5-a-side.com’s 2014 Manifesto

It’s a new year and that means it’s time to reflect on the year that’s gone, as well as the year ahead. We look at what we’ll be aiming to do and what you can do to join the exciting journey that this blog is on!

If you’re new to our site then a very warm welcome to you indeed. Now is a great time to join us as there’s lots of excitement ahead. But you’ve also missed the journey we’ve been on since we started in March, which began on a bit of a wing and a prayer if we’re honest.

Last year we were really proud of the progress we made. It might have all started with a single article on How Many People Play 5-a-side, but soon we were finely crafting some articles that remain the stuff that we’re really proud of, the ‘Best of 2013’, if you like, which included:

• How To Play Against a Better Team
• 5-a-side Formations
• 6-a-side Formations
• The Last Man
• Interview with Top Sports Psychologist Dan Abrahams
• Skills with Joe Smith – Flow in Football
• Creative Skills for 5-a-side players
• A guide to free-kicks

There were also a few less successful articles, (hey, who would’ve known an article about a dog scoring a 5-a-side goal would’ve bombed so badly – and be a complete waste of some superb doggy-based puns: ‘Didier Dogba’ anyone? anyone… No?) but we’ll put that down to the learning process shall we?

Looking forward to the year ahead

2013 was good to us but 2014 is going to be even better. We can just smell the heady aroma of it, like deep heat wafting from a changing room.

We’ve already had a good uplift in interest this year already. We’ve already received double the number of emails we received in 2013, and they’re good ones (perhaps we’ll tell you more about them somewhere down the line)!

So, not wanting to miss out on the annual practice of ‘making New Year resolutions and then breaking them’, we put together our resolutions, or a 2014 Manifesto, if you will.

In 2014 this site is going to:

• BE USEFUL. Bring you more of the articles you love – which you’re telling us is the things that actually work in the various types of 5-a-side. This can be a challenge sometimes as it’s such a disparate community with some seriously casual attitudes to playing, never mind training. But that’s what makes it great – nobody wants to organise all the fun out of our football, but people generally DO want to win or at the very least want to improve. THIS is where our blog can really help. We have access to some very good coaches, teams and players – we’ll show you how you can improve.

• BE CONSISTENT. At times, like now when the Gaffer has just moved house and is spending his evenings wallowing in self pity as he constructs flat-packed furniture instead of doing what really matters (writing about 5-a-side, of course), the blog sometimes takes a backseat. That’s got to stop. We are going to move heaven and earth to bring you a weekly article, if you’ve got things you want us to cover then get in touch – it helps us know what to write about and it results in the stuff you want to read. Help us both by getting in contact with any burning questions you have.

• LEARN. Embrace technology. This blog has been figured out from scratch. We have day-jobs, we’re not programmers, so making this has been a bit of a baptism of fire and It’s a minor miracle we managed to get this thing running at all! Yeah, we surprised even ourselves, but we know there’s more we can do.

•  GIVE. We know that we’re starting to build a great little community here and have had some fantastic feedback on the site from some kind people. We might only be small but we’re growing. We’ve had emails from Italy and Portugal in the last month showing we’re reaching a nice chunk of the 5-a-side planet already. Not only do we want to interact with you all, we want to give back. Give firstly to our followers – we’ve rustled up a couple of giveaways – but also see if we can use this fantastic community for some good. More on that idea later in the year.

• GROW. Get 1st page search ranked by google for the term 5-a-side. I mean, for crying out loud, why is this site ranked lower than ‘5-a-Side Football at Frank Lee Leisure and Fitness’! I’m sure that Frank Lee is a legend, and that his leisure centre runs some impressive leagues, but 5-a-side.com is going global! Anyway, I’m no SEO master so I don’t know what the answer is here other than to try to continue churning out the kind of articles that people seem to be enjoying and coming back for more.

We want you on our side

So, what can you lovely people do to help make the most out of this year?

This year we want to grow our little community more. Spread the word to those you know play 5-a-side.

You’ll be helping and being part of this if you can:

• Pop in and say hi. Don’t be a stranger. Comment on the articles; it’s more fun for everyone when they read YOUR opinion at the end of articles rather than just getting our take on it. Let’s have some debate. Send us any thoughts, advice, questions. We love it.
• Subscribe and follow! Seriously, if you haven’t already, sign up to the blog. It results in you getting a once-a-week email with notifications of new articles so that you don’t miss out on any of the good stuff we’re writing. You can unsubscribe any time. We also put notice of our new articles on Twitter, facebook and google+ so you might want to follow if you use these platforms. We also release videos on our YouTube channel from time to time.
• Let us know if there’s something YOU can bring to this project. If you have an interest in 5-a-side and have any other skills at all then we just might be able to work together in some way. Who knows?

Anyway, that’s enough chat. Happy New Year to you and your families! Let’s hope 2014 is a good one for us all.

See you next time, but in the meantime don’t be a stranger.

The Gaffer