Nick Bowler
Presenter of Local Report
Radio Norfolk
Matt Carpenter
Webmaster
Wroxham FC
Chris Green
Former Secretary
Wroxham FC
Wroxham Football Club first launched a website in April 1997 and back then it was a rare thing amongst non-league clubs and so on 9th November 1997 the founders of the site, Matt Carpenter and Chris Green, were interviewed by Radio Norfolk's Nick Bowler on his weekly local sports show Local Report.
Below is a transcript of the interview.
Nick
Well the world of the website is a feature that has been associated with the professional game for quite some time now but local football clubs have also started to use the internet. There aren't too many Jewson clubs linked up yet but one very active is Wroxham, the instigators of which are Chris Green and Matt Carpenter who join us in the studio now. Chris, if I can start with you. Whose idea was it in the first place?
Chris
Well I suppose it was mine. I'm involved with IT and I actually work with Matt who is a programmer so I knew he knew what to do and it was a joint effort.
Nick
Matt, was it you who set it up initially?
Matt
Yes. Most of the background work and the setting up of the system was done by myself. Chris and Ray Bayles at the club provided me with the various articles and things like that to put on there. Pen pictures of the players, that kind of thing and then the actual setting up of the system was done, yeah, by myself.
Nick
What made you do it in the first place? Just your interest in football or of Wroxham in particular?
Matt
Well I've followed non-league football for a little while with my dad. We tend to go around Jewson games and we settled on Wroxham as being the local team that we wanted to watch a few years ago and as Chris said, coming from an IT background discussions led and I thought it would be an interesting challenge for myself to see what I could do, what we could produce and hopefully as well it will be beneficial to the club over the longer term.
Nick
Yeah, you say benefit to the club, Chris, because being Secretary of the club it's now getting the word of Wroxham around not just the country but the world isn't it?
Chris
That's right. Incidentally I did offer Matt a season ticket which was the inducement! But yes, we've been amazed. The actual hits that we've had over the past few months that we've been running now has reached over 1000 and we've had people from all over the world. Certainly I can recall somebody from Sweden, somebody from Australia and a lady from the States, Texas, who we've had quite a bit of correspondence with.
Nick
It's incredible isn't it, but Matt, presumably do you update results? I mean what sort of information can we expect to find on there if I was to go in there now? I'm not a techie person but...
Matt
Certainly results information is on there. We have match reports covering the whole spectrum of the club so that's first team, reserves and A team. Certainly at the first team level we cover most of the Jewson league results, the Jewson league tables are on there. There is a guestbook facility for people to sign. There's club notes on there so stuff that has happened throughout the club throughout the week and general Jewson news stories so it's a fairly comprehensive coverage of activities at the club.
Nick
That's another good thing isn't it Chris because a lot of people tend to talk about first team football but there's an awful lot more goes on behind the scenes that that.
Chris
That's right you know. We have to produce programmes on a regular basis and just to fill them every week it's helpful to have some information and the internet is proving helpful in actually getting some information to fill the programme.
Nick
All this information that goes into it, I don't know how many pages you have or whatever but how much does it cost to actually set the thing up and run it?
Matt
The initial set up charge is around £15 and there's a monthly charge of £10 plus VAT a month and then the only additional cost on top of that is phone calls for actually connecting to the internet so it's a relatively inexpensive thing to do which is why I think clubs the size of Wroxham and other Norfolk based clubs are enabling themselves to get onto the internet now.
Nick
There aren't too many clubs involved Chris are there with a website. You're one of the few in the Jewson league?
Chris
That's right. We started off and the natural thing to do is to do a search around and find out who else has got one. Certainly King's Lynn have got one, they've got quite a good site. Felixstowe in the Jewson league have established one recently and I think Bury have got one haven't they Matt?
Matt
Yeah, there's a site run by Bury as well.
Chris
The only other one we were aware of from Norfolk was Gorleston but I'm not sure whether that's actually continuing to be updated.
Matt
It's certainly not on the site that it was on last year. If anybody out there knows better then, but as far as I know it has disappeared.
Nick
Does it take much of your personal time?
Matt
It depends. I mean certainly on the Saturday/Sunday update when obviously there's been a lot of fixtures it's probably sort of maybe a couple of hours, two, three hours and during the week it varies so maybe an hour a time. It's not a huge amount of time once you get into the routine of doing it. There was a lot more work involved in actually setting the site up in the first place, getting the graphics in, designing the layout that kind of thing but now it's a fairly routine thing. I know where everything is going to go so it's just a matter of typing the information up.
Nick
Presumably though it's like anything, the challenge is to make it interesting to people. Do you have special inserts that you actually put in every now and then?
Chris
Yeah, I think we're trying to add new features all the time and one of the things we obviously hope at some stage we can take advantage of it from a commercial viewpoint. We've got links to many other sites. Other football sites, professional and non-league. It's amazing just how many non-league sites there are now and also to a number of commercial organisations and places of local interest that we've put on so that people, if they're surfing the web, can actually look for Wroxham Barns or Hotel Wroxham just to name a couple.
Nick
I do know that a thing that's been talked about for a long time with Wroxham is the possibility that the grounds going to move because of the proposed Wroxham bypass and that's something that I think was shelved for a while but I think that it has reared it's head again?
Chris
Yes. In fact it's quite opportune. The Broadland District local plan is just out for consultation and it reflects some of the proposals for a number of villages including Wroxham and we've been waiting for this for quite a while and there is a proposal to relocate the football club from it's current site and it's at the very early stages of consultation but hopefully we can do what Fakenham and Dereham have done.
Nick
Well it's been...I'm fascinated by these websites. I'll have to come over and...do you have a machine personally at home with you Matt that you use?
Matt
Yes, I've got my own personal computer at home that I use.
Nick
Well I'll have to pop round and have a look
Matt
Okay
Nick
Matt and Chris thank you very much indeed. If you want to access, I think this is the word is it, access?
Matt
Yeah
Nick
The website then it's www.wroxhamfc.demon.co.uk. Thanks very much gents.
Matt
Thank you Nick
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