ComeOnYouSaints.com

A MILLION THANKS!

 
The editors of ComeOnYouSaints.com are dead chuffed to announce that in the month of March 2008 the number of “hits” or “page impressions” for the website exceeded one million for the first time – 1,083,340 to be exact! Over a million clicks! In one month! Blimey! To mark this occasion here’s a short history of COYSDC…

 
HUMBLE BEGINNINGS

Back in 1996 a chap named Chris Gleadell came up with the idea of constructing a website dedicated to Northampton Saints for the supporters. Hosted on Geocities, the website started small but word spread and the number of contributors slowly grew. There are still a few of the original “club” still around today.

 
RIVALS

In the early part of 2000 the Rivals network approached Chris to see if he wanted them to host his site. And they would pay as well! Chris migrated coysdc to Rivals and the site continued to come on apace. It was around this time that Chris invited Richard Lindsley to join him as part of an editorial team even though they had never met. Such is the nature of internet forums it is quite ironic that when they finally did meet up twelve months later the boys found they stood barely 10 yards apart on the Gordon Terrace!

It was not all good news with Rivals though. Barely two years later, in the midst of the dotcom crash, the company announced it was ditching all of its sports sites with the exception of football. Only a month’s notice was given and it looked like ComeOnYouSaints.com would be homeless. Cue John Wards…

 
SPORTNETWORK (SN)

Just a few months previous to Rivals pulling out of non-football sites John Wards approached Chris and Rich and invited them to take a look at his “sport network”. At the time of the initial contact there was no reason to move but with the Rivals bombshell something had to be done. The Rivals site was archived for posterity by Simon Robinson and Rob Leach and in May 2002 we waved goodbye and moved to our new home.

In the first month on SN coysdc achieved almost 90,000 hits. Site traffic had doubled by August and hit over 300,000 less than 12 months later but it was in the autumn of 2002 that the seeds of possibly ComeOnYouSaints.com’s most important work were sown...Saints With Heart.

 
SAINTS WITH HEART

Saints had travelled to Biarritz in October 2002 in the Heineken Cup and the ever-growing readership of the website had taken great delight in discussing every tiny detail of the trip. Unfortunately, regular contributor Mark Coleman was taken ill whilst in France becoming the third member in a few short months to suffer a heart attack. This prompted Richard to organise the first “Saints with Heart” sponsored walk raising money for the British Heart Foundation. The first walk raised £4000 for this important charity and fund-raising in subsequent years (there have now been six walks) means that ComeOnYouSaints.com has raised in excess of £70,000. Sadly, Mark passed away in September 2007 but we remember just how proud he was of everybody’s efforts.

 
SPORTNETWORK STATISTICS

Over the years the traffic through coysdc has continued to grow steadily, culminating in this months figure. A few landmarks follow –

11/2004 – 534140 hits (the first month over 500k and the month that Alan Solomons left the club)

4/2005 – 627654 hits (Saints survive the threat of relegation – this time)

4/2007 – 794646 hits (Saints, Heineken Cup semi-finalists, are relegated to NL1)

1/2008 – 865717 hits

2/2008 – 876522 hits

3/2008 – 1083340 hits (Saints secure promotion back to the Guinness Premiership)

 
COMEONYOUSAINTS.COM TODAY

Of course it goes without saying that without regular contributors to the site none of the above would be possible. The Editors would like to thank everyone who has written articles for the site over the years, the photographers who provide such fantastic pictures of Saints games and all who take the time to read the web-site. It is very much appreciated.

Now, with promotion secured, there’s bound to be even more to talk about. Bring it on!

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