Websites come and go none more so that those that have been connected with Blackpool Football Club since the mid 1990's.
Whilst the club itself back then could be accused of being a little slow on the uptake to embrace the new digital age supporters of the club were quick to seize the potential that the internet afforded fans and remain so even to this day.
This is a personal rather potted history of the Seasiders on the internet and so it doesn't claim to be completely accurate however, it does highlight how fans quickly spotted the opportunities provided by an increasingly accessible and faster internet. Together with the help of cheaper and powerful PC's and software to help them build, run and develop the first websites that were to focus on everything Tangerine.
The very first Blackpool FC site online:
In website terms and for the historic record Chris Tomlinson's BASIL (Blackpool Supporters In London)website was first of what could now be referred to as a succession of unofficial fans sites which emerged in the 1990's. The site bult by himself in 1996 was hosted on a University server where he was studying. The site without a single advert on the page introduced to those very lucky few Seasiders fans who were capable of using and enjoying the internet the very first basic online updates about Blackpool FC. Screenshot of the original BASIL website
Chris headed the site with an image of Basil Brush but the site offered far more and contained just about everything you would expect from any modern website today. Certainly with fewer online resources back then all his material was nothing other than original.
The "Basil" site clearly demonstarated what could be achieved online and it's legacy is that it probably did more than any other site to inspire others to produce their own fans site. Basil burned brightly but sadly only briefly and it's demise was obvious to those eager for news as the lack of updates left the pages in limbo.
Chris later said that after he left University he was simply unable to get access to update the site off campus! This highlights the fact there was not the plethora of cheap website hosting as there is today and certainly not many who could handle the bandwidth.
"It's not Orange, It's Tangerine!" rises from Basil's ashes
Within a year of Basil's decline and probably inspired by the rise in fans site generally across the internet a young IT expert in Steve Melrose launched his own topical Blackpool FC website and called it "It's Not Orange It's Tangerine" or INOIT for short. Steve got the website off to a flying start when he managed to strike a deal with a local Blackpool hosting company who offered generous free-hosting for his site.
INOIT imediately set out to be a little different - more fun and in true fans website flavour it didn't take itself too seriously whilst at the same time striking a balance on reporting on all things Tangerine.
What it also significanlty achieved was the setting up of a long running email list for like minded Pool fans to disucess BFC related topics. With messageboards still a little way off the new "Tangerine mailing list" proved a very popular hit from the outset and still exists today with many of the original members still involved. Screenshot of the original INOIT website
INOIT was eventually to prove one of the first really popular Blackpool FC fans website introducing regular news and updates and features which saw visitor numbers climb and enabled the website to become the first to actually sponsor a BFC team players shirt which was that of Phil Clarkson's. This was clearly an early indicator of how BFC fans online could work together and raise funds to support the club.
Around this time in 1997 I had moved to the East Coast but with regular trips across the penines to Bloomfield Road I always returned back on Monday with an edition the Evening Gazette match report. This was still the very early days of the intranet but having quickly taught myself how to use a PC and obtained a connection online, albeit a very slow one, I was able to reproduce with what was then fairly expensive scanning equipment a match report and pictures in full that was suitable for online publishing.
I soon created my own site and then sought permsision from the paper to reproduced their match reports and photos. The Gazette themselves were still some way from having their own online edition but my site gave a growing news hungry audience of Pool fans a chance to read the local Blackpool paper reports online and follow how the Seasiders were progressing from outside the town for the first time.
The technology to scan and reproduce images and text was available but incredibly time consuming and software was notoriously buggy. The hardware alone was hideously expensive so it took quite a financial commitment to get these match reports online within hours or days after actual publication.
Extraordinary perhaps to think now, but this was still some time before newspapers had truly recognised the usefulness and the impact of the internet.
One of the big failings of this new digital dawn was the speed of accessing the internet. This meant using a dial-up modem for long periods the speeds of which were painstakingly slow and expensive and you couldn't originally have access to your phone at the same time!
Technology was thankfully finding an answer and was providing faster connections. Having started with a Modem running at just 14.4kbs the speeds soon rose to 28.8kbs then 33.6kbs before finally reaching a blisteringly fast 56kbs. Speeds which finally at last allowed you to update website in minutes rather than in a whole evening.
With the demise of Basil the two remaining sites INOIT and the Gazette Match Reports site soon were receiving a great response from BFC fans around the globe despite the then lowly status of the club at that time. Supporters were now benefitting from quicker updates being posted which at the time was comparable with the service from some of the top premiership clubs who had the money to invest in their own early club sites.
The first Official Blackpool FC website:
On Saturday 22n February 1997 Blackpool FC launched itself onto the internet with the club's first new website which was designed for them by Arnold School and hosted by a Fylde provider Cyberscape. The site included club history, stadium details, player information and it was hoped to expand to include match reports, news and a feedback page.
Sandy Taylor of Cybescape claimed that "Ultimately they could be selling match tickets or merchandise over he Internet. By the end of the year 3 million UK users will be connected." Screenshot of the re-launched official site in 2000
Unfortunately the site never quite lived up to it's billing perhaps they lacked expertise to update once the design had been competed. Certainly the club had no-one with any relative online skills and within months the site quickly appeared out of date. Visitors were famously left with an image of Andy Preece staring out from the home page long after he'd left the club. We later learned the club had quickly fallen out with the site hosts and had also fired the webmaster!
A new fansite Seasiders.Net appears online:
Both INOIT and my own basic match reporting pages agreed to merge under a new banner during 1997 and "Seasiders.net" was launched as the first really independent and difinitive fans website which remained online until 2006.
Whilst securing the Seasiders.net domain Steve also obtained what is now the official website domain which was surprisingly still available off the peg. The view taken was that in the future should the club eventually get around to creating an official website we had preserved there domain name from being parked elsewhere.
In due course it was eventually transferred back to the club and indeed this is the domain that the site is now officially recognised "Blackpoolfc.co.uk"
Seasiders.net arrived perhaps at just the right time and things were really getting interesting online and surfing speeds were improving. Some people could now access higher speeds using ISDN and early broadband connections were being madse available which enabled surfers to view pages instantaneously rather than waiting for them to slowly appear. The arrival of cheap TV capture cards where you could record from your TV enabled us to consider providing our first action clips of Blackpool FC online long before the arrival of Youtube made hosting clips simple.
One of the first ever attempts to reproduce a video clip online wasn't in fact a recognised movie file but was of an animated graphic known as a gif and featured the goals from the Plymouth v Blackpool in 1998 despite none of the goals being the Seasiders the three Albion scored were available to download for the very first time. The first actual movie clip which we all recognise today was an mpeg of all the goals in the Seasiders 3-3 draw against Preston NE at Deepdale. The problems with providing these very early video TV clips were well known with slow connections and often disconnections constantly disrupting uploads and downloads. Screenshot of the Seasiders.net site in 2006
In the late 90's the website began introducing a new text messaging a service ahead of its time and completely free. Updates of news and scores were provided to suscribing fans. Text messaging which we all take for granted now was a real exciting innovation back then.The website introduced it's own dedicated and in-depth match reporting and these astonshingly insightful match reports were preapred by the hugely talented writer John Secker and within hours of a home game finishing. The site also still continued to feed a copy of all the Gazette reports and began addeding some of its news during the week. The Blackpool historian Gerry Wolstenholme began writing our historical features and we soon had reguylar columnists from BSA, North Lancs Seasiders, Leyland & Chorley Seasiders, The very first BFC Prediction League began on Seasiders.net when John Aspinall's Pool Prediction League came on-board and soon this was an extremelybusy and active site.
Seasiders.net carried on independently and with increasing fans support went on to provide over £2000 pounds worth of sponsorship for Blackpool FC over the following seasons.
The website evolved over the years and had its fair share of issues hiccups and so did the Tangerine mailing list. It had 23 members when it started - and was initially run by Chris Tomlinson on the University of Central London's servers (without management knowledge!). It was the first real forum for Pool fans online to discuss and debate topics was famously spammed probably by a jealous young PNE fan which brought the list to its knees and blocked certain email accounts including my own which took days to clear.
Steve Dunthorpe reminded me earlier this year of a famous message sent in 2001 by Steve Melrose which summed up the mailing list "'We are in a play-off semi-final in the next few days, stadium work is set to begin this week and this mailing list has had more than 100 messages in the last 24 hours. At least 50 per cent of those messages have been about pies.'
We also quickly saw the usefulness of mobile phones by encouraging fans to ring in with live match reports which could then be recorded live and posted online to download and listen to within minutes. Trying to update a live website made for a hectic afternoon when Pool were playing away.
In 2000 the website notched up another notable first when it streamed audio for the very first time over the internet from a live Blackpool game. When Blackpool toured the Caribbean, Seasiders.net was able to stream the Radio link from "Radio ZIZ" the local Caribbean station to online fans in the Uk and they were treated to live if indeed comical commentary of Blackpool's games against St kitts & Nevis during that summer club tour of the islands.
Visitor numbers seriously started rising at this time as indeed did the internet as a whole and Seasiders.net bandwidth usage rocketed. Just when it we almost faced financial meltdown on the horizon wto the rescue were new football fans networks. A new network known as the Unofficial Football Network or the (UFN) which later began to be known as the Total Football Network invited Seasiders.net to join this whilst promising to retain the individuality of each of the fans websites in return for hosting and advertising rights.
New emerging fans sites such as AVFTT appear.
Throughout this period a series of new Blackpool FC fans sites some clearly personal sites which we did our best to support and give advice and lend a hand wherever we could.
At this time also saw the introduction of the first fanzine turned website Avftt. The popular Blackpool FC fanzine which involved BBC producer and author Ray Calley called "A view from the Tower" reappeared online as "Another View From the Tower" or more famously Avftt. The new fans website was initially hosted under the rivals network banner whose editor was Phil Trow. Screenshot of the original AVFTT website
We worked with AVFFT.com to introduce the successful Blackpool FC Fansites Player of the year trophy which was first presented to club captain Ian Hughes back in 2000. Shortly after the arrival of Avftt Blackpool FC along with the rest of the Football League Clubs sold their online rights to Premium TV and along came subscription services. The Football League then turned to football.data.co.uk to protect their rights vigorously and the clampdown on photo, fixture and live streaming licences which are still very much in place today began.
Seasiders.net moves to the footy-mad network
TFN suddenly folded without warning when the internet bubble famously burst in 2001 which took a number of famous online names to the wall. Seasiders.net lost its free hosting and eventially found sanctuary under the new "footy-mad" network of fans sites.
The footy-mad years from 2001 allowed the site to support new projects such as the production of a series of limited but specialist edition books by Gerry Wolstenholme which were made available through the site to online fans in the UK and further afield.
Always looking out for new ideas from fans we regularly produced fixture wallpapers and through links gave exposure to an innovative new BFC Toolbar for browsers.
As Pool began to reach domestic cup finals such as the LDV trophy the site produced Baseball caps, T shirts and car stickers as we famously resurrected the 70's tower logo.
From 2006 to the Summer of 2010 the site was renamed "the Seasiders" for a short time until Blackpool's surprise promotion to the Premier League. At this point the site returned to its original former name of "It's not Orange, It's Tangerine" which it still sits under today.
On reflection you realise just how extremely lucky as BFC supporters that we had such a group of forward thinking and talented individuals who willingly gave so much of their own time and resources to help spread the Seasiders gospel to fans everywhere and gave the club a fantastic prescence online.
Even today we still have some of the best active fans sites and boards out there which are now embracing social media through facebook and twitter all aiming to keep their fellow Seasiders even better informed then ever before.
Steve Melrose
John Secker
Gerry Wolstenholme
Mark Orr
Cary Crusiau
Phil Trow
Matthew Williams
Dave Lardner
John Woodman
David Squires
John Aspinall
Stephen Yarwood
Matty Lewtas
Joe Orban
Mick Severn
Pete Seddon
Ray Carr
Simon Bennett
Dean Roscoe
Han van Eijden
Andy Morley
Stefano Marzaroli
Tony Green
Alan Ainscow & Family
Gary Broughton
Tim Hartley at Sport First Newspaper.
WSC
Seasiders.net were also extremely proud to have been sponsors of the following:
Official Blackpool FC PA Team Announcements 2000/1