Friday Freebie: All Aboard The SNLF

The newest non-league website on the market

Welcome to the Friday Freebie, the one posting every week for free to give you an idea of what is behind the paywall. However, if you would like to contribute but can’t commit to a monthly subscription then please feel free to ‘buy me a coffee’ or make a donation here.

I had already planned out my work for this article when news dropped late on Friday afternoon of the Southend Utd takeover finally being completed after around 18 months of hard work.

But I’m sticking to my original idea and will pen a piece for the paywall customers over the weekend regarding the Shrimpers, although it’s nice to see people saying thanks for giving support during their dark moments every club in trouble below the elite and not through their own making deserves the publicity to have their plight seen and heard.

Unfortunately, it won’t be the last club to suffer from a rogue owner or a case of financial mismanagement but hopefully those cases are few and far between this season coming.

So, onto my posting for this evening and it’s some self-promotion, I mean if you can’t use your own platforms to do so then no one is going to blow your trumpet.

Some of you will be aware that almost two weeks ago I launched a website to cover Sussex non-league football. It was an idea I had in the back of my mind for a long while, an idea actually floated by Billy Wood at Hastings Utd at the time, but something that would require a financial commitment currently beyond me.

As per what Billy saw, local newspaper coverage of sport has seen a huge fall year by year, not just football but reporting in general. Now that isn’t a dig at the great local journo’s who these days number small, they just don’t have the resources to give it the column inches.

When I arrived in Sussex 17 years ago, each paper had a sports editor and at least two junior reporters in tow. Now the excellent Steve Bone looks after so many titles across the county let alone towns he rarely has a moment to get out to report on live sport.

Social media has of course changed the way we get our news and sports information, but there is still a place for print. We still have parts of generations who rely on what they get and see in a newspaper daily and weekly. That time may come when it goes for good, but currently there is room for both.

Back to my site, www.thesnlf.co.uk. Originally it was just SNLF, short, snappy and memorable, thinking back to my schooldays the French railway SNCF was something easy to remember. A slight hiccup with the name but here we are.

It covers every club in the county from Step 2 in the National League South down to Step 6, the Southern Combination Division One, some 52 clubs I think it is. While those a little higher do get better coverage for me there is room for everyone to have their moments highlighted.

The clubs then have a platform to reach people across the county and outside of their own followers and supporters, not mention across the country and the world.

But we didn’t want to limit it to just news about clubs and matches, that information you can get anywhere, we want to go above and beyond that marker.

Our soft launch met the exact targets I wanted in the first seven days, over 200 Twitter followers, 500 visitors and 1000 page views. And to think we haven’t yet scratched the surface with pre-season still in session for all.

We’ve already added a couple of different features on the menu page, including a Vacancies board so clubs can advertise what they need from management members to club staff to committee members. Again, it promotes it outside of their social media circles where it might get missed in a flurry of tweets.

There are plans this season for a Fans Forum and a podcast, already underway in the background and two great additions that will enhance what we’ve already started to do.

More ideas are in the pipeline to add as we go along, time dictates when these will be ready to add as this isn’t a full time gig yet, a day job to balance, but following our social media pages will tell you when they are ready.

None of it would have been possible without the backing of Mike McCaffrey and my thanks are completely extended to him. Having a vision and then finding someone who shares it and can actually make it happen is something else, the page doesn’t turn until it’s been read by both.

So, where are we? Well, as mentioned we are www.thesnlf.co.uk, you can find us on Twitter, @theSNLF, and also on Facebook www.facebook.com/TheSNLF.co.uk. On Instagram where the set up is being completed over the weekend we are, thesnlf.co.uk, with TikTok also to come.

Please spread the word around, we’ll be getting up as much content as we can on a daily and weekly basis, send any stories and images to use here trevor@thesnlf.co.uk.

The support so far has been tremendous but you are my best marketing tool to spread the message.