It's decades since we "ran" it, "did the bare minimum to stop it closing" is nearer the mark and for years now it's continued despite us, not because of us. It's just taken us a long time to be sure we're handing it over to the right people, people who shared our original aims, but now we're sure. We gave them creative control years ago years ago and they did well with it, but more importantly didn't give up when times were tough (which was always my biggest fear if we let it go), but now it's all theirs and I'm sure they'll do a brilliant job of it! I kinda feel like a father who has just watched their daughter walk down the aisle. Very happy, knowing it's absolutely the right thing to do, but also a little sad that things will never been the same again.

I suspect it's much much more that the forum software has really nice ad-management functionality built in but it would need to be added to the "magazine" framework Roth had built. Sometimes you simply have to get you "minimum viable product" out of the door really quickly, to show some value and then iterate over that work to improve it and add those missing features. BTW It's not the running costs that have gone up as much as the value of each impression (view of an ad) and click that's gone down, coupled with the social acceptance of ad-blockers (so those who don't block subsidise those who do). You'll notice over the years how mainstream news sites have gone no-ads -> a few ads -> a lot of ads -> really intrusive ads -> paywalls. It's a testament to Josh and co that they are aiming to keep it between the first two.

Oh they got lost in an update or redesign years ago, it's not something you've done. This old archive.org snapshot has them though https://web.archive.org/web/20050305162048/http://www.brfcs.co.uk/history/historymenu.php

Ooh, I get to comment on stuff like this now 🙂 Rescue the History and Jack Walker Sections, there was a huge amount of stuff of genuinely historical significance in them. Biddy's 92 Club too. BTW This iteration of the size is brilliant. Great work everyone!

I can't echo this enough, once Josh has his freemium ad-free option available, please please please switch to that if you use an ad-blocker. The site is only just self sustaining as it is (and then only everyone gives their time for free), that ad-revenue, whilst tiny per person, is what keeps the lights on. We became masters at making the money go as far as possible, but ultimately there are bills that need paying just to keep the site running.

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!

No, not at Rovers, here on BRFCS. And it's probably not much of a shock either as it's no secret that Ste and I haven't had time to run the site properly for many years. It's also quite well known that we've come close to handing the site over to other people in the past, but it's never quite come off, but finally it has! You've probably noticed that through the News and the Podcast, Kamy, Josh and Ian have been doing an amazing job around here (whilst Tom, K-Hod, TB and Biddy have carried on doing their awesome work behind the scenes) whilst I've been transitioning into a new job for the second time this year. They haven't just "kept the lights on" like I'd hoped, they've actually revitalised the site in so many ways. So they've kindly agreed to make it a bit more permanent. Ste and I will now step back into the shadows once again (hah, like we've been visible much lately anyway), we're still around as advisers and we're continuing to run the legal/money/limited company side of things (their request not ours) but all the day to day decisions (and even month to month) are theirs to make now. We wouldn't be doing this if we didn't have utter faith in their abilities and their desire to keep the site a free community resource and to keep driving it forwards. I've got at least 15 years worth of Thank You's to do, but realistically, it's EVERYONE who needs a Thank You, everyone who keeps coming back day after day. So THANK YOU, everyone! I hope you all join be in welcoming your new management team, I'm off the Bahamas with my ill-gotten gains from the site*, though I'll still be around reading and hopefully posting a bit too! (* Don't believe the insinuations elsewhere, the site doesn't turn much of a profit, none of us have taken a penny out of the site personally and the new team has full access to the war chest we've built up over the years, so don't believe the "they only keep it running for the revenue" claims I've seen elsewhere, it's been a genuine labour of love. We promised Lee I'd keep it running and I've now finally found a team I think can take over that promise from Ste and I).

Finally got some tickets for the Stone Roses in Leeds this week.

It should be back in the iTunes directory soon, though you can speed things up and add it to iTunes yourself up by following that link and hitting the "iTunes" buttons. BTW A massive Thank You to J*B (and his guests) for putting this together. It takes a surprising amount of effort to create these, so don't hesitate to let him know you enjoyed it (and if enough people do that, he may do some more ).

Sorry if this thread is now a little disjointed, but when the original poster removed some comments (probably for a good reason), it makes sense posts quoting those posts go too ..... and then the posts that are replies to them don't make sense ..... and the whole thing ends up a bit of a mess and I end up having to remove good content because all the context around it has been removed. So, erm, yes, some people removed some posts and I tried to tidy up and made it worse. This of it as the forum equivalent of the Ecce Homo painting - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecce_Homo_(Martínez_and_Giménez,_Borja)

Remind your self how civilised it felt at an hour in when you're dying for the loo!

As I loved the book, this has been very much on my radar, but I've been waiting for feedback before I start watching as I'd hate for it to suck. Similarly with the new Twin Peaks series and forthcoming Ready Play One film. If they can't do them well, I'd rather their left well alone

Oh, we've always had those type of emojis. I mean it now support proper emojis used by mobile devices and people under 30. Now this is a ? all about how my life got ?⬆️⬇️ now I'd like to take a ⌛️ just ? ? I'll tell ya how I became the ? of a ?????? called ??

oh and I've just enabled emoji support to the forums

⚽️????@?