One click from the matchday fix
AS an Exile it's often difficult to get to games, but in the age of the internet it's possible to get something resembling your Chester City matchday 'fix' from the comfort of your living room.
Last Saturday's buzz began for me at 2.45pm. While many of you were finding a good 'spec' at the Deva, I was at home surfing a series of websites to find the team news. Would Ellison and Holroyd be fit, would Vaughan be back in the side? My questions were soon answered and I sat back, with about six favourite websites minimised, and waited for the action to start.
If you spend a matchday afternoon online, you'll soon find there's a whole community of exiled football fans out there, desperate to talk about the live action. This Saturday was no different and before long there were more 100 of us in a thread talking about City v Stockport.
The best of the fellow internet chatters have a friend at the game ringing them from a mobile, but it wasn't until half-time that the internet community picked up on the problem with overcrowding in the Stockport end. The score was 0-0, but from the updates we were getting it sounded like it was a game we'd be sorry to have missed.
But wait - someone had a vital call from the Deva... the game had been abandoned due to the pitch being waterlogged! My head almost hit the keyboard in shock and before long the thread was busy and getting busier as City fans returned from the game and logged on.
The first serious report came from the shiny-new Chronicle website (honest), when the afternoon's chaos became a little clearer. You can't beat being at the game for a matchday experience, but when you're hundreds of miles away you can still get a taste of the action with a click of your mouse.
My feed
As a fellow exile and one of the 100 on line on a Saturday, it is a poor substitute for being there. I am old enough to remember that our news about the club used to come soley through the Chronicle posted down to London every week by relatives (we usually got it on a Tuesday). Now news is more instant and it is great to see the Chronicle developing its new media presence.
There are still those seeking to hold back the technological tide by doing things like banning broadcasts on the net (we can't get the Dee 106 commentary on wifi radio altough we can get all other output)and someone was ridiculous enough to criticise a young lad called Oli who posts film of key points that he takes on his phone because he doesnt have permission. I look forward to the time (it cant be more than a few years away) where the hardware and software will mean that every Chester match will be broadcast live so that us exiles can feel more part of it (whilst still of course travelling to as many games as possible). The football authorities and clubs have got to stop trying to turn back the tide but work with it imaginatively to promote the game. Live broadcast would of course keep a few in their armchairs but many more might be convinced to go down and see it live. That is a big trick I think the Football League misses - for most people actually going to premier league games is not possible for financial or other practical reasons. Seeing a match live in person is a completely different product to watching on TV (or the internet). Clubs like ours have little to lose by being at the cutting edge.