Words from another, erm, Man

While others are promoting blogs that diss FML and its gameworlds, I'm always keen to promote those who do the opposite.

A close friend and fellow mod in StJohn has set up a new site on Tumblr, which may or may not be the clown equivalent of Blogspot - I'm not sure yet. Anyway, it's well worth a look - though I do fear for Frooty's sanity sometimes... The writing is brief and good quality, documenting the life and times of Frootloops FC.

Words from a Great Man

“What is a club in any case? Not the buildings or the directors or the people who are paid to represent it. It’s not the television contracts, get-out clauses or the marketing departments or executive boxes. It’s the noise, the passion, the feeling of belonging, the pride in your city.”

Sir Bobby Robson

Rage quit? One can dream

When this blog started, I'd had visions of using it as a revolutionary behind-the-scenes look at what being a mod entails, about looking at what goes into the big decisions.

It's often not come to pass. The writing became harder when the game went live - one starts to worry more and more about what the paying punter will think or feel, that somehow I could upset someone's delicate sensitivities by writing the wrong thing here.

Others, it seems, don't share the same respect. After more than two years of FML, and nearly two years of moderating, apparently I (and others) don't give enough to our community. The ideas for innovative and interesting competitions, the months of work building communities and grafting for free to establish FAs and keep a Gameworld active and enjoyable get labelled as 'idiotic', 'shit' and the like. By people who've made no effort to communicate their opinions or thoughts, or come up with better ideas, through the proper channels - no, but plenty of effort to blog about it and not to let facts get in the way. Rage quit? One can dream.

In other news, selling Vucinic turned out to be a bizarrely good move. The Frecheville Blades enjoyed their best ever season, with an early season dalliance at a title run culminating in a good league finish (8th in the FA, and only 2 points off third!) and my first official senior silverware - the EDFA Cup, after a stirring performance ended in stalemate and a penalty shootout win. I'm likely to get to keep the trophy too, with the EDFA folding this season also, due to falling numbers.

We're aggressively looking to merge and re-structure our remaining FAs. Any aging GW will see falling numbers - that FML can keep people's attention for as long as it does is nothing short of amazing. How many games do people seriously play to such an extent for months on end? It's great value... The green shoots of recovery aren't restricted to the real world economy however - we had a great intake of new, active managers last season who are now feeding into the main FAs after a protected baptismal season in NUFA.

So, doom and gloom? Not totally... the future is bright for those in StJohn. It's still one of the sanest worlds around, enjoyed by many. But that doesn't make such a good story...