The Scratching Shed

The npower girls (Unfortunately, not part of the prize)

The Scratching Shed has teamed up with npower, the new sponsors of the Football League, to offer Leeds fans the chance to win a pair of tickets to the Championship tie between Nottingham Forest and Leeds United on the 15th of August.

First off, to tie in with the launch of the new season, npower has launched a competition for all new customers signing up to its new Football Saver tariff. Entrants to the competition get the chance to win either an experience day at a stadium or a signed ball and shirt from a club of the winner’s choice. Plus, winners will get the prizes awarded to them at halftime during a home game this season.

The competition runs from the 5-19th August for all new customers who switch to npower’s Football Saver Tariff via www.npower.com. Details can be found here: http://www.npower.com/football

Now for the Nottingham Forest tickets. To be in with a chance of winning all you have to do is email me and answer the following question;

Who scored Leeds’ 89th minute winner the last time we visited City Ground in August 2007?

The competition closes at midnight on Sunday the 8th of August. The winning entry will be drawn at random and the winner will be announced on TSS the following day and notified by email.

The lucky winner will be able to pick their tickets up from the City Ground on match day.

We’d also like the winning entry to feature on TSS and the npower Facebook & Flickr pages enjoying their day out so a digital camera and the ability to upload pictures to the net are required.

In an effort to keep the site busy and loaded with content, I’ve decided to add two new writers to the site. Firstly, we have Tim Hodge, who will be covering the general LUFC stuff alongside myself.

Tim Hodge. 20 years old, reluctantly attending art school in The South.

It was my dad who passed on the curse of being a Leeds United fan and I started going to games with him as a kid. I don’t get to as many games as I’d like now but do when I can make the schlep alongside my dad and little brother.

Read the rest of this entry →

I’ve been toying with the idea of adding a forum for a while now and have finally decided to add them to the site. One of the main reasons for this was to keep the site active when there’s nothing going on at Elland Road.

You’ll notice a new link at the top of the page where the forums can be accessed from. Those of you that are already members can start posting straight away – there’s no additional sign-up required. New members must register to use the forums which you can do at the top of the page. Enjoy.

Click here to view the forums.

Hi all, apologies to anyone this effects but due to an ongoing problem with spam, I’ve had to block unregistered users commenting until I can resolve the situation. As it stands, my spam filter currently reads; 16,657 spams caught, but this doesn’t tell the whole story and a lot more is being missed.

I’m planning to install a CAPTCHa feature – one of those random code generator things you have to copy (applies to unregistered users only) – that should curb the problem, but until I can get this in place, you’ll have to register to make comments. Registration is of course entirely free and takes literally a minute, so it shouldn’t inconvenience anyone too much.

Hi all.

Whilst the majority of problems the change to the new site has incurred have been fixed, there’s one outstanding one that no matter what I try, simply can’t resolve.

Sorry for any inconvenience this may cause, but. those of you that previously commented on the site using Facebook Connect, need to create an entirely new account as the old ones won’t work properly.

Read the rest of this entry →

Morning all. The launch of the new look TSS yesterday, brought with it some inevitable teething problems. Most of these were minor and have now been corrected, but I understand there were a few people having trouble registering.

It seems the reason for this was those who were trying to register didn’t realise they had to activate their account through an email sent automatically by the site. I did a test registration to see where the problem was, and noticed that the message telling you that you need to click the email wasn’t very obvious.

Instead of changing the message to make it more prominent, and to streamline the registration process, I’ve overridden the confirmation email completely. This means that any new member will simply have to fill out their desired username and password to begin enjoying all the sites new features. (Unregistered users can still comment and vote in polls)

If anyone else is experiencing problems with the new site, please let me know via email (admin@thescratchingshed.com), by commenting below or messaging me using the new function built into the site.

Hi all, just a quick post to introduce some new features I’ve installed on the site.

Firstly, I must stress that whilst there’s still no need to register to use the sites basic features (such as commenting), you must register to use some of the extended ones. You should see a new bar across the top of the page which provides the links to do this now.

Avatars – TSS has only ever provided avatars via Facebook or the Gravatar service, but with the new plugin you can now upload your desired avatar straight to the site and have it displayed alongside your posts.

Profile – As recently requested by everyone’s favourite TSS commentator, Reaper08, you now have the ability to create your own profile which will allow you to tell others a little about yourself.

Friends – Registered members now have the ability to add other registered members as friends. Popularity contest TSS-style.

Private messaging – Another great new feature is the addition of private messaging. This should allow Reaper08 and Timm to continue their love affair behind closed doors. (Joking)

Activity stream – The activity section allows you to see what other friends have been up to. Members can let others know how they feel, or what they’re doing using this section sort of like a Facebook strictly for Leeds United fans.

Notifications – Notifications inform you of things like friend requests or mentions throughout the site. To mention another user, it works the same as Twitter, so for Craig, you would use @Craig and it would appear in his notifications once he’s registered. To mention me however, please note that you need to use @admin, as opposed to @TSS.

There’s a few other features too, all available via the drop down menu at the top. Feel free to have a play and let me know what you think. There may be a few minor bugs I need to work out too, so please let me know below, or via message using the new feature.

Remember! You have to be a registered user to use these features. You can register now using the bar at the top, but if you’ve already registered previously to the site, you simply need to login.

Once a year in every football fans life comes the first Saturday after seasons end. It’s an unusual time for the thousands of us used to getting up early to stalk Leeds United around the country and the tens of thousands more whose lives are distracted for two hours whilst the game is on, desperately awaiting news of Leeds’ fate.

The irrational love of a person for his (or her) football team often means it takes over our lives, and when the season draws to a close, we’re left with an extra day in the week we somehow have to fill.

Some fans probably have a list of house work that they’ve been putting off and plan to get done before the next season starts. Others may use their free day to catch up with family and friends they neglect for nine months each year, but I imagine there’s just as many of us who never see the end coming; Who never make plans for the summer, and who are now sat around scratching their heads, compulsively checking the various Leeds United sites for any news worthy of providing them with that fix of football they desperately crave.

This inevitable silence that greets us at the end of each season is also filled with reflection. A time to look back at what we’ve achieved and celebrate. It’s not often these days that a season finishes with Leeds United making progress, but this summer is an happier one thanks to Jonny Howson and Jermaine Beckford’s goals that sent us up.

Here at TSS, I’m one of those poor souls who never sees the end coming and I’m now desperately trying to fill the gap football has left. Luckily this year is a World Cup one, so I’ll have something to watch for a couple of weeks before England go out in the second round with Wayne Rooney being rushed to hospital after breaking a tiny bone in his foot. Even England’s inevitable failure is something that can’t come soon enough though – last week I found myself volunteering to work on a Saturday. Something I’d usually consider treason.

If nothing else, the summer provides a time for reflection. Here at TSS, it’s been a great first year of growth for the site with thousands of you checking in daily to read, share and interact.

From day one, I wanted TSS to have an open door policy to its guests. I wanted a site where the news wasn’t just digested and commented on by myself, but where others could comment on the latest goings on – whether they agreed with my own particular opinion or not. With that in mind, the comments on TSS have been unmoderated from the off and whilst there’s been the occasional idiot hell-bent on disturbing the peace, the site has grown into a community of like-minded fans who seldom agree, but always offer reasonable debate.

The social element of TSS has no doubt been boosted by the fan pages set up on Twitter and Facebook. With everyone’s lives now shared between the numerous social networking sites across the net, I knew it was important to have The Scratching Shed featured on them and I’ve tried to link the main site with social networks wherever possible.

Since the start of the season, I’ve added a feature to allow Facebook users to login using their FB account. I’ve used the Twitter account wherever possible to post live updates from matches and I’ve also posted links to each and every post on both TSS’ Twitter and Facebook pages.

All of this has provided a steady flow of traffic from the social networking sites, which is why I’ve focused my attention on improving the integration between them. Yesterday I added a FB ‘like’ button to the bottom of all the posts on TSS, which when clicked, puts a link on your profile saying ‘NAME likes TITLE OF POST‘ and also increases the number next to the button below. If any of your Facebook friends have ‘liked’ the post, it will show their name instead of (or alongside) a number. (eg, Joe Bloggs and 3 other people like this)

There’s also been a return for the FB fan page box on the right, which provides a direct link to the TSS Facebook page and shows some of the current fans of the site. Much like the people promising to get household jobs completed over the summer, I’m hoping to tweak a few more little bits on TSS to keep the site moving forwards.

The first season of TSS has been one of joy, sadness, anger and one where controversy never seems too far away. More than that, it’s been one of growth and shared experience. TSS now gets around 20-30,000 unique visitors each month, and it’s thanks to those who have shared, invited and participated that it’s seen such success.

As we look back on a first season where Leeds United eventually brought us success, we look forward to another one of shared hope, shared joy and more often than not – shared despair! Thanks to all TSS’ visitors throughout 2009-10. On and on…

On a personal note - and despite whatever I think of the way Beckford has handled his transfer wishes – it’s been brilliant for TSS. Only a week into January and The Scratching Shed has already seen more visitors than it did last month!

Over 10,000 of you read yesterdays post on Jermaine Beckford leaving Leeds, which is a new record for a single post. It has also received more comments than any other post in the sites brief history with 143 as I write, so thanks to everyone who continues to support the site and help make it a success.

With a lot of thanks to NewsNow and everyone linking and sharing across forums and social networking sites, TSS received a staggering 13,500 total visits yesterday and amazingly, over 140,000 page views. Waking up this morning, it’s fair to say I was totally speechless and can’t even begin to think how the site will top these feats.

Friend of the site and former TSS writer, Grumpy Older Man had a bit of dig in his own blog Clarke One Nil about the “paid adverts” on the site. Although I know his dig was in jest, I felt it shouldn’t go by without response. Unlike Clarke One Nil (that is hosted for free on WordPress.com) TSS is hosted independently, so the advertisements are there in an effort to cover the sites cost.

With growing visitor numbers each month, the cost of TSS rises and the truth is that these adverts bring in very little revenue and don’t come close to covering the costs incurred. The only sites that really profit from such ads are the ones with much larger visitor numbers, or those that seek independent advertisers or sponsorship. With that in mind, if anyone runs there own business around the Leeds area and is interested in sponsoring (advertising on) TSS please email me; admin@thescratchingshed.com - a grit salesman would probably do well at the minute!

Once again I’d like to thank you all for helping make TSS a success.

Hi all, to expand on the fan page I added the other day and to try and get as much use out of Facebook as possible I’ve added a new feature which allows you to login to TSS using your Facebook account.

It all works using the OpenID format that Facebook announced they would be using in 2007. You may have noticed a few blogs, sites and forums that now have the option for you to login using Facebook. The idea is that eventually, one login will connect you to all the sites on the internet.

You should be able to login using the sidebar on the right. Once logged in, you’ll be able to post comments and interact with your friends on Facebook by publishing posted comments to your feed.

Feel free to try it out below and let me know what you think. TSS

PS. For those not wanting to use their Facebook account, or those that don’t have one, the old way of commenting still works too.