If you’re reading this you will have noticed by now Northwich Victoria FC has a new Official Website!

Why a new website?

Having listened to feedback, the previous website was not meeting the needs of the fans, and was not providing a platform for which the Club could promote itself. Without experience of the content management system behind the website, it was difficult to update with new content, and almost impossible to customise to meet changing needs.

It may not always be transparent but any feedback on the website in the last 18 months has been listened to.

With that in mind…

I decided to collate all the feedback and do some investigations. It’s difficult to summarise all comments\requests from fans in this article, so here are just a few:

• Sponsor's adverts on the front page
• Updated Player Profiles
• Removal of redundant sections (e.g. Visiting Clubs, NVTV)
• Online Shop
• Ability to link directly to pages

I also added a few of my own requirements:

• Software environment and development costs to be low or even free
• Easy for non-technical users to update content
• Extendable – new features and functionality can be added after website is launched

The investigation process started in August last year and I started to install sample websites for testing and to play around with. Initially, there was no urgency on the project but I knew the official website at the time would eventually need to be replaced. I tentatively showed samples to some fans and employees at the club.

But it was the FA Cup run which was to provide the impetus and also prove to be a distraction. The success of the club in bringing three high profile cup games (two live on ITV) highlighted what was missing from the website, and showed what the club needed to go through to provide a minimum service to fans - the online ticket service. I now had a very clear idea of what any new website should provide.

The website really started to take shape towards the end of 2009. The test website was shared with a few, feedback taken onboard and the website updated. A process repeated up until the final few hours before the launch.

There never had been an official launch date, but to give some urgency to authoring the last of the content, tidying up and fixing minor issues, I tentatively decided on the end of February for a go live date. The switch was made on the evening of Saturday 27th and some early bird visitors on the Sunday would have been the first to see the new site. At that stage there was still some ‘switching’ to take place and I believe this caused some issues with links. But by Monday morning the site was fully functional and initial feedback was extremely positive.

Steven Smith is now also behind the updating of content on the website. His journalism skills should add some professionalism to the articles published on the website.

Going back to the initial requests by fans, I would like to address those individually:

• Sponsor's adverts on the front page
  • There are now adverts on the front page and others. These can be added to at anytime. There is still some work needed to ensure all current sponsors have adverts placed on the website.
• Updated Player Profiles
  • Steven has updated these and is working hard to keep them updated.
• Removal of redundant sections (e.g. Visiting Clubs, NVTV)
  • Where information is difficult or time-consuming to obtain and can be accessed elsewhere, a link will be provided to save on the administration effort. However, we haven’t given up hope for NVTV! The current videos section under Team will be updated as often as possible.
• Online Shop
  • There is functionality within the site for an online shop where tickets and merchandise can be purchased. However, the club have decided online sales will only be available at certain periods throughout the season.
• Ability to link directly to pages
  • This is now possible.

The Suggestion Box

There has been some excellent feedback on the website and the suggestion box has been made good use of (although, no one said the suggestion box was a good idea!).  

We will respond to many of the comments and suggestions within the next week.