Minor New Feature

Having been annoyed by the display for some time, when viewing a Player page who has died the Career Status will no longer display Retired, but Deceased instead. A very minor change, but I felt it better reflects the persons status.

First minor change for a while.

I've implemented the Data completion progress figure on the History tab of the Club page, this enables users and Data Admins the ability to see what percentage of match data is complete for each season. This figure is for League games only.

CODEFIX

Small issue spotted regarding the match completion data on the match page if a match has multiple programme covers added or a teamsheet as well as the programme, each image was added to the completion data allowing the match to be more than 100% complete.

NEW FEATURE

A new admin feature has been added allowing us to add matches where the result is not known.

Simply add the match as normal, but leave all score boxes as default and tick the Match result not known and untick Match Complete

This will then display the text Result Not Known on the match screen and also display ?-? on pages with the scoreline

This option allows us mainly to add matches where we don't know the score but know the game took place. It's not to be used if neither the result ot date is not known. We simply don't add the match in that case.

Result Not Known will affect the match completion total and will remove 3% from the total.

If you spot any odd behaviour for this new option, please post on the forum. It's been tested, but bugs can creep in.

MINOR CODE FIX

I've noticed when admin users were adding matches via the single match option and not knowing the kick-off time, they reset it to 00. This in turn wasbeing considered as complete on the match completion % and also displayed on the frontend.

A value of 00 is now ignored by both the match completion % and is no longer displayed on the frontend match page.

NEW FEATURE

With the forthcomiing fixtures going to be played behind closed doors, we can simply leave the crowd field empty or 0 as it will be ignored and also tick the new toggle option Match played behind closed doors This will then control how the attendance field is displayed across the site, for this match.

This is to be used for ALL Covid-19 games that have been disrupted and will now play behind closed doors, even if you see an unofficial crowd for a fixture.

Also if you know of any previously played games that were behind closed doors, we can also go back and edit any existing matches with this flag

NEW FEATURE

Following a user request, a minor change has been applied to the squad listings of the Club page. We now display the psoitions of the players alongside name and date of birth

NEW FEATURE

A very minor change has been made to the Match page, to include the City/Town location next to the stadium name. This is to help identify when a common ground name is used.

NEW FEATURE

A new feature for registered users is the ability to view any matches played on the day they were born. For this to work you have to Edit Profile Information and add your date of birth. This information is only visible to you and you shouldn't worry about exposing personal details to other users. Once added you will have a new tab on your profile view which is called My Birthday. Clicking on this will display all matches that took place on the day you were born (if any).

NEW FEATURE

The Data Admins now have access to a Support Forum, this can be used to discuss projects, issues and ideas with fellow data admins and the site adminstrator.

The forum can only be used by Data Admins at this moment and will remain like this until further notice. It can be accessed when logged in from the main menubar

Code Change Match Page

The title of the Match Page now will display details of the match, including match date, Home Team, Away Team, Competition (and Round if applicable).

This feature should hopefully provide better indexing for search engines and page indexes.

Code Change Player Page

When viewing the Player page, if the player hasn't yet made an appearance the Matches tab will no longer appear.

The Progress Tab now displays overall summary on 100% completion of data

Datafix applied

Four instances of matches where a player was named in the starting XI TWICE were identified and fixed. Periodic check complete. Pretty good accurancy rate since last run

Codefix applied Match Page

When viewing matches with little to no detail, matches with no goals applied were incorrectly displaying event timings as complete, the trigger only activated if events existed and the times were added. This now only 'completes' if all goals have been assigned wiht timings.

Display issue on the Match Page - (Previous Meetings tab)

Previous meetings stats were including matches indicated as played at a Neutral Venue, using the 'home team' as the venue.

These are now seperated from the Venue stats and a total number of Neutral Venue games are indicated blow (where applicable)

In addtion to this fix, the match attendance field is now highlighted if the game was at a Neutral Venue.

Minor code change applied to the following pages: Match (previous meetings tab), Competition, Club (matches tab and onthisday).

If a match attendance isn't known, matches were in-correctly display 0 as the attendance after a match had been edited for a data admin. This information is now suppressed from the frontend.

Code removal from the Edit Players page. The redundant code for adding International careers to player profiles has been removed. The function has never been used and therefore the code wasn't required.

Minor code change to the Match page, match completion details no longer require line-ups, substitutes, a referee, a crowd to be marked as completed if a game is postponed or abandoned.

A match still does require the following:

• Ground
• Kick-off time
• Programme Cover

In addition to this, the Match Date, is now a required entry for the Match to be considered complete. A number of matches can be added without the date being known and flagged as such. In these instances, a 'completion penalty' is added to the Match.

The Player completion criteria have changed to now require a player Headshot to be considered complete. This represents 9% of the players profile (at the time of publishing the change)

A minor code fix on the Match page, where an Own goal is scored the site was previously showing the goal on the wrong side of the Timeline. In some instances these were fixed 'manually' by editing the data so it displayed correctly. This has now had the code amended so they display correctly by default.

A fairly major release has gone live today. A new Image Gallery has been launched.

As part of the new gallery pre-approved users can add pictures for the following:

• Programme Covers for each match
• Player Profile Headshots
• Player Action Shots (Still work in progress on the stats side)
• Stadium Pictures (Still work in progress on the stats side)

Still to come:

• Match Action
• Club Badges

To visit the gallery, simply follow this link

Data Fix applied to the Match Tables, where 25 entries of matches with a postponed status, were also marked as Completed, which meant they were included in the Match Page (Previous meetings tab) incorrectly.

Minor addition to the 'Match Data % Complete' requirements on the Match page, as a programme cover is now deemed part of the 'requirements' for a complete dataset.

Also, a bug was fixed to the Kick-off check, some matches were displaying as complete, even when no kick-off time was set. This was caused by some entries containing no value rather than NULL.

Data protection added to the Match page. The final page to receive such protection to prevent un-registered users from scraping data from the site. To view full match details, users are required to be logged in.

A minor code change to make a visual impact. Matchdetails and the Club pages now display the club colours of selected clubs from within the database. Although the number of affected clubs is quite small at present, the clubs with the most data activity have been updated first.

Clubs will be processed over the coming weeks, until the most common and active clubs have club colours on display.

A minor change to the Club page (History tab). League records are now displayed in Descending order, with the most recent season at the top.

The more results added to the database the more of a performance issue this page will become and this is the first step towards resolving a potential performance issue.

Minor amendment to the Match page, the 'top line' of match details where we display the season and Competition is now a hyperlink to that season. For the previous 9 years it has been a static display and has annoyed me.

 Following the addition of the new progress wheels on both Player and Match pages, a new screen is now available for Admin users, that shows what work needs to be done for the Player/Match to be 100% complete.

A new 'Match Data % Complete" wheel has been added to the frontend, replacing the dated looking percentage bar, the new wheel completes in real-time as the page is loaded.

This will become the new default percentage progress indicator that will be used across multiple pages.

The first new addition of this feature is on the player profile page, a profile is considered compete if the following are met:

• Player name exists (including middle names and a different Common Name)
• A Nationality exists
• A Birthdate exists
• A Birth Country exists
• A Birthplace exists
• At least one position is defined
• The retired status of the player
• If the player has at least ONE league career record added
• The player has made at least ONE appearance either starting or as a used sub
• Does the player have a complete active career from first-last season

A new option to 'Edit Match' now appears for all Data Admins when viewing a match page, whilst logged in. This option should hopefully make it quicker to update details for one particular match rather than having to retrieve the whole season.

If when pressed you get another login screen, simply go back and login to the admin section as normal, they try again. This isn't a bug, but a security measure.

Minor new feature, on the footer bar you can now hit 'Random Match', and it does exactly what it says on the tin. It will take you to a random match from the database.

Minor amendment to the frontend database statistics, to now include a 7-day running total of activity within the database.

Minor change to the Competition, Match and Club Results pages, where if a matchdate is not known, the default date of 01/08 is no longer displayed, instead the text Not Known, appears in it's place.

Minor addition to the OnThisDay page, following a suggestion from a user. I've added the venue details to each match, indicating (H)ome or (A)way. If you spot anything that you feel needs improving or fixing, please drop me a message: support@thefootballarchives.com

Match completion percentage is now fully automated and should update in realtime when amendments are made to the data. The rules applied to ensure a match is 100% complete as as follows:

• Home & Away line-ups consist of at least 11 players (not including subs)
• The number of goal events equals total number of goals scored in the match
• Crowd exists
• Ground exists
• Half-time score exists
• Substitutes (Both sides name at least 1 sub)
• Referee exists
• Kick-off exists
• All event times have a timing, (goals, subs, bookings)

Added a new highlight on the matchdetails page, around the outcome. Section now shows with a green background. Also corrected a minor display issue with the club badges

New feature

When viewing a player profile, we have a new feature. Replacing the 'work in progress' milestones tab, we have a new AutoBio. option. This is a system generated Player Biography that is created and customised for each player. Features include:

• Editorial style profile
• Career summary, detailing start and end points
• Highlights any signifcant transfer activity
• Current database summary of appearances and goals
• Details (where applicable) of death and age at the point of death

A few of minor code fixes, one in the admin section and two in the frontend.

• Amended an oversight in the original design of the 'Add Player' form. You can now create a player with the status of retired, rather than having the option only on edit. Nine and a half years with this issue, just never got around to fixing it
• Player positions field label and data only displays if a player has at least one position assigned to them. Thus preventing Position:  
  With no data, no longer appearing on the frontend
• The word Substitutes: Will now only appear if a team has known substitutes on the matchdetails page

A code error was found, that prevented the status of Abandoned and Postponed Cup fixtures from displaying the correct outcome on the Competitions page (Cup games only).

Whilst this fix was located, a visual change was implemented to highlight A-A and P-P matches on all pages.

A data corruption was preventing the viewing of the History Tab for Bury, this was caused by a duplicate record within the database.

Twitter page launched https://twitter.com/onthisdaythefa

The Social Media platform was added to the site, generating #onthisday matchdetails for clubs, as well as Historical Moments and sharing programme covers.

Latest and current logo design implemeted to the site

New feature added to matches, whereby users can track if they attended the match and if they have a copy of the matchday programme.

• Over 4600 'ticks' were completed in the first week
• 12,100 'ticks' by the end of week 2

All 2012/13 league results from level 1-11 have now been added to the site. We have nearly half a million match results online now.

Intergration with external Football Programme provider (www.programmehut.com) to enable display of programme covers of over 60,000 programmes

Large data imports carried out, to extend the database coverage beyond Grantham Town.

• FA Premier League Data (1992-2010)
• Football League Data (1946-2010)
• Conference Leagues (1979-2010)
• Non-league Data (Various seasons)
• FA Cup Data (1946-2010)
• Football League Cup Data (1969-2010)

Re-write of all existing frontend pages to integrate seamleesly with SE (www.socialengines.com)

• Player profiles re-coded
• Matchdetails re-coded
• Competition re-coded
• Club profiles re-coded
• Stadium profiles re-coded
• Search facility implemented

Implementation of SE (www.socialengine.com) user database for a new frontend design

• Integrate User profiles
• Consistent page design
• Activity feed
• User management

Frontend coding changes to prevent SQL injections applied to core coding of the site

Backend database converted from MSSQL to MYSQL 

Initial Site Launch, with ASP front and backend code, running on a MSSQL database

• Data imports from the former Grantham Town Official website www.thegingerbreads.co.uk complete
• Around 5000 matches (All containing Grantham Town) added to the database
• Around 1800 players (All with Grantham Town connections) added to the database