early days, Extra Time was a mixture of football and the popular footie game, Championship Manager. However, all the staff agreed to concentrate their energies on an all-out football site, believing it would be better to concentrate on one thing, rather than be mediocre in two environments.
The big break for Extra Time came in June 2004, when Andrew Smith kindly offered us free hosting - without ads. Without his generosity and belief in the site’s potential, we may now no longer exist.
A lot of hard coding work was done, mainly by our kind host, as we were not yet adapt at dealing with a website. We were all set for an August launch, re-vamped and with a new name - Fever Pitch.
But the expected multiplying of our hits never really materialised. The staff thought it was only a matter of time before word would spread, yet, month on month, the stats were almost identical.
By September, Fever Pitch had established itself at its new home. However, a new design came, and, with it, an all new, innovative issue format. Every two weeks, a new issue would be released, and this lasted 15 issues. But most people didn’t want to wait two weeks for comment on issues that would soon go out of date.
One feature that did receive rave reviews was the club diaries - unique, varied, opinionated and everything but your standard match report. Fans of various clubs, from Arsenal to Forest Green signed up to give regular views on their club, and no prisoners were taken.
Going into 2005, the site was in something of a crisis. Still, no proper domain name (.co.nr if you ask) and few seemed to know of the site besides those in the forums we constantly harassed!
Things slowly but surely picked up, as the site became a haven for articles. The Inside… series was a hit, as were the other controversial articles.
Then things really improved, in March. Finally, we had a proper domain - www.footballingworld.com - and we began to tinker with the design. We were featured in the April issue of When Saturday Comes magazine, with a complimentary review.
The issue format was scraped, once and for all, and our army of club diarists continued to grow, while we created a section for every Premiership club. Our Five Footballers of the Year were unique and very well received, and the hits finally rose significantly. We now regularly receive over 20,000 unique clicks per day.
It has been a long ride, and much work is needed yet. But, without your feedback, none of this would have been possible.
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E-mail us with your comments, criticisms and compliments at mail(at)footballingworld.com.
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Footballing World began in January 2004. All rights are reserved and all articles are Copyright (C) of Footballing World. Articles may be reproduced on other sites / media only by e-mailing Footballing World.
Help Footballing World
Writing: At Footballing World we would like to add as much good content as possible, so we are always on the look-out for new writers and new articles, so if you feel you can do a job for us, then email us: click here. At the moment our priority is to get an Inside… article for each Premiership club, so we would be especially grateful for those.
In typical American patriotic style…”We Want You!” We want you to become a writer at Footballing World. You don’t need any experience as we want to see young, talented blood prosper here at Footballing World. We are also looking for writers that specialise in foreign football so we can have a more varied content level. All applications will be welcome and all applications will receive a reply. Although we won’t be able to accept every one, we will endeavour to give out as many jobs as we can.
Advertising: Posting on other sites with forums is a great way to promote sites, so tell everyone about Footballing World there, but please be nice! If we recognise your work because you have advertised in loads of places, we will mention you on the site! Also, apply for affiliate positions with other sites and tell your friends on MSN Messenger.
Reviewing: At Footballing World we would love it if you reviewed us! We would be happy to review you as well.
Affiliating: Please contact us if you would like your site to be added to the affiliates page. We also operate a two-way policy: we add you link, you add ours. As a popular site, your traffic could rise considerably!
Please note: Every individual writer/contributor have their own opinion, and these are reflected in their articles/content on Footballing World. Footballing World does not share or endorse the opinions and/or views of any of the writers/contributors. Satires: All characters and events reported on this site are ficticious. We will only use real names when public figures are being satirized. In no event will we be liable for any loss or damage including without limitation, indirect or consequential loss or damage, or any loss or damage whatsoever arising from loss of data or profits arising out of or in connection with the use of this website.
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