This is an idea I've had for a while now, and I would love to see what people think about it.

This is how the idea occured, I work every Friday night, which of course means I miss the majority of my beloved Reds matches, and while it is easy enough to get score updates, I would love to read how the goals were scored and other chances which occur. I realise Sportal has text commentary, but it is absolutely woeful, and terribly slow. Anyone who has the Eurosport application would know how fantastic their text commentary is, and I could only dream of having something as good in the A-League.

So here's my suggestion, can us passionate members of 442 band together and somehow develop a live commentary centre for all A-League matches. All we need is 10 or so volunteers who could provide insightful commentary to the matches, and then the 442 website could make it in a readable format, with players, referees and weather conditions all shown.

From here we could get this to be stickied on the 442 home page and can be accessed easily, both from computers for the people who can't see the match, and for people on their phones who may be at the game and want description on the plays they see, overall it can be like an iPod or iPhone application, without being an official apple product.

Does it sound at all possible? Would anyone else be interested?

Any thoughts would be appreciated.


Edited by Funky Munky: 19/10/2010 11:52:10 PM

+1. Kinda like cricinfo.

we've got matchday in AF... that's what it's for

To be fair, Friday night's match contained:

TEEEEEEEEEERRRA! WHAT A GOAL
GREAT GOAL TERRA
TERRA GOOOOOOOOOOOOAL

Wasn't insightful for people who couldn't see the game.

If we could incorporate text commentary, with people providing their own analysis and opinions in the 'comments' it would be a much better that the Matchday thread.

Here is an example, this is the final 5 minutes from the Sunderland vs Arsenal EPL match a few weeks ago on Eurosports commentary.

90+5' The final whistle goes, and Arsenal are denied top spot at the death! Arsene Wenger is livid that the clock had gone over the four allotted minutes of added time, but the fact is that Sunderland have snatched a point that their performance probably deserved.

90+4' GOAL!! SUNDERLAND EQUALISE!! Andy Reid's corner is not sufficiently cleared, and Zenden hoists it back in. CLichy bungles his clearance and Darren Bent blasts the loose ball into the net from six yards out!

90+3' Denilson exploits a gap in the Sunderland back line and has a pop at goal, but it bounces wide of the post.

90+1' There are four minutes of added time signalled by the fourth official.

90' Al-Muhamadi wins a corner and elicits a big cheer from the crowd.


It captured the excitement, and I think we have passionate and knowledgable enough fans and supporters on this forum to create this for the A-League.

Totally agree.

Also a good one to look at as an example is The Guardian's Minute by Minute of EPL matches. Happy to do it for Victory away games and have been known to do it on the odd occasion on my own personal Victory blog.

I get the Sportal updates on my phone, but I have to say the HAL updates when compared to the EPL ones are shithouse and come at about 3-4 minute intervals and give no indication of the actual play.

Exactly, it's a half assed job and can be done alot better, we just need people to get involved and hope 442 get behind it.

skysports one is also awesome for epl, i cant see why FFT dont have someething like this in place already

Here is an example of something I have done after watching the Wellington vs Gold Coast match earlier this season in Wellington, bear in mind it was my first attempt so it's pretty basic.



Welcome to a very wet WestPac Stadium for this 2nd round A-League match between the Wellington Phoenix and Gold Coast United.

Here are the teams:
Gold Coast:
Moss, Van Den Brink, Djulbric, Rees, Anderson, Caravella, Culina, Thwaite, Brown, Porter, Smeltz
Wellington:
Paston, Muscat, Durante, Sigmund, Lochhead, Brown, Lia, Bertos, Ifill, Greenacre, MacAllister

Wellington Phoenix      Gold Coast
1            1

Ifill (7) Smeltz (36)

Yellow cards:         
Bertos (22)         Djulbic (17)

We are away in Wellington!

1' Early corner for Gold Coast, the pitch is terribly wet with puddles beginning to appear.
2' Culina takes and finds Thwaite who header is straight at Paston.
3' Nice movement from Wellington, Ifill swings in a cross, flicked on by Greenacre who nearly finds Macallister but Moss claims.
4' Paston spills a simple ball crossed in by Anderson, falls to Culina whos shot is blocked!
New South American signing Toto starts on the pine for the Phoenix.
7' GOAL! - Bertos does well on the right and swings in a ball which is cleared by Thwaite only to find Ifill at the edge of the box who works around a few Gold Coast defenders and scores!
8' CHANCE - The dust barely settles as Caravella finds it in midfield and fires a thunderbolt from 30 yards which hits the post! Paston didnt move!
9' CHANCE - Ifill again causing problems! Finds it on the left, goes around Van den Brink and fires it at goal which is straight Moss.
Cracking start to the match!
10' Nice work from Porter on the left who finds Brown on the edge of the box, who shoots high and wide.
12' CHANCE - Nice patient play from the Gold Coast, Thwaite finds space and delivers in a quick ball into the box where Caravella side-foots wide! Perhaps he should have left it for Smeltz who was in a better position to strike!
Rain still hammering down, Gold Coast look the better of the 2 sides despite the score line.
17' Crucial slip by Djulbic in defence and he knocks the ball away with his hand as Greenacre looks to pounce! Yellow shown by Peter O'Leary.
19' CHANCE - Anderson finds space and delivers to Brown with all of the time in the world hits it straight at Paston, which rebounds to Caravella who's shot is blocked, what a chance for Gold Coast!
21' Great ball by Thwaite nearly finds Porter but ricochets of Sigmund and rolls to Paston, I don't think Sigmund knew too much about that!
Absolute domination by Gold Coast at the moment.
22' Bertos booked for a tug on Thwaite.
24' A break in play as Thwaite cops one and goes off for treatment
25' Free kick on the edge of the box for the Phoenix, massive chance!
26' Ifill blasts it over the bar.
26' Smeltz picks out Culina with a lovely cross but the Phoenix clear it out.
28' Terrible clearance by Paston sees Gold Coast have a corner.
Wellington will feel very lucky they are still ahead
36' GOAL! - There is the goal! Shane Smeltz! Culina delivers a quality free kick and Smeltz with an angled header into the top corner!



Obviously that is very basic, and the bolded parts are trying to give a brief summation of the current game trends.

The key is to present this better, especially in the scorecard above the commentary.

Thoughts?

I can set something up, but I am averse to putting it on the news pages without knowing we have a band of willing and competent people to do it and KEEP IT UP. I don't want to add a new feature and have it die a disappointing death.

However what I can maybe try to do is set up a coveritlive blog in its own thread and give wannabe commentators access to it to run for each match.

Is that something that may interest you guys?

If you can prove dedication and commitment, with every game covered, I will see about moving it onto the homepage as a feature (and possibly throw a magazine sub at the commentators...?)

Sounds good - willing to give it a shot for the next Victory away game.

BTW here is a link to what I do when covering Victory games for my own blog, like to use The Guardian's MBM as a basis for my format. As you can see it's not a direct shot by shot account of the game but you definitely get the gist of what is going on with my slant on it.

http://www.victoryinmelbourne.com/2010/08/melbourne-victory-vs-sydneyfc-minute-by-minute/

That sounds fantastic, exactly what I'm after, but I do recognise the challenge will be getting people interested to do the commentary and staying with it, but if it is a success early, I'm sure people will be very keen to volunteer.

Zizou seems keen, I would be able to a match each week (generally a Sunday game), and I'm sure we can get a few others interested.


If it proves a success with people actively watching the scores and contributing to comments, is there a chance you could make it appear on the homepage, so it's easy to get to on mobile phones?

Have to get that live chat thingy you guys were using for Socceroo games a couple years ago. That was pretty handy and refreshed itself.

I'd be willing to do this for all the games if I was needed - I'm usually sitting with my laptop in front of a game with the match-day thread open anyway. Only exceptions obviously being Roar home games and any games that immediately precede or follow those games.

So far we have 3 willing to contribute to this, maybe it is worth trialling it for 1 match and see the reviews we recieve from the forum members.

Does anyone have a screenshot of how this coveritlive could perhaps look?

http://www.coveritlive.com/

This would be epic. Especially for covering games like the recent AFC U19 game against the UAE where people has shit sreams etc.

Those wishing to be commentators, please PM me your email addresses...

It appears we can't embed the coveritlive into forum posts, but what I will do is add it to the bottom of each Match preview for each game. It will be the same coveritlive for each game, just put into suspension at the end of each game, then restarted for each new game.

We'll give it a shot and see how we go...it will also take in tweets with the #aleague hashtag.

Commentators will need to get accustomed to the software first - I'll set up a test one for you to play with to get the hang of it.

Edited by Kevin Airs: 13/10/2010 02:21:20 PM

Like zizou, I am committed in doing Victory away games.

the matchday thread is good, but not great.


would really love to see a matchday thing similar to what the bbc do on epl days. like dt, i am committed to doing brisbane roar games.

Edited by zimbos_05: 13/10/2010 02:45:49 PM

I would do Sydney F.C away games, but I am not always available.

Putting myself out of the running as I rarely watch any games sober.

have you had a look at the bbc model for their games when they cover epl. its pretty good and quite neat too.

I would probably rather not do Adelaide matches as I would probably rather sit and watch (considering I don't get to see many due to working Friday nights) the games rather than commentate them.

I am willing to do a match each Sunday, for instance this week, Wellington vs Melbourne Heart, I could do that one.

I'm assuming we will need to set up a roster of some-sort, or just consult weekly as to who can do what game.

If you can sort out among yourselves who's doing what by assigning yourselves to a set game each week, that would probably be the best way.

Week by week is probably best for the moment - no need for long-term commitment yet until we all see how it goes.

Im happy to do Brisbane Roar home games. travelling can be quite difficult.

one other note. how would we be watching these games. would we be at the stadiums or just doing it from home.

if its stadium, would we not need media clearance.

if its from home, its probably easy for anyone to do it then.

Edited by zimbos_05: 13/10/2010 03:24:21 PM

Happy with that.

Purely for a draft of this week's game (if this is going to be up and running by then), let's get some names to the games.

Note: All times are venue time-zones.


Friday Night 7:30pm- North Queensland vs Perth @ Dairy Farmers -
Saturday Night 6:45pm - Melbourne Victory vs Sydney FC @ Etihad -
Saturday Night 7:45pm - Brisbane Roar vs Newcastle Jets @ Suncorp -
Sunday 4:00pm - Gold Coast vs Adelaide United @ Skilled -
Sunday 5:00pm - Wellington Phoenix vs Melbourne Heart @ Westpac - mizza

Only nominate if you can 100% do this match, if we want this to be a success people can't be pulling out just for shits and giggles.