1. Daniel Weatherby
Dear Mr. Farrington,
I hope this email finds you well.
As one of our largest football viewed websites on Club Website, I am writing to you today to see if you would be willing to provide us with a testimonial? We can provide you with a couple of questions and the survey will take no longer than 5 minutes. However, if you would rather provide us with a paragraph of your own thoughts, that would be great too.
Please let me know if this is possible at your earliest convenience and I look forward to hearing from you.
Regards
Daniel
How are you finding Club Website for your club platform?
Excellent. It is ideal for my purposes. I'm able to post articles, news, videos, photos and much, much more. Also, all the statistics (including the league table) are automatically generated when I add the information. This is a particularly useful tool for me.
How many teams are involved with your club?
I only concern myself with the first XI. However, I will occasionally post items about the junior teams and the Thailand national team.
What do you use the website for?
Pretty much everything connected with Chonburi FC. I post news, interviews, previews, match reports and articles relating to the club and Thai football in general. I have a few regular contributors and have interviewed numerous people over the years. I treat the website as an online fanzine and try to include as much variety as possible in order to keep it fresh.
Would you recommend Club Website to fellow clubs and if so, why?
Absolutely! It's easy to use - which is useful for someone like me, who doesn't know too much about the technical side of computers - and allows you to do a wide variety of different things (see above). In addition, whenever I've had a problem or a query, the support staff have always been really helpful and quick to respond.
Is there anything that needs improving on the functionality of the site?
Overall, I'm pretty happy with the site's functionality. There are a couple of minor changes I'd recommend:
- editing the "More" section needs to be tidied up
- being able to add times of goals, substitutions etc in the results section would be useful
- enabling those of us overseas to add maps etc.
- being able to edit archived material
But, otherwise, it's a great service.
Any other comments?
As I am not connected to the club, I run my website entirely as an independent fan site and it works for me - the official site (and one or two other local sites) have nicked some of my ideas! I really enjoy using the clubwebsite facility and it suits all of my needs. Thank you for providing a great service over the past seven years. Long may it continue!
2. Mario Carrera
Good day Dale,
My name is Mario. I write articles on Pattaya football in English which is normally published in Pattaya Mail and other websites. I am writing an article about Thai football news in English mainly based on my experience on writing about Thai (club) football based in Pattaya over the past year.
I would like to get some comments from you about your experience writing about Thai football (and Chonburi). I read the reviews on your website but would like to get some more on the background experience and thoughts.
Here are my questions:
What is the relationships with the Club management? To what extent are they aware of you and is your work encouraged?
The club is aware of what I do and seem quite happy for me to continue. However, I am completely independent and don't ask them for anything. This way I have complete control over the content of my website, including any criticism. I wouldn't want it any other way, and I certainly don't want them having any influence on what I write.
How helpful has been the Club in terms of access to personnel and plans?
When I first started, I had a good relationship with the lad who ran the official site. He let me use photos, videos etc and linked to my site. However, since he was replaced, I have had no contact with them whatsoever - which I prefer. I don't rely on the club at all. If I want an interview, I will approach the individual. I certainly don't want to be the "official" English language website.
Why do you think the Clubs are slow on pushing material out in English?
They probably aren't aware there's a need. Most clubs have very few English speaking fans - some none at all - so don't think it is worth it. Also, they would have to employ someone whose English is competent enough or give a job to a native speaker. You also have to remember that it wasn't that long ago that even getting information in Thai was nearly impossible!
How can clubs get material out in English? Why should Clubs push English?
They can have an English page on their websites and in their programmes (I used to contribute to the Chonburi programme when my mate was the editor). When you consider that a lot of the advertising and players' names are all in English, you would think the clubs would realise how important it is to get other things translated too. I guess it will come in time.
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