Since BS will be down for maintenance on Saturday, those of you who like to follow games on-line might want to get yourself organized with chatrooms for whatever games are happening this weekend, especially for the Saturday games. I'll be out and about most of Saturday, so I won't be able to join in the fun. Anyway, thought I'd make the suggestion. Naming convention suggestion: BigSoccer plus first four letters of Yank's team name. If there's a game with a Yank on each team, use the home team's name. I think we're safe with just the first 3 letters as Manchester City doesn't appear to have a game, at least not on the same day as ManU. e.g. BigSoccerFul (Chelsea v Fulham) BigSoccerMan (Manchester United v. Spurs) BigSoccerHan (Schalke v Hanover) If a room fills up, add 2 to the end of the name (BigSoccerFul2). I'm not going to post all the times and things. Maybe I'll check in, but it looks doubtful.
come monday i'll post pictures from Schalke - Hannover. Going to be in Germany for the BigSoccer Blackout.
Since I'll be getting this game live on SBS (free-to-air) over here, I'll take the chatroom on this match, and doing the PbP on it. And this is a great idea, by the way, Nancy... whatever keeps the masses involved. And I might add that the Chelsea v Fulham match-- for Brian McBride's potential participation and Carlos Bocanegra's likewise return from suspension-- will be available via a live streaming audio feed via Fulham's official site, complete with Gentleman Jim's audio commentary. So PbP duties on the AIM chatroom are available for that one, too.
Also, I am toying with the idea surrounding my normal pre-match news updates, in light of BigSoccer's planned outage... I'll put together the various news headlines (a la the normal "I'm William, and this is the news" format) for the trio of games on Saturday afternoon here in a series of MSWord documents, one for each match. This would more or less resemble a newsletter-type style, one page per game, basically. For those interested in getting the pre-match updates on the game(s) of interest, PM me with your e-mail address and which match I can send you the headlines and URL links of. Once I've got a list of the games' headlines and those who want to receive the lists of the individual matches, I'll send out the e-mails en masse overnight Friday over there/late Saturday evening here. Just to keep you all informed, and giving you something to read over Saturday breakfast, as we get ready for the AIM chatrooms.
Bump. Going to start assembling my pre-match news round-ups now. So if anyone want me to e-mail them with the info for any or all particular games, PM me with your e-mail addy ASAP...
Should add, in addition to the games Nancy's listed, Blackburn and Brad Friedel have a Saturday match as well, away to Aston Villa, also at 7 a.m. PT/10 a.m. ET. So via the formula, the AIM chatroom for that would be entitled BigSoccerAst. No TV on that match, or live audio, just the matchtrackers at the usual locations around the web.
These files are hereby completed and ready, so get your requests for info in now, if you're fortunate to read this post prior to the big maintenance.