Degrees of separation

Many people will start an article/story with how wonderful hindsight is. However, the truth is, they are probably just telling you that they didn't know enough about something at the beginning before doing what they did. If I knew, for example, that I would be stood frozen in a hail storm with my hands welded by frost to a camera for 2 hours (having convinced someone else to do the same with me) and that the following evening would be spent hunched over a laptop learning more about editing and compressing video for the web than I ever cared to then, I suspect, I would have zipped my mouth closed many months ago when I had this "great idea".
The result (not some of the the match scores which have often equalled the bad weather) was actually quite impressive if I do say so myself and there are few clubs in the UK that can say they broadcast matches live on the Internet - but Biggleswade United is one of them.

It is frustrating that we did not reach 5000 members by Feb 08 but we may simply have had a target too high for such a club and project. What we have got is something to build on and all through the efforts of a few peoples spare time - the essence of what the project was always about.
We have had a match where the membership picked the team (though last minute unavailability meant 2 changes), we have a library of video matches, team profiles, wiki knowledge base, a new voting system ready to go and a large group of people involved in the club that weren't previously - now THAT is a solid foundation. There have been some frustrations voiced about the speed of the process but as I have often said, there are still far more positives than negatives.

We are preparing for the new season now and I think everything will be in place for a new board made up of members and existing committee. It will be a club like no other and the "hand over" season may prove to be a big plus for us.
myFC are showing some growing pains and, again on reflection, I wish we had separated ourselves more from the scheme in terms of ideology as they have always been very different. However, the tortoise and the hare may prove to be a useful parallel - we have the opportunity to be steadily developed and take time in bringing the mix together rather than the frenetic pace that could have occurred.

So I am pleased I do not have hindsight and, for the most part, will let the flame of blissful ignorance lead the way. It may be bitterly cold on occasion and it can, potentially, lead to some God awful decisions but life is supposed to be exciting not a numb wander into the heavily explored.

Match anyone?