By Deadly Submarine
November 23 2006

Total Tranmere today celebrates it's second birthday and we bring you a look at the history of the site so far.

Two Years and Counting for Total Tranmere

 

Total Tranmere celebrates its second birthday today (November 23^rd) so we decided to bring you a review of the site’s history so far and in particular the last twelve months since our First Birthday Article was published.

 

The History

 

It was November 23^rd 2004 when Ross Quayle launched his Total Tranmere website here on Sportnetwork and two years on from that day, the site is flourishing better than ever before with a decent base of regular users to the site.

 

Shortly after the launch of the site, I hopped on board the bandwagon to help Quayle create a Tranmere website to be proud of and our quest for success began fairly early when we launched a regular series in which we asked readers to vote each week for their favourite player in each position that would enter into the Total Tranmere Dream Team.

 

The vote to fill each position lasted for one week each and ran over a period of thirteen weeks which included voting for a Manager (Johnny King) and also a captain as well as the eleven players in the team.  Hopefully in the near future this series of polls can be repeated, possibly with different results this time around.

 

A new series entitled Classic Rovers, soon followed which gave accounts of Classic Rovers matches including Wembley 2000 and the 3-0 semi-final second leg win over Bolton Wanderers at Prenton Park.

 

Without doubt Total Tranmere’s biggest success of its first twelve months was the online Calvin Zola Petition set up by Quayle to try to help the Rovers striker gain the visa he needed to be able to play for the Club again. 

 

I recall saying to Quayle just after the petition 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.

 

The petition got over 2000 signatures and eventually, perhaps partly with the help of the publicity generated by the petition, Zola got his visa and of course still remains a Rovers player to this day having recently signed a contract extension until 2009.

 

The Last Twelve Months

 

The site has seen a lot of activity and many changes in the past twelve months since its first birthday.

 

The biggest change has been the number of users of the Message Boards in particular which has rocketed to such an extent that June 2006 was a record month for the site when it recorded a record number of site and forum hits for the month.

 

In the early part of 2006, Total Tranmere also finished second in Sportnetwork’s Site of the Month Award and was nominated in the top ten of all Sportnetwork Sites on a number of other occasions.

 

The Admin Team has seen a couple of changes in the past twelve months with the introduction of two excellent new members in the shape of Mikey Burrows and Sam Henderson.  Both have taken over regular articles on the site and Mikey has also taken over some of the Forum Moderation.

 

One of the big successes of the last year has been Total Tranmere FC, the team consisting of members of this site who get together to play the sport we all love.

 

Started by Quayle in 2005, initially to play a friendly or two against fellow Tranmere website Rovers Rearguard, the team has since increased it’s numbers and we now get together on a regular basis for either training or a match.

 

In the summer of 2006, the team reached the semi-final of a six-a-side tournament, beating other website teams from White Review and Rovers Rearguard along the way.

 

Ironically, the team has a chance to celebrate the website’s second birthday on style on Saturday as they again take part in a six aside tournament at Pensby Astropitch – go out there and do the site proud lads!!!!

 

The Future?

 

It is my great wish that this site will continue to exist and be successful for many years to come and I’m sure with the help of everyone, including the readers of the site, that will happen.

 

I would like to thank Sam Henderson for taking over the writing of the Match Preview Articles recently and in particular I would like to thank Mikey Burrows without whom the site would not be as it is today.  To have had such help has been fantastic and thanks to Mikey taking over the Match Stat Articles, I have had time to concentrate more on other aspects of the site.

 

As I stated in last year’s birthday article, I would like to sincerely thank Ross Quayle for setting up the site in the first place and more importantly for allowing me to be a part of it’s success so far – I’d like to think I’ve been a worthy member of the Admin Team.

 

Thanks must finally go to all of the readers of the site and to those who use the Message Boards on a regular basis.  Without you the site would not be so good.

 

Here’s to the next twelve months and beyond and many happy returns to Total Tranmere!!