Tranmere Rovers
Total Tranmere Celebrates Five Years of News and Views
By Deadly Submarine
November 24 2009
On the back of Tranmere’s recent 125th Anniversary celebrations, today marks a cause for a different anniversary as Total Tranmere celebrates five years of web service to Rovers Fans around the UK and the World! Here we take a look back at the history of the Site and our hopes and plans for the future…..
The saying goes that a year is a long time in football, so it's all the more surprising to find that this very Total Tranmere Website is today celebrating it's fifth anniversary, as it hardly seems like that long ago when this site was first launched, and was struggling through it's early stages against fierce opposition from a site that now no longer exists.
As this feature will show, this past five years of providing a service to Rovers fans not only around the UK but also around the World has been a journey that happened totally by accident for me personally and yet has completely changed the way I support my Club and without doubt has increased my enthusiasm for Tranmere Rovers - if any more was really needed.
This feature also features Links to archived stories with the links clearly highlighted in RED Text.
In the Beginning - A New Site on the Block
On November 24th 2004 Ross Quayle launched his new website Total Tranmere through Sportnetwork where it still resides today, after much preparation and thought had been put into the ideas for the site over the preceding weeks.
Just two days later, after an appeal on the site's Message Board Quayle had enlisted the help of Deadly Submarine who having never written any articles before for any publication was initially reluctant to have a go.
A 3-1 Night Time Defeat saw Total Tranmere's First Match Report
However after some persuading from the man at the top, Sub took himself off to a Tuesday night game away at Port Vale and despite Rovers losing 3-1 on a dismally depressing night under the reign of Brian Little, Total Tranmere's first ever Match Report (Link) was born that night and the ball was very much rolling from then on.
Sub's match report contributions became more regular thereafter and this left Quayle free to continue his other job of keeping the site ticking with up-to-date news and features as well as the all important task of attracting more readers to the site against the fierce competition of Rovers Rearguard on the Rivals network - both the Rearguard Site and the Rivals network are now of course defunct after the collapse of Rivals earlier this year.
In the very early days, the Message Board had picked up a few regular posters with firstly a poster called Jonesmusic (who still posts and helps out on the site today under the name Matthew the Rover) and then shortly afterwards SuperWhiteSoldier (who is also still posting with us today) helping to keep the board ticking over in addition to Quayle and Sub.
Dream Teams and Zola (The First Twelve Months)....
Even in those early few months, it seemed hard to think that this new site would have such an impact in its first year but as we are about to see, much was achieved inside the first twelve months of the Site's existence and perhaps more than even Ross himself could have imagined.
One of Quayle's first ideas for a Total Tranmere feature proved extremely popular and ran for a total of thirteen weeks. Through the website's webpoll facility we asked Tranmere fans to vote for their all time Tranmere Dream Team with a different playing position being contested each week beginning with the Manager vote and running right through to the striking partnership.
As the voting for each position closed at the end of each week, Total Tranmere then ran a feature article on the player who had earned the most votes and therefore earned a place in the Dream Team.
A Final Dream Team Summary (Link) then followed summarising he Dream Team as a whole and this is a feature that we hope to provide a fresh re-run of this feature during next summer so stay tuned.
Another feature was soon introduced by Sub in the opening twelve months of the site called Classic Rovers which began with a two-part look back at Tranmere's memorable visit to Wembley in February 2000 in the Worthington Cup Final with Part 1 (Link) and Part 2 (Link) being published a few weeks apart.
The Classic Rovers Series has since gone on to look back at the Worthington Cup Semi-Final Second Leg (Link) that got Rovers to Wembley when they beat Bolton 3-0 on the night at Prenton Park (4-0 on aggregate).
We hope that further Classic Match articles will follow soon with one already in the planning and we are always ready to welcome volunteers to write about matches not yet covered including the 3-0 away win at Everton and the 4-3 comeback against Southampton in 2001, both of which Sub was unfortunate to miss due to being away at University.
Total Tranmere Helped to Front the Campaign to Keep Zola in the UK
Without doubt Total Tranmere's biggest success of its first twelve months though was the online Save Zola Petition (Link) set up by Quayle to try to help the Rovers striker Calvin Zola gain the visa he needed to be able to play for the Club again.
Sub recalls saying to Quayle just after it had been set up; "Do you realise how big this could become?" and sure enough as news of the petition spread around football fans across the worldwide web, the local press and radio had got hold of the story and Quayle and his website achieved great publicity.
It wasn't long before the number of signatures passed the 2000 mark and beyond, with the TRSA (Tranmere Rovers Supporters Association) and then local MP's becoming involved in Calvin's plight.
Eventually, Calvin returned to his native Congo and got the visa he needed in time for the start of the next season and whilst the petition was probably not ultimately the cause of the issue being resolved, there can be no doubt that credit must go to Quayle for sparking off a chain reaction which ultimately led to the publicity that followed.
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24/11/2009 07:30
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As I stresses in the article, thanks to everyone involved in the past and currently - it means a lot!
I've really enjoyed the discussions on the site over the past 3 months and I thank all the admin for their efforts.
Quote:Lennonsbrokenglasses
Jeez, dont it make you feel old :-D
It certainly does Gray!!
