After an extremely frustrating summer for your webmaster, I'm pleased to say that we're back (just about!) and normal service will be resumed. 

I do apologise for the lack of updates during pre-season, but this was sadly out of my control. An ageing computer and an evening job aren't the best combination when your trying to run such a busy and demanding website!

Thankfully I have a new laptop now, and once set up I'll be able to start working on the new sections I had planned before pre-season began. It may take a few weeks/months until the site is fully revamped but my job has been made a lot easier thanks to the help of a wonderful few people!

Step forward Chris O'Brien, Haz and The Ancient Druid! Chris has kindly agreed to be deputy webmaster, and has stepped in several times over the past 2 years to look after the site if I'm away or banging my head against an ageing computer. Haz has been forum manager(ess) since last Christmas, and has done a fine job looking after such a thriving messageboard community since she took over the role! Last but not least, Mark McKean (aka The Ancient Druid) will be taking care of our ever popular Premier Predictions competition for 04-05, as well as updating our league table. All three will be chipping in with latest news and gossip to help relieve some of the workload off me!

If you'd like to get involved in the running of the site, please do get in touch, as the more people we have involved the better the site will be. Even if you only have an hour a week to spare an appropriate job will be found for you! Send me an email at wpwebmaster@uk2.net if you'd be interested in helping out this season.

                      NEW FEATURES

A number of new features will be introduced to the site over the coming weeks. However, a few have already appeared on the site. Firstly, I am pleased to announce that our free, weekly predictions competition 'Premier Predictions' will be back for the 2004-05 season. 

This season will see it run through the specially built Sport Network Prediction League, which will mean a far more professional and easy to run competition - with competitors being able to plot their progress through an array of stats and figures! 

We're also pleased to confirm that Welsh Football Magazine will once again be sponsoring the competition, with them donating a free issue to our monthly winner and a year's free subscription to our end-of-season champion. Please make sure you pick up a copy of the excellent magazine this season, their continued kind support is much appreciated!

A full set of rules and how to enter will be published over the weekend. Sadly, the competition will have to start a week late due to the aforementioned technical problems!

You may also have noticed every Sport Network site now has their own 'newsletter'. Newsletters will be sent out every Thursday from next week to members who have subscribed to this free service. www.welsh-premier.co.uk plans to release a monthly newsletter, which we're hoping to full with fans articles' on any subject you wish! These articles will only be available through the newsletter, so please do subscribe! More info soon!

Finally, (for now) you will notice we have a new forum. 'Football Manager 2005' will be a football-manager computer game from the developers of the massively popular 'Championship Manager' series. The head researcher for Wales, Neil Vaughan, has asked if he could house the forum on our website. As such games offer considerable publicity for our league and it's clubs, so we are only too happy to help him help us! The forum will be used to research information for the Welsh Premier section on the game, so please visit it regularly to see if there's anything you can assist with!

So once again my apologies for the lack of updates over the summer - thanks for sticking with us, and we hope you enjoy the new features on the site. Enjoy the new season!