archives.football

Description

Version 9.7
12/November/2023

As requested by the data admins, we now have the ability to add match events in injury time. A new dropdown menu allows the admins to select how many minutes into injury time at the end of 45 or 90 minutes an event occurred.

It has generated alot of legacy work to be updated, but it's a nice new feature that was scoped for some 14 years ago but never implemented.

Version 9.62
09/October/2023

Issue where on the Game log tab of the player profile if a sub scored a penalty, this wasn't denoted on the game log. Query was re-written to include penalties scored by subs, issue now resolved

Version 9.61
29/June/2023

DATAFIX

Applied a datafix to the players table, removing all 'whitespaces' from the start and end of player First Names, Surnames, Common Names and Places of birth. Around 10,000 records were amended, although no major impact on the site it did have a small visual impact which bothered me.

Version 9.60
16/May/2023

CODE CHANGE

The International Career records section to the player profile (where applicable). The section only appears if a player has some kind of International career added to their profile.

Version 9.52
15/May/2023

CODE CHANGE

A number of screens have had the Country Flag added. Firstly both the search results for Player and Team Search now displays the Country flag in the results (where present for the Player results).

Secondly, the player profile page has had the Country added for League Career records, which looks really useful if a player has played in a number of Countries during their career.

Finally, for the time being at least. The Competition search now also displays the Country flag, to help differentiate where Countries use the same naming convention for their own respective Competitions. (As requested by a data admin)

Version 9.51
13/April/2023

CODE CHANGE
Minor new addition of code to the player profile, with the advent of name changes and marriages of divorces affecting more and more players, it was felt a feature needed to be added to accommodate these changes.

So a previous name field has been added to player profiles and will only display if a previous name has been added.

Version 9.5
07/March/2023

NEW FEATURE

A new feature added to the site is Data Admin Points. Each point is awarded for every new contribution to the site in the following six categories: Match, Player, Club, League Career, Match Appearance and Match Event.

Cumulative totals are recorded for the last month, 6 months, 12 months and finally all-time contributions. This gives Data Admins a better understand of how much effort they have made on the site (a feature they requested).

The points 'level' are then indicated by a star system:

1 star = 1 -> 10,000 pieces of data added
2 star - 10,001 -> 100,000
3 star - 100,001 -> 500,000
4 star - 500,000 -> 1,000,000
5 star - 1 million plus

Surely this just means that the site owner will be the highest ranked Data Admin ? Well no, alot of my early contributions to the site are credited to the sites biggest user Bulk Upload.

Version 9.41
22/February/2023

CODE CHANGE

Ever since the addition of female players to the database, we have had a slight display discrepancy on the Relations block of the player page. As a short term fix, the admin section was amended so that you could see both sides of the relationship when setting it up, i.e Father (Son), Son (Father) etc. However, this was used on the frontend as the output display as well. This has annoyed me since it went live, so I have added a new Display box for each relationship and I happy to say it now only displays one instance - Father or Son, rather than both.

Version 9.4
04/October/2022

CODE CHANGE The Match Page had a makeover, with the following changes implemented:

Removed the old redundant blank clubpage placeholder
Timeline now only appears if an event has been added to the match
Simplified the timeline display, with just a border (underline) under each event
Club connections has had abit of an overhaul
All players that have played for both clubs now appear in the list, appearances are displayed even if the player has/didn't actually make an appearance for either team.
Club connections now also displays goals scored for the respective clubs

Version 9.3
19/September/2022

CODE CHANGE

A long overdue code change/fix was completed to enable the sorting of League Table's using various Classifications. League seasons can now be configured to handle four different sort orders, allowing the league tables to reflect the correct usage over the period 1888-present.

Sort orders:

Goal Difference
Goal Ratio
Points Per Game
Goals Scored

Version 9.2
24/June/2022

NEW DATA ADMIN FEATURE

After some consideration I have decided that allowing mass imports of matches where we don't know the actual date it took place is better having the match in part than not at all. With this in mind I have added another version of the Match Import tool called Import Matches (DNK)

This should allow the inclusion of a vast number of result grids that we currently haven't added due to the lack of matchdates.

Version 9.1
02/June/2022

Added a message for newly created seasons, that if no data exists the message 'There are currently no matches for this season, it either has not started yet or no data has been added' appears, rather than a blank page.

Version 9.0
24/March/2022

REBRAND - We have a new name, going forward the site and the twitter handle for

www.thefootballarchives.com

will simply become

archives.football

Version 8.01
05/March/2022

Minor change to the Image Gallery

You may have noticed that on the Programmes tab of a club it displays a programme cover from each season where one exists in the database. On occasion though it maybe a teamsheet or a testimonial programme that has been displayed and this isn't really a good illustrative example of the seasons covers. So a new field has been added to Image Gallery allowing us to Exclude an image from the page. Simply add the word Yes, to the image file information where it states Exclude from Programme Tab

This will remove that image from the Programme Tab, something that has annoyed me with a few instances

Version 8.0
25/February/2022

SERVER MOVE
Following the closure of the previous hosts (having been with them since the sites creation) after 12 years the site needed to be migrated onto a new hosting service. Due to the ever expanding size of both the sites image gallery and databases a more robust hosting account was required.

This should hopefully allow the site to continue to expand beyond it's previous capacities which were limited by server space and hardware. Both of which have now been increased and we should (once everything has settled down) see an improvement of both performance and capacity, allowing the site to grow yet further.

With this came a number of issues, mostly down to configuration changes and new updated software versions on the new host. Most of which are or have been resolved.

Any further issues can be reported on the Data Admin Forum

Version 7.85
18/December/2021

CODE CHANGE

Minor code change applied to the Player page. Page title now includes playerid and Player name to help highlight in webbroswing history and for page indexing by search engines.

Version 7.84
13/December/2021

CODEFIX

Spotted an error on the Autobio feature of the Player Page today. When viewing a player that has spent their entire career with one club, but with mutliple teams within that club (Reserve, Youth level or even Club name change) the output for the name of the club was displaying as the first Team name, rather than the club.

For example, Dean Lewington has spent his entire career with MK Dons, but that career began whilst they were still called Wimbledon. This meant it displayed Wimbledon rather than Milton Keynes Dons.

Only a minor display issue, but enough of an annoyance for me to want to correct it.

Version 7.83
10/December/2021

CODEFIX

Another minor codefix, this time to the Match Data % Complete of the match page. Previously if a match went to penalties, the completion data was using the total number of penalties scored as the final score, ignoring any goals scored in normal or extra-time. This was obviously giving a false number for goal events and thus preventing any match being marked as complete.

The new calculations are based on Final score and or Extra-time score.

Version 7.82
08/December/2021

CODEFIX

Fixed another minor display issue with the page footer. On the pages Search and Competitions the footer was stretching across the width of the screen, rather than the same standard site size of 900px. This has now been fixed and the footer remains constant across the site.

Version 7.81
05/December/2021

CODE FIX

Minor display issue fixed on the Competitions page. When a match has the RNK (Result not known) flag ticked, this wasn't displaying the ?-? expected scoreline if the phase/round ws changed from the default opening page. Instead an erroneous 0-0 scoreline was displayed.

This only affected Cup matches, where the score isn't yet known (so a VERY small amount of data), so quite hard to find unless you knew what to look for.

Version 7.8
29/November/2021

CODE CHANGE

A change in the Data Admin view of Clubs, if a club has a match with no match result, this is now included in a renamed Missing MatchData tab (previously Missing MatchDates).

The homepage now also displays the count of matches currently missing a matchresult. As at 29/11/2021 it stands at 603.

Version 7.7
08/November/2021

Code Change


Made a small amendment to the data admin page View Matches, previously the page would display Events, Number of home players and number of away players. This has now been simplified to display the Data Completion percentage instead.

Version 7.63
07/November/2021

CODE FIX

On the back of Version 7.62, I introduced a small display issue. If a Country doesn't have a mini-flag added to the system the site would display a missing image link. This has now been fixed

Version 7.62
13/October/2021

CODE CHANGE

A new minor addition to the Club Page, the club info. now includes the Country that club is from. This has become more of a necessity since the expansion to cover more of Europe with some club names appearing in multiple Countries.

Version 7.61
06/September/2021

CODE FIX

When clicking on a season link on the match page where the season is a year rather than over two years the compitiion Competition page wouldn't load the correct season. This has now been amended and fixed

Version 7.6
08/August/2021

CODE CHANGE

The Add/Update player option in the Data Admin section now includes the option to select the Gender. The default is male (as the bulk of the 298029 players are currently male). This in turn will display a female default image (on the player profile page) where no player image has been added.

It also allows future developments that may require a differential of genders, such as He/She, His/Her in the Autobio feature on the player profile page.

Version 7.58
03/August/2021

CODE CHANGE

Due to a growing number of match line-ups not having Positions defined for each player, I have added a negative Match Completion % factor for any in-complete line-ups. This will prevent any match with players with unknown positions being classed as 100% complete

In addition any match line-up that contains more than 22 players in the starting line-ups will also incur a negative Match Completion %. We have over 180 such instances where the players that took part are known, but those that started and those that were used subs are not differentiated

Version 7.57
04/July/2021

Minor code change

Added links to our Facebook, Ebay and Twitter pages in the footer of the site

https://www.facebook.com/thefootballarchives

https://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/programmehut/m.html

https://twitter.com/onthisdaythefa

Version 7.56
27/May/2021

CODEFIX

Minor code fix on the match page for matches that goto penalties. Following the 2021 Europa League final that saw 21 (of 22) penalties scored, the penalty score displayed over 2 lines due to the page contraints. This has now been fixed so that it displays on one line

Version 7.55
14/April/2021

Minor Code Change

Following the addition of a new 'Image not found' replacement on the Player profile page, I have added 'obituary style' years of birth and death that appear under either the player profile image or stock image not found.

Version 7.54
12/April/2021

Minor Code Change

On the Player profile page, I have replaced the 'No Image Available' with a Green Silhouette of a players head. This will now appear by default on all players with no image added.

Version 7.53
09/December/2020

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.

Version 7.52
06/December/2020

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.

Version 7.51
05/August/2020

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.

Version 7.5
10/July/2020

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.

To view the matches with Result Not Known click:
 
 
It is a butchered version of the Competitions page and may have some display issues, but it serves a purpose

Version 7.45
08/July/2020

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.

Version 7.44
08/June/2020

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

Version 7.43
16/May/2020

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

Version 7.42
15/May/2020

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.

Version 7.41
21/April/2020

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).

Version 7.4
20/April/2020

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

Version 7.31
05/March/2020

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.

Version 7.3
04/February/2020

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

Version 7.25
01/February/2020

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

Version 7.24
01/February/2020

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 with timings.

Version 7.23
31/January/2020

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.

Version 7.22
18/December/2019

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.

Version 7.21
21/November/2019

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.

Version 7.2
20/November/2019

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)

Version 7.1
14/November/2019

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.

Version 7.0
13/November/2019

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

Version 6.28
12/November/2019

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.

Version 6.27
11/November/2019

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.

Version 6.26
05/November/2019

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.

Version 6.25
29/October/2019

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.

Version 6.24
29/October/2019

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.

Version 6.23
17/October/2019

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.

Version 6.22
16/October/2019

 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.

Version 6.21
15/October/2019

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

Version 6.2
13/October/2019

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.

Version 6.13
11/October/2019

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.

Version 6.12
05/October/2019

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

Version 6.11
08/September/2019

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.

Version 6.1
03/September/2019

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

Version 6.0
02/September/2019

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)

Version 5.41
01/September/2019

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

Version 5.4
30/August/2019

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

Version 5.3
29/August/2019

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

Version 5.2
28/August/2019

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.

Version 5.1
23/August/2019

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

Version 5.0
03/July/2019

Stats provider for the National League

We are delighted to announce that we are now an Official supplier of Statistics and post match information for the Vanarama National League. As part of the agreement the 68 member clubs will provide us with a post match teamsheet, along with a huge paper based archive from the www.thenationalleague.org.uk

Version 4.1
01/September/2014

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.

Version 4.0
30/May/2014

Latest and current logo design implemeted to the site

Version 3.0
19/June/2013

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

Version 2.3
18/June/2013

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.

Version 2.2
01/June/2012

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

Version 2.1
30/December/2010

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)

Version 2.0
26/August/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

Version 1.2
08/August/2010

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

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

Version 1.11
03/May/2010

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

Version 1.1
01/March/2010

Backend database converted from MSSQL to MYSQL 

Version 1.0
28/December/2009

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