Paul Meehan celebrates the 10th Birthday of the Official Bury FC Web Site.
Thursday, 05 February is obviously a special day for Shakers fans - its twelve months to the day since Alan Knill walked in through the front door as the new manager of the club, but it's also another special anniversary - the 10th anniversary of the launch of the official Bury FC Website. www.buryfc.co.uk started on 05 Feb 1999 with the first story available titled 'Are we Here'.
The history of Bury FC on the Internet is a coloured and varied one. For a club of our size, with such a small fanbase, the sheer volume and standard of websites which have lauded the Shakers is mightily impressive. From small-scale supporter publications right through to the monster that is the current official site, it's been a journey well worth revisiting.
Our tale begins way back in the early 1990s, around the dawn of the World Wide Web. In an era of heavily text-based information pages, the very first Bury FC related site was produced by Dominic Martinez, a character who features throughout our tale. Although I was one of the early subscribers to the site, just about the only thing I - or indeed anyone else who viewed that site - can remember is an odd tale about a tapeworm. Yet from humble beginnings, a monster was about to grow.
The very first substantial website was created by Carleton Handley in 1996, a navy blue concoction which featured at its core a very popular message board and guestbook system. Many of the names (and indeed "nicknames") that would become synonymous with Shakers websites made their first public appearances here. Carleton produced a terrific site which was a godsend to exiled supporters in particular - even at this early stage it was noticeable just how many fans came to rely on this site for information, news and conversation with their fellow fans. It also featured some intensive rivalry, notably with fans of Stockport County.
The next major development came in early 1997: spurred by Carleton's site, I launched my own offering, "Dr P's Diary", which ran for 4 seasons in total. Initially started whilst I was exiled some 3,000 miles away in Canada, the web pages provided my initial foray into any sort of Internet presence, and mixed Shakers news and commentary with a whole raft of non-football silliness. It also provided a launching pad for various top class writers who would later feature heavily both on the official website and within the pages of Y3KShakers. Perhaps most importantly it also stimulated the interest of one Gordon Sorfleet, the individual perhaps most synonymous with Bury Football Club on the Internet.
A sailor about to take early retirement, Gord had developed a massive interest in creating a complete archive of Bury Football Club on the Web - from match reports to databases of old players to lists of fans around the world, Gordon's initial site grew into a monstrous outlet for just about every conceivable fact and statistic about our club. Unsurprisingly it was not long before the club itself became interested in an official website.
In February 1999, the very first official Bury FC website appeared. Created by Manchester's Media Integration Ltd (MIL), the site provided an outlet for club news and views, but remained very much a third stopping place for supporters who by this time were heavily involved both in Gordon's site and the fledgling Y3KShakers.com, which formed part of the "rivals" football network. This period arguably featured the heydey of Internet coverage - Y3K was immensely popular at this point, with the site run by myself and Dominic, and featuring a host of talented writers such as Martin "VBL" Smith and Barry "Exile" Howarth. We even managed to sponsor Chris Billy's cycling shorts for a season! The MIL-hosted site was not proving too successful, and so the club then turned to Gordon to recreate his site in a more official capacity. Exile's Christmas Pantomime was one feature that weighed heavily amongst the Shakers growing internet supporters.
And the rest, as they say, is history. Taking up the reins in the new millennium, Gordon drove the Shakers official site on to ever-greater heights, culminating in the all-encompassing multimedia presence we have now, and which every Bury fan can be truly proud of. Gordon's own achievements were rewarded when he was named UEFA Supporter of the Year a few years ago, a quite "staggering" achievement. When we faced the dark days of administration, it was the efforts co-ordinated in large measure by Gordon and the Y3K site which led to the sellout of the seats and helped save the Shakers.Gordon was also named as the Football League Webmaster of the Season for the 2007/08 season, an award made slighter more worthy when you realise that webmasters at all League Clubs vote for their choice for the award.Whilst other sites have come and gone, the official Bury FC website remains a shining light, and continues to inspire new generations of webmasters to build their own homages to our wonderful club.
As for the future, plans are already afoot to improve and enlarge the clubs website.Now in its fifth version, the other four are still available to skim through at www.themightyshakers.co.uk, the official Bury FC website continues to grow from strength to strength.Live commentary from every game, video interviews, extended highlights.We've come a long way from the first text based articles to the multimedia presence we have now.
The very first official site article was called 'Are we here'.The answer is very much yes and our internet presence is growing stronger on a daily basis.
Happy Birthday buryfc.co.uk
