BRFCS Relaunch

[J*B]

Popular fan forum, BRFCS.com to relaunch with expanded content, partners with 4000 Holes.

Tuesday 27th July 2021
This Wednesday, July 28th 2021 sees the re-launch of the BRFCS.com website.

The leading Blackburn Rovers fans online forum will expand to include articles from guest authors and will incorporate the hugely popular “4000 Holes“ fanzine archive. 

The new website is formatted in a magazine style content and retains the much-loved forum. Fans can continue to have their say on the topics of the day, just as they have for over 25 years, sharing their hot takes after the latest match, or opinion on a new signing; but now, when they have more to say, there's a place for them to say it.

BRFCS.com already has a team of familiar names to create multi-media content and some new contributors have been added to the team too - keep your eyes out for interesting items from them all.

The "new" team behind the venture have been operating the site for the past 3 or 4 years. I’ll be the Forum, @Herbie6590 on podcast content, @4,000 Holes on website content, @StubbsUK running the website back end and @Rothon front end. The website will by run through Northern Horde Ltd. We’d like to thank the previous owners Glenn and Ste for everything they have done for the site historically. 
We’d also like to thank everyone who has helped us get this far, special mentions to the moderation team led by @K-Hod whilst we worked on the site, @Kamy100, @Biddy and Phil T. 

 
The new BRFCS continues the “not for profit” ethos of previous guardians of the site, with all profits from the forum continuing to be reinvested in order to improve the site and the Rovers community.

[J*B]

You can view the major changes by going to www.brfcs.com

[JacknOry]

From https://www.brfcs.com/magazine/, when you scroll down and click 'Visit Forum', it returns a 404. In case you didnt know.

[Mattyblue]

‘Much-loved forum’

😅

[StubbsUK]

12 minutes ago, JacknOry said:

From https://www.brfcs.com/magazine/, when you scroll down and click 'Visit Forum', it returns a 404. In case you didnt know.

Thanks JacknOry, it'll be fixed in a few minutes.

[tomphil]

Looks good.

[bringdunnback]

Nice work, the homepage looks clean, simplistic and easy to navigate.

Enjoyed the TM 'Cut out and Keep Guide'...

[RevidgeBlue]

Can barely get to anything for all the spam ads.

Definitely not a change for the better.

[J*B]

9 minutes ago, RevidgeBlue said:

Can barely get to anything for all the spam ads.

Definitely not a change for the better.

You would be open to paying for a small monthly fee for an ad-free version, then?

[HowieFive0]

10 minutes ago, RevidgeBlue said:

Can barely get to anything for all the spam ads.

Definitely not a change for the better.

Simply download AdBlocker.

[Herbie6590]

On 28/07/2021 at 09:14, RevidgeBlue said:

Can barely get to anything for all the spam ads.

Definitely not a change for the better.

We’ll refund your subscription then…🤣

[Herbie6590]

1 hour ago, Mattyblue said:

‘Much-loved forum’

😅

“Siri…show me an example of diplomatic language…” 😁

[Mattyblue]

‘Much screen-grabbed forum’.

Edited July 28, 2021 by Mattyblue

[Wheelton Blue]

Nice job 👍

[Glenn]

Aye, today is the end of an era.

Josh, Ian, Stu and co have effectively been running the site for many years now, Ste and I long since vanished into the shadows and have had almost no input bar paying the odd bill. but today is the biggest and first publicly visible step towards it all being officially owned and managed by the new team.

I first got involved with BRFCS in 1998 and I think Ste and I formally took control (with Paul and Don) around 2001, in our time we did some amazing things (the events around the Genclerbirligi away game in Turkey being my personal highlight), we've streamed live from Ewood, had a dinner hosted by Tash McDermott with Simon Garner as a speaker, we're doing Podcasts a decade before they became commonplace, hosted Poker Tournaments, done site specific merch, hosted the Grooby Annual Awards Ceremonies, had a recognised rep on the clubs Fans Forum, had great projects like FLB & CN174s history, CN174s Jack Walker Tribute, Den's epic All Time Starting 11 and kept "raising the coffin" alive, to name but a few. We've done a lot, and had so much help doing it, but so much fun along the way.

But most of all I made friends, lots of friends. Trying to research the pre-Grooby era of the site for Josh I've been re-reading thread after thread, reading name after name of people I now consider real life friends that I met through the site, seeing the names hundreds of people who would come up to us at games and say Hi and Thank You.

Whilst it's easy to relive the sites former glories, over the last decade or so, Josh and his team have managed to steer the site through some of the toughest times for internet sites in general and in all that he's stayed true to our vision that the site remains a "free for everyone" community resource with a primary aim of it's own long term survival. Hopefully through me being tight with the purse strings, I've taught he him how to do so much with so little. I'm also proud that whilst the site it now under a new company, Ste and I are in the fortunate position to give them a chunk of starting capital. A world apart from when we took over when the lucrative advertising deal had just collapsed, there was nothing in the bank, we faced a massive hosting bill and had to walk around the stands at games asking for donations to keep the site alive!

It's not all been good times, but we survived people inside and outside the club attempting to destroy us, we outlasted them all! I'll always be proud of that.

It's fair to say in recent years I fell out of love, with BRFCS, with Rovers, with football in general and I don't know if it's correlation or causation that that love is starting to return at the very time the millstone of BRFCS is being lifted. Whichever, it feels great and I'm confident we've leaving the site in very capable hands.
 
Finally a massive Thank You to everyone who has contributed in all way, big or small, to keeping the site running the last 20+ years (25+ including the Grooby era), I'm not going to attempt to name you because I'll only miss people who made a significant contribution, but you are ALL heroes! 

Thank You! 
 

[RevidgeBlue]

1 hour ago, J*B said:

You would be open to paying for a small monthly fee for an ad-free version, then?

Yes. 

Current version of the site looks incredibly cheap and tacky and is awkward to navigate.

[RevidgeBlue]

1 hour ago, HowieFive0 said:

Simply download AdBlocker.

Will try that thanks

[Miller11]

 Very impressed. Glad to see the forum hasn’t changed much, but the homepage and additional content are great.

Well done to all involved! 👍

[Miller11]

1 hour ago, J*B said:

You would be open to paying for a small monthly fee for an ad-free version, then?

I’d like that option.

[Mashed Potatoes]

31 minutes ago, RevidgeBlue said:

Yes. 

Current version of the site looks incredibly cheap and tacky and is awkward to navigate.

Surely by now you've found a reason why Tony Mowbray is to blame.

[Dreams of 1995]

2 hours ago, J*B said:

You would be open to paying for a small monthly fee for an ad-free version, then?

I would be

I have daft fingers and keep finding myself clicking the ad 

Dont mind but if there’s an option to get rid I would take it 

[J*B]

47 minutes ago, Miller11 said:

I’d like that option.

It’ll be circa £3 / month and released as soon as we can get it ready. That £3 is roughly what each member generates in ad income each month for the site. 

I know people are talking about AdBlockers - to be absolutely clear, if everyone on the website runs an adblocker the site will go under. It costs money to maintain and if you don’t see the ads, we don’t gain the revenue to pay the bills. The ads are the main source of income.
 

So I would hope everyone would either put up with the ads to help us keep the site alive… or sign up for the ad free version when released. 

[Miller11]

3 minutes ago, J*B said:

It’ll be circa £3 / month and released as soon as we can get it ready. That £3 is roughly what each member generates in ad income each month for the site. 

I know people are talking about AdBlockers - to be absolutely clear, if everyone on the website runs an adblocker the site will go under. It costs money to maintain and if you don’t see the ads, we don’t gain the revenue to pay the bills. The ads are the main source of income.
 

So I would hope everyone would either put up with the ads to help us keep the site alive… or sign up for the ad free version when released. 

That seems very reasonable 👍

[perthblue02]

18 minutes ago, J*B said:

It’ll be circa £3 / month and released as soon as we can get it ready. That £3 is roughly what each member generates in ad income each month for the site. 

I know people are talking about AdBlockers - to be absolutely clear, if everyone on the website runs an adblocker the site will go under. It costs money to maintain and if you don’t see the ads, we don’t gain the revenue to pay the bills. The ads are the main source of income.
 

So I would hope everyone would either put up with the ads to help us keep the site alive… or sign up for the ad free version when released. 

Don't know what the posters above were viewing on (re spammy ads) but via windows on chrome it as been horrendous last couple of days ,as well as pop up ads when switching threads,  6/7 ads per forum thread inbetween posts besides the terrace store one , ads in the sidebar etc, seems to be only a problem on chrome* , on MS edge gaps where the adverts appear on chrome. Looks fine on firefox though.

*tried on two different windows based system one with a fresh install of chrome, same result.

Edited July 28, 2021 by perthblue02

[arbitro]

15 minutes ago, J*B said:

It’ll be circa £3 / month and released as soon as we can get it ready. That £3 is roughly what each member generates in ad income each month for the site. 

I know people are talking about AdBlockers - to be absolutely clear, if everyone on the website runs an adblocker the site will go under. It costs money to maintain and if you don’t see the ads, we don’t gain the revenue to pay the bills. The ads are the main source of income.
 

So I would hope everyone would either put up with the ads to help us keep the site alive… or sign up for the ad free version when released. 

Keeping the ads and paying £3 monthly wouldn't be a problem for me if it went to the betterment of the site. And paying money would deter some of the knobs who join with the sole aim of being antagonistic.