We have been playing football after work on a regular basis every Friday for the past few years. Playing on a grass field it is more important that there are even numbers, rather than the exact numbers involved. For example, 5-a-side is about the same as 8-a-side or 9-a-side, but there is room to lengthen and widen the pitch to suit. Playing at Belmont, we have tried five, six, seven and eight-a-side but it's generally accepted that the pitch is too big for 5-a-side and 8-a-side is a little too crowded.

Making sure that we have at least 10 players per week used to be the priority but within the last year we are able to call upon a maximum of 14 players each week from a pool of 30. A spreadsheet on Microsoft Excel was used to record availability (either a tick or a cross!) and this proved to be a successful system, although it does require some manual work in the form of emails and receiving the responses.

The idea of having a website about a weekly game of football is quite a strange one. Afterall, I doubt there are many organised groups that rely on the Internet to manage the overall organisation of a weekly event. The internet address, www.fridayfooty.co.uk, was officially created on the World Wide Web on 2 April 2003. Original site design and testing was started in June 2003 and we had a staggered launch in July 2003. All registered players have been allocated passwords, which are available as an email reminder via the login page and every player that has played so far this season has been able to log in and make use of the website.

The website began as a simple tool that would record individuals availability (or non-availability) and display a weekly team sheet. Since then, the site has grown and become very powerful and increasingly useful. It is totally dependant on a mySQL database and the website is constructed using PHP, a web scripting language similar to HTML but far more powerful. Pages are always created dynamically and this allows maximum flexibility in the format and presentation of information to be displayed.

The website has four security levels: Guest, Master, Manager and Player. Security levels are assigned to all website users and this is determined when logging in, or entering the website as a guest. The security level determines exactly what options are available during your visit. For example, guests can't alter their availability! A user logging in is the most important aspect of using Friday Footy as logging in allows individual users to be identified and this allows secure alterations to the database that makes Friday Footy work. Master and Manager users can access a Admin Menu which manages "high-level operations" such as picking the sides, approving guestbook and report entries, editing player details and creating new seasons.

Alterations and adaptations to the website are made every week. Some changes are cosmetic and some require logical thought in order to automate processes. The creation of the message system is particularly useful as it allows the Master user to send electonic messages to individuals or groups of players. Players can not send messages amongst themselves as the messages could form inappropriate web content. The majority of the messages sent are created automatically by the web server.

The introduction of the Man Of The Match System has proved to be very popular and a good way of receiving feedback about individuals performances on a week-by-week basis. The logistics mean that votes can only be recorded by players that played in the match, although they can't vote for themselves. Recent changes have been made to the system as tactical voting was taking place and as a maximum of 14 votes can be cast each week this must be kept to a minimum. Now all votes are recorded and the result are not displayed until voting closes at 5pm every Wednesday.

In March 2007 the Friday Footy website moved web hosts from Supanames to TwentyHost. Supanames have been providing a good service at a reasonable price but the time has come to take the website further and incorporate some new ideas.

Over the past couple of years there have been several ideas for improvements to the website, some of them cosmetic (see updated screen colours and layout above) and some of them technical. Now we are able to trigger SMS text messages via the website and this will be a key feature in the next upgrade.

Watch this space for more details....

TwentyHost are a relatively new company but they apparently offer first-class customer support. Supanames have recently been aquired by the Pipex group.

The Friday Footy website has been undergoing rapid re-development and that work is nearly complete. The SMS text messaging service was launched successfully so from now on players picked will receive a text message to let them know they are expected to play.

The website is still under constrution with a few areas of the website to finish off but within the next few weeks that should be done.

If anyone has any ideas for improvements then please let us know via the contact us page and we will determine whether it's possible to include the idea within the site. Unfortunately, things such as recording goalscorers are too difficult to manage as there is a group of 2-3 people that manage the football organisation on a weekly basis.