saintsfc.co.uk

As I support Southampton Football Club its no surprise that I know about this website. This is the official website of Southampton, and it is one which I use everyday to find out the latest news of what has been happening with the club. There are many sections on the site, which have information and statistics about the saints. As usual with my opinions I write about each section, this is so I feel that it helps the reader learn more about the products and what they have to offer.

To go to Southampton FC’s official website type in www.saintsfc.co.uk into your web address bar and press enter. This loads up the site for you. Once the site has loaded up fully you can start looking around it. To start with you have the top story of the day or the previous day, and underneath it is the latest news and sometimes like at the moment can still have news there from 5 days ago because not much happens in the summer. On the left hand of the site are all the different sections, which are there for you to look at.

When you click on each main section on the saints website you then get a sub menu underneath it, now obviously it would be pointless going through every single sub section of the website because that would make this opinion far to long.

LATEST NEWS – Here is the latest news section, it has the headlines from today and previous days. At the moment, it does go back to the last day of last month. I actually think that this is great because when I go on holiday I’m not going to know what has been happening back here so I can just click on latest news and have a look at the headlines and find out what happened and what preseason matches they played. Not only this, but on the right hand side of the page is the news archive. This is where they have kept all the news from that month and you can go back to March 2000 and find out what happened then.

Injures – Last season, well the last 3 or 4 games in fact I was wondering why Dan Petrescu wasn’t playing in the games, I thought it was because Stuart Gray wasn’t picking him, so I went to the site click on injuries and sure enough I found that he had a groin injury. That is why this section is very useful if players are not actually playing then you will want to know why so you can just go to the site and find out how long they are out for and what injury that certain player has.

Suspensions – Another very good section as you can find out who is suspended and how long for or who is on the verge of suspension because they have to many yellow cards, at the moment it is the end of the season so no one is banned, but they have 1 person treading the tightrope (that’s what they call it)
Which is Tahar El Khalej because he has nine cautions and needs 1 more to be suspended but I am not sure if that will go away when the new season starts, I hope it will anyway.

Transfers – Another handy little section, this tells you all the transfers, which have happened in the season. It does not just tell you who has been transferred but who is on loan and who they are on loan to. At the moment, it goes from the 30th of July 2000 to this day. They also have a link so that you can see all transfers and only transfers from 2000/01 season and 1999/2000 season.

TICKET NEWS – This is a vital section for all Southampton fans that have access to the Internet. Clicking on ticket news brings up a drop down list but also a new page. This page has the number of the ticket office to start with in case the site has not updated with new ticket news when you desperately need to find out about a game. Below this is the ticket news for the next few games. Both home and away games are listed here with details of how to get hold of the tickets and when they go on sale. This is why I use it so much as I’m always to see what games I can go and see, or what ones we are likely to win, as I prefer not to see them lose.

Membership order form – If you become a member of Southampton football club it gives you priority over tickets after season ticket holders. Fill in the form on the site and you will then be sent a form to get a membership via the post, which you then send off and wait for your membership to arrive. As I was already a member last season I didn’t need to use this part on the website, however using it now would probably be a bad idea as it’ll take longer to get you application for a membership form, its quicker to go down to the ground and get one.

STATISTICS – Here are last seasons statistics and where this seasons will be, when you click on statistics a table comes up with all of this season pre seasons matches and fixtures, once the game has been played the results are put in, it also tells you what competition it is, Worthington cup, FA Cup, friendly etc.

League Table – This is the league table, which is updated after every match Southampton play, at the moment nothing is there because the season has not started yet. It is to me the easiest way of looking at the table when I am on the Internet because I know exactly where to go.

Reserves – Currently has last season fixtures and results on it, only 2 of the home games last season were played at the dell and they are marked with a star. It is always interesting to see who the reserves are playing and who they have beaten because if players are just coming back from injury then they play in the matches. Also knowing when the games are and when they are being played at the dell or for next season Friends Provident St. Mary’s stadium, because they are ones I would try and go to at least then you get to see players who would normally play for a very cheap price.

SQUAD – After the short summer break teams usually make a few signings and if you do not know what position, they play in it can be annoying. This part of the website has the Southampton team and there positions, it is set out with Goalkeepers first, followed by defenders, midfielders and strikers. The number of the player is also shown and at the moment for the new signings, they have no shirt signings so a 0 is put there or they just leave it blank sometimes. Having this on the website helps people know who is actually in the squad and who has been sold.

SUPPORTERS – This is a section for the supporters of Southampton Football Club and a section I visit often.

Supporters Club – For all the saints fans who are reading this (not many on dooyoo) this is a good place to come as it gives you information on the saints supporters clubs. Not just only around England but the rest of the world to and there are 23 supporters clubs in total including ones for people in Australia and Norway, it is a good way to get in touch with other saints fans.

SAINTS STORE – This is another useful part of the site. If you want to buy the new saints shirt but do not want to go down to the dell shop then you can order off the site. You can order home or away kits, goalkeeping kits, or anything else you want which is available to buy. Unfortunately though trying to get onto this part of the site today wouldn’t let me it came up with the refresh the page error, but you can usually get on it and it is well worth a look. I have not ordered anything off it yet but I probably will do in the future.

SAINTS NEW STADIUM – Here is all the information you need to know about Southampton’s brand new £32 million, 32,000 seated stadium Friends Provident St Mary’s Stadium. There is plenty of pictures and information about the stadium and is updated regularly and even if you are not a saints fan it is worth looking at because it is such a fabulous stadium. They are doubling the amount of seats from the dell and I hope this will help the club grow and bring in more money from sponsorship and ticket sales.

Stadium News – Here you can find up to date news about the new stadium this includes when pictures are added and actual news about the stadium although this section is generally taken up with pictures from the new stadium. This is also just an archive of all the new pictures and stadium news since the stadium started being built.

Latest Pictures – Here are the latest pictures from the new stadium and in my opinion well worth a look. The stadium is actually coming along nicely ready for Espanyol on the 11th of August; the latest pictures were put on yesterday (24th of July 2001). If this is not enough for you there is a site dedicated to the brand new stadium and that is called www.saintsnewstadium.co.uk which includes picture galleries news and a camera which pans around the stadium pitch so you can see the seating and the actual pitch.

MULTIMEDIA – This is section where you can get Southampton wallpaper for your computer or download the Southampton screen saver. I have not downloaded the Southampton screen saver yet so I do not know what it is like but I do have wallpaper number one and it makes my computer look much better than what it was like before.

GAMES – There are 2 games which you can play here and you would have played games like them before they are:

Asteroids – You must have played a game like this before, the idea is to shoot the footballs which are moving across the screen. You are the little Southampton badge and every time you shoot one of the big balls it then splits into 2 smaller ones, and shooting one of those makes it slit into two tiny ones which disappear when you shoot them. You have 4 lives and the idea is to get the highest score you can, mine is 5690. The controls for the game are below:

J – Rotate left
K – Accelerate
L –Rotate Right
Space Bar - Fire

Puzzle – This game is the hardest and I cannot do it. There is a saints player who’s picture has been put into squares and jumbled up, the idea is to put them back the right order, to do this you must move them around the square, but it is very hard to do, well for me anyway. The games are only small ones which are not very exciting but at least they have them on the site which is good and I hope that in the future they will put some more on.

FEEDBACK – These is where you can give your comments about the site to Southampton Football club, You need to fill in your name and address, your E-Mail Address, date of birth and then there is a box at the bottom of the website to leave your suggestions for features you would like to see on the website in the future.

Overall, I think this website is excellent, ok it may not be as good as some of the other clubs such as Liverpool, Manchester United and Arsenal but it is still one of the top ones in the premiership, then again I ten to be a bit biased. The site is well laid out, and it is very easy to find what you are looking for. It is always up to date with the latest news. What is also good about it is that it is a fast loading website so you do not need to wait ages for pages to load, then again that does depend on what modem you have. This site is well worth a visit especially if you are a saints fan, don’t forget as well if you support saints then you can also visit my website, the address is on my dooyoo profile.

Hope this helps you in some way. :O)