Rivals message boards

[fosters headband]

Doe's anyone else remember the old Rivals football message board sites, when every team had their own section.
It was back in the days when we were battling for promotion with Cardiff and there many an argument about who was the better young player Zamora or Earnshaw, between the fans of each club.

I still posted back then as Fosters Headband and I do remember two other posters back on that site that also used NSC and they were Britbyte and Seagull on the wing. Any others here now that posted on that site?

 

[HHGull]

Doe's anyone else remember the old Rivals football message board sites, when every team had their own section.
It was back in the days when we were battling for promotion with Cardiff and there many an argument about who was the better young player Zamora or Earnshaw, between the fans of each club.

I still posted back then as Fosters Headband and I do remember two other posters back on that site that also used NSC and they were Britbyte and Seagull on the wing. Any others here now that posted on that site?

Not much of an argument though, was it?

 

[fosters headband]

Not much of an argument though, was it?

No but those Cardiff fans just wouldn't listen

 

[Bozza]

There's still a network a bit like rivals called FootyMad, so the model must work to some degree...

http://www.footymad.com/brighton--hove-albion/

The forum is a bit quiet though!

http://boards.footymad.net/forumdisplay.php?f=95

 

[maffew]

There's still a network a bit like rivals called FootyMad, so the model must work to some degree...

http://www.footymad.com/brighton--hove-albion/

The forum is a bit quiet though!

http://boards.footymad.net/forumdisplay.php?f=95

I quite like the model in theory just seems like some/most teams are almost completely inactive

 

[Green Cross Code Man]

I remember using that site. Used to post on it sometimes. I can remember the posters you mentioned as well. And yes i remember the arguments!

 

[W.C.]

Doe's anyone else remember the old Rivals football message board sites, when every team had their own section.
It was back in the days when we were battling for promotion with Cardiff and there many an argument about who was the better young player Zamora or Earnshaw, between the fans of each club.

I still posted back then as Fosters Headband and I do remember two other posters back on that site that also used NSC and they were Britbyte and Seagull on the wing. Any others here now that posted on that site?

Britbyte was also BHAExpress (?) on here wasn't he, god bless his easily angered soul.

 

[Stat Brother]

Someone ought to take footymad out for a curry, they seem quite lonely.

 

[fosters headband]

Britbyte was also BHAExpress (?) on here wasn't he, god bless his easily angered soul.

Yes he was and I did meet him back in the old Withdean days. He did love to wind up the Cardiff, Orient and Palace fans on their sites.

 

[maffew]

Yes he was and I did meet him back in the old Withdean days. He did love to wind up the Cardiff, Orient and Palace fans on their sites.

IIRC you could have one login for any team could be wrong though

 

[fosters headband]

IIRC you could have one login for any team could be wrong though

That's correct and you could flick between clubs sites very easily, well as quickly as dial up would let you

 

[Sussex Nomad]

I remember in about 1998 going to a Brighton website, I was actually in Hull at the time curiously, and I'm not sure who's it was or how it carried on, could have been NSC, no idea. The lad was trying, obviously, to get BHA people to his site. I had a little chat with him and never went back.

 

[Bozza]

I quite like the model in theory just seems like some/most teams are almost completely inactive

I think there are real advantages when it comes to scale. Although each micro-site may be pretty small, they all add up to a pretty significant whole. They'll be able to sell advertising directly covering the whole network which is considerably more lucrative than what NSC, for example, is able to do.

Interestingly I speak from time to time to the chap who runs the Ipswich TWTD site which was originally a Rivals micro-site before going independent. He's gradually building up a network of other club sites which he has loose control over, but are otherwise largely independent. Again, he can sell advertising space directly, and earns considerably more per pageview than NSC is able to.

 

[fosters headband]

I have just looked at BHAexpress profile page and he and myself joined NSC within a month of each other back in 2003, so that must have been roughly when, what was a hugely popular Rivals message boards finished.
Sadly Britbyte/BHAexpress last post on here was Feb 2012, it really doesn't seem that long ago he passed away.

 

[maffew]

I think there are real advantages when it comes to scale. Although each micro-site may be pretty small, they all add up to a pretty significant whole. They'll be able to sell advertising directly covering the whole network which is considerably more lucrative than what NSC, for example, is able to do.

Interestingly I speak from time to time to the chap who runs the Ipswich TWTD site which was originally a Rivals micro-site before going independent. He's gradually building up a network of other club sites which he has loose control over, but are otherwise largely independent. Again, he can sell advertising space directly, and earns considerably more per pageview than NSC is able to.

That was my thinking and must be a heck of a lot easier to manage scalabillity wise. Imagine every teams forums being in the same data centre across a handful of servers on a pretty generic format relatively straightforward and with enough users across most teams would be worth a ton. Prefer the independent sites though but as a business and UX model it would/could have been very lucrative (if its not already)

 

[Sussex Nomad]

I have just looked at BHAexpress profile page and he and myself joined NSC within a month of each other back in 2003, so that must have been roughly when, what was a hugely popular Rivals message boards finished.
Sadly Britbyte/BHAexpress last post on here was Feb 2012, it really doesn't seem that long ago he passed away.

I got totally disenfranchised with pro football around 1980 and spent what felt like my whole life, in park footy. I was totally dedicated to it. I didn't really care much for Brighton or any pro club. Brighton were still my first love pro footy wise, but I never even cared what they were doing that week. It all comes full circle eventually. Brighton became my life in sport once again. It's strange how things happen.

 

[maffew]

I have just looked at BHAexpress profile page and he and myself joined NSC within a month of each other back in 2003, so that must have been roughly when, what was a hugely popular Rivals message boards finished.
Sadly Britbyte/BHAexpress last post on here was Feb 2012, it really doesn't seem that long ago he passed away.

2003 interesting was then when NSC shut down a while for what IIRC was a load of database archiving and everyone got their join dates set back/forwards to 2003 and post counts to zero [MENTION=6886]Bozza[/MENTION]

 

[Bozza]

2003 interesting was then when NSC shut down a while for what IIRC was a load of database archiving and everyone got their join dates set back/forwards to 2003 and post counts to zero [MENTION=6886]Bozza[/MENTION]

We moved platforms on a number of occasions, but we've been on vBulletin since July 2003. I do keep looking at Xenforo, which has taken a lot of market share away from vBulletin, and comes with some advantages such as being mobile responsive out of the box and a better notification system, but I've yet to see a truly compelling reason to migrate, given it will be quite a task in itself.

 

[fosters headband]

2003 interesting was then when NSC shut down a while for what IIRC was a load of database archiving and everyone got their join dates set back/forwards to 2003 and post counts to zero [MENTION=6886]Bozza[/MENTION]

You could be correct as I thought I had been a member of NSC a lot longer, I wonder if Bozza knows if we were members before that 2003 date.

 

[Bozza]

You could be correct as I thought I had been a member of NSC a lot longer, I wonder if Bozza knows if we were members before that 2003 date.

I think, although I'm not sure, that when we moved to vBulletin we migrated accounts over from the previous platform (what that was, I can't recall now) and we brought post counts across too. However, at some stage a script was run which updated NSC's post counts in line with actual posts present on here, which essentially took everyone down a fair degree.