FootballFilter

Finally it is here. We have released the new version of footballfilter.com. With new team pages and league pages, new functions and features. Take a look at the main site to check it out yourself. We hope you like it and if you have any suggestions or comments we want to hear them. You may also notice that not all team pages are done, but the ones that are not you can simply sign up and let us know you want it done…. and as long people dont go nuts I should imagine we can make them pretty quickly! Anyway have a read of the following if you want to know about the new features, I reckon having a wander about yourself is always better but in case you are interested……

At the moment we have for leagues – Premiership, Championship, League One, SPL, MLS, Bundesliga (in German), Swiss Super League (in German) and Serie A (in Italian and English).

As for teams – we have the entire premiership and are working on the championship – Nottingham Forest, Derby are done so far, as are Newcastle, Middlesbrough and West Brom as they got relegated while we were working on the database !

Filter the sources

Using the tabs provided you can jump directly to your interested category. Take the homepage for example, at the top you can see we have arranged the categories into tabs, if you click on that tab you will be taken to that row. The tabs are a way of filtering down the news even further, helping you to focus on a certain interest you might have…

We also provide a time filter, so if you start using the site a lot, which we hope you do, you can filter for the latest stories in the last 1, 2, 3 up to 24 hours.

Have a wander about

Or if you want you can simply scroll down the page and wander about.

Once you’ve seen a story you like the look of, scroll your mouse over it. A small drop down box will then appear, showing you further info on the story – and depending on the source, you might see the story’s picture too.

Media – Podcasts

As mentioned before, not only do we feed news sources but also videos, pictures and podcasts. Take the podcasts section for example, we have compiled a collection of the best football related podcasts which can be played via the page or, if you want, can be opened in an player in a new window:

If you opt to open the podcast in a new window you will be taken to our FootballFilter channel – a page we are currently working on and improving. But the idea of the channel page is to give you a nice interface and way of wandering through the different podcats, photos and also, in the future, videos….this page is in development so watch this space:

Media – Pictures and Videos

Similarly with pictures and videos. We feed the best pictures from Flickr and the best videos from Youtube, which you can browse and open via footballfilter. If you like what you see we also link directly to the user/member who uploaded them in the first place. The idea behind footballfilter is to promote the best football related sources out there. There are thousands of people taking photos and making videos, we want to help them get more exposure and also promote the best content on the internet.

Approved – Give us your opinion on the sources

Of course as “source editors” this is all personal opinion and maybe some people won’t agree with us. If that’s the case we have various ways for you to get your opinion across. You can use the “Approved” button beside each source to show if you like the source – (you will need to sign up to approve sources). Not only that but you can also comment on the source, check out the feed so you can add it to your own RSS reader, or just go to the website too:

Our Approved section then gives you an overview of all the top approved sources that all our signed up footballfilter users are liking. Here you can also export our feeds to use for your own reader. But remember each team page and league page has their own approved section – so for example if you check out the approved section for the homepage you can export all the feeds for that page:

Sign Up

As mentioned it is also possible to sign up to footballfilter in order to approve sources. But it also allows you to save stories to read later. The sign up process is very easy and is also a relatively new type of process. We basically allow you to sign up using an existing account you – don’t worry we do not take your password details, just the login name you use. At the moment you can sign up to footballfilter using one of these already existing accounts:

Once you have selected an account (hopefully you use one of these accounts) you will be taken there where you just simply sign in and you are then automatically taken back to footballfilter. From there you just need to do one more thing – sign up to Instapaper to allow you to save and read things later.

Instapaper – save and read articles later

You can also save articles that you like to read later by setting up an Instapaper account. To set up the account is quite easy – you can either do it in your profile section once you have signed up or you can also go to www.instapaper.com and set the account up there. Once its been set up you simply click on the “Read Later” which is beside every link and it will be saved to your instapaper account. You can then download your saved links to your iphone to read later, if you are fancy and have one that is.

Popular

For each team page, the home page and all the different league pages footballfilter also monitors what are the most popular links being clicked – by day, yesterday and by week. It’s a great way to catch up on what everyone else is reading, and also a nice little guide on what you should read. Click on the “Popular” tab and you will shown the top clicked links, scroll over one of the links and you will see how many times it has been clicked:

Live

Everyone is going Twitter crazy at the moment, and to be fair why not? Its a great source of info and can really help you keep up to date. If you go to our “Live” tab we set up a Twitter search page where you can search what’s being said about key words in the world of football. Depending on the trend and what’s going on, there are default key words already entered by us at FootballFilter which we change as time goes by, but if you want to search for something else simply type in another word into one of the four search fields and watch what the Twitter world has got to say about it:

The iPhone Version and Mobile Version

We also provide footballfilter in a format suitable for the iphone, mobile and Blackberry. If you have a mobile or Blackberry simply type www.footballfilter.com/m into your phone and read away. The iphone should work by entering the standard URL. And the look a little like this:

Simply select the category you want and you will then get the various different articles listed by the provider. Take the Broadsheets section, you will see the five latest article from the Guardian, Independent, Times and Telegraph. Like so:

Follow us and Contact Us!

At the bottom of every page you will see links to our profiles on sites such as Twitter, Flickr and Facebook. And if you want to get in touch about submitting a source click on “Submit a Source” or if you want to berate us or (more preferably) shower us with praise click on “Support/Feedback”. You can also email us at contact@footballfilter.com. We are just two guys so please be patient if you don’t hear from us. If you like footballfilter so much that you want to do it for another hobby/genre/interest – get in touch! We would be happy to help.

For all those that missed the great Clough documentary shown last week on ITV (25th March 2009) I have put together a few ways to catch up.

Buy the DVD

It will be released on DVD April 13th 2009:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Clough-Brian-Story-DVD/dp/B001U3ZUKG

Watch the repeats on ITV4

03/04/2009 – 8pm

04/04/2009 – 6.25pm

Download

You can download the whole documentary using BitTorrent (hint: try using the uTorrent client to download)

http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/4801585/Clough_-_Documentary_-_25th_March_2009

I really enjoyed the documentary and hope as many fans get a chance to see it and learn about the great man. Based on my own experience and what I have read on a few forums (Derby and Forest), it has been responsible for a lot of grown men crying in the East Midlands area

Thanks to the lovely people at Soccerpro I was also given the chance to try out some of their products and I was more than happy to oblige.

First up was the Nike FC Barcelona training jersey which retails at around $33.00 followed by the Nike T90 football which retails at around $32.00.
As with most Nike products the Barcelona training jersey looks and feels like a quality garment. The trademark swoosh symbol is found on the chest and on the back of the neck while the black piping over the silver panels gives it a sleek and fashionable look. The overall stylish appearance is capped off by, of course, the famous F.C. Barcelona crest.

I tried it out first running in my local park and then in a training match with some mates. With a cold English wind whipping across me I found the top gave little protection – at times I felt as though I was running with no top on! But as I got going the shirt offered more protection from perspiration. While I was sweating I didn’t feel too hot or uncomfortable and I could certainly tell the difference from when I wear a cotton T-shirt to exercise.
When playing football the shirt didn’t restrict my movement in anyway, despite being rather close-fitting in some areas! In fact I found it more comfortable to wear than many of my replica shirts.
Overall it is a nice looking and practical shirt that does everything it is asked too. It has the quality design and look brands like Nike and Barcelona are expected to have, yet it offers all the performance of a replica shirt – but without the price tag.

Next up was the Nike T90 Football. Again I would give 10/10 in the beauty stakes. Silver slashes, on white and navy panelling finished off with the trademark swoosh symbol. It at least looked the part, while the hexagonal panelling gave it a slightly retro, old-school feel.

Once pumped up the ball had a even bounce and was easy to control. Even though I wasn’t playing on a windy day, the ball did swerve a lot in the air making goalkeeping difficult (well that’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it!).

The down side however was that the panelling became scratched and worn quite quickly, suggesting that after a few months of play they will eventually peel off, making the ball become misshapen and hard to control. This is perhaps to be expected as it is only a training ball, but there are more Nike footballs around that will either cost less or hold onto their shape for longer. I would urge you to think about what you want the ball for, be it for matches, regular training or just the occasional kick-about, before making your purchase.

To buy these products and more go to soccerpro.com

I love free stuff, well not all free stuff, the clap for example can be free, but I do like getting free stuff related to things I like, hmmm sorry that joke has back fired it seems.  

We make absolutely no money out of footballfilter.com or the blog but were recently contacted by SoccerPro to review some of their products….likewise our new writer Tom was also asked – his review to follow, and we jumped at the chance…

So I have a bit of an interest in different types of footballs, see my “evolution of the football” for more details….its more a nostalgic thing than anything as I haven’t owned a football since I was about 15, but jumped the change when SoccerPro got in touch.  Basically I decided to ‘review’ three reasonably priced footballs.  How do you review a football you may ask?  Well I wanted to focus on the cost.  Footballs these days can cost up to about 100-200 quid so we all know they are going to be reasonably good but what about the cheapos?  Well here’s what I got……

A Nike Tiempo Team Training ball

An Adidas Tango Rosario ball – for pure nostalgic reasons

And a Diadora Napoli ball

Prices

Nike – 12 dollars

Adidas – 25 dollars

Diadora – 17 dollars

Considering the Adidas Tango is the most expensive and is close to my infantile heart, its actually pretty shit, horribly shiny, not anything like how they used to be, cheaply made and even the design/graphics seem a little fake really.  The Nike on the other hand is pretty good, to be fair its well cheap and is aimed at training….don’t think it’ll last long but yeah it does the job.  The Diadora on the other hand is actually brilliant.  It looks cool, it doesn’t seem cheap like the old Adidas and is defo durable….I’m a little drawn to it to be honest, always using that one for juggling practice in the house and the garden during my first BBQ of the year on Saturday.  So theres my review innit.  Diadora make good balls, quite surprised really cause I have always found the Diadora brand a little tacky – Italy, many apols.

The blog is being a pain in the arse and won’t let me upload the photo I wanted to add……here is a link to the footballs that I purchased…… http://www.flickr.com/photos/footballfilter/3362976937/

So in the last few days Wayne Bridge has become the highest paid left back in the world having moved to Manchester City for 12 million.  He in now on 100,000 a week.  

Jermaine Pennant is supposedly off to AC Milan, I will believe this when I see it.  But the compilation of these two ludicrous goings on makes me want to express profanity – what the fuck is going on?  The world is in the shit at the moment, my mates are getting sacked willy nilly or can’t get jobs at all and then Wayne Bridge gets dumped with 100,000 a week, based on approximately 7 games a season and an unhealthy satisfaction with sitting on the bench waiting for Ashley Cole to get injured.

i don’t know why but this reminds me of Seth Johnson:

37 grand, jesus christ.....

Picture taken from Wikipedia: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3d/SethJohnson02.JPG

Anyone remember this fella?   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seth_Johnson

Obviously there is a possibility this might not be true, but while at Leeds, Mr Johnson was in the process of negotiating his contract and was banking on around 13,000 quid.  Chairman Peter Ridsdale then swanned in and apparently offered his agent 30,000 which he was shocked at for obvious reasons.  Ridsdale misinterpreted this “aghast” so he then offered him 37,000 instead! That was in 2000, 8 years on and things are just getting obscene.  Jesus H Christ is all I can say.

In times like this you would think that the footballing industry would collapse; but personally I don’t think it will.  The cost of TV rights keep getting bigger and as fans we are still stupidly stumping up ridic prices for games or the sky packages.  In a time like this football is an escape.  Even if the amount of tickets bought g goes down, the TV money will keep the industry going.  Especially if the TV companies are smart enough to start offering us good online TV packages like the National Baseball League where you can watch a ludicrous amount of games even at the same time.  The only thing that may calm down could well be new signings.  You never know the whole recession might even incentivise a whole new trading process similar to the NFL or NBA.  But then again it may not cause the players and the agents get ridiculous signing on fees!  Everyone just wants a dirty cut!  Ok rant over – if anyone does actually read this, I would love to hear what you think, I am sick of hearing the Guardian writers banal opinions, your thoughts would be breath of fresh air……

Is it just me or is Lawro’s questionable hair cut becoming even more questionable?  The front has developed into something that once could be called a fringe into some kind of blond skunk patch, for want of a better comparison.  A scally’s tasche is thicker than the fluff covering his forehead…… unfortunately the following photo doesn’t really do my thoughts justice but you get the idea, just tune into MOTD for the latest lowdown or Mark’s hair stylings; for sure it is one the more important issues in the footballing world today in my opinion.  Fuck develpoing grass roots football in England, lets get Lawro a decent and flattering hair cut, whoever is his hair dresser should own up!

fringe, fringe, fringe

Saw this the other day, regardless if you can speak German or not I think we can all appreciate how  far out, relaxed and groovy the 60s were.

Well after my initial post I have heard jack shit about Pro Set and what has become of them – no news at all and the number I tried to phone was fruitless.  Anyone out there got any answers?  

No thought not.

Well this gives me a good excuse to post some more players from my collection and tell you about the latest team pages we have released over at footballfilter.com.  Released today is the West Ham page so here’s picture of Julian Dicks, AKA The Terminator.

315 games, 64 goals

So yeah please feel free to check out the West Ham page here:  http://www.footballfilter.com/west-ham.

We also added a Nottingham Forest page yesterday, let us know what you think:

http://www.footballfilter.com/nottingham-forest

And while we are at it, big thanks to all the Derby Fans on the forums for giving their feedback, we really appreciate and glad you like the page.  http://www.footballfilter.com/derby-county

If we are missing any good sources or got any suggestions please give us an email at contact@footballfilter.com or leave a comment on the blog.

So for the last couple of weeks the blog hasn’t been a high priority at footballfilter.  This has much to do with me being on holiday than anything but this will change soon, blogs will be back on.  But for the time being I thought I would just give a brief update of what is going on and what we are up to.  Well for the main part we are investing in a developer to make managing the website far easier.  The developer will be setting up a CMS system so that retards like myself can actually manage the pages far easier, I for one am looking forward to it.  Alot of other features will also be worked on by this elusive chap but we will have to wait and see on that one…..

We’ve also been concentrating on the team pages, you may have noticed the poll that went up of late.  I think Arsenal won and this has been duly noted and an Arsenal page is up and running:

http://www.footballfilter.com/arsenal.php 

Next up I think will be West Ham and then Liverpool.  Please feel free to email us at contact@footballfilter.com if you want a particular page sooner rather than later.  Likewise is you want you blog, site etc feeded on our site, get in touch and we will look into it.  We have just added a load of new podcasts, a bit of a favourite by our existing users of footballfilter, so we hope you like the new ones.  Other than that it’s all step by step really.   Once this CMS system is up and running all the pages will start fleshing out into a far better compiled site – like we said before please feel free to contact us with any feedback you have!

Also do any of you use twitter?  We have a page now, follow us if you like!

http://twitter.com/footballfilter

word up and brup brup.