A look at the official Derbyshire CCC site
by Alan Rowley, 16th December 2001

With Christmas rapidly approaching and news definitely in short supply, this week's County Comment takes a look at the official Derbyshire County Cricket Club website at www.dccc.org.uk.

What on earth is happening to this site? It started off well when it was launched earlier in the year, but it's now getting buried under a host of advertising banners. The front page has banners for Ladbrokes, Argos and BetAndWin.com, but a click on the "Latest News" button revealed even worse.

• The official Derbyshire County Cricket Club website

The latest news page has a slow loading and totally pointless football trivia game called "Football Trivia Blitz". Why on earth is this on a cricket site? The game took over 10 seconds to load, even with my fast cable modem connection. How long would it take with a 56K modem, I wonder? At least there was some news that is fairly recent.

According to the site, Michael Di Venuto is back in action after having been off for seven weeks with an ankle strain. Chris Bassano scored 120 not out at the weekend (?), his second ton of the season. Come on guys, if you're quoting facts and figures, at least put some dates in there somewhere so we have some idea of what is going on.

The site goes on to say "Bassy, who is a fly fishing expert and runs fishing trips in Tasmania, took Derbyshire physio, Craig Ranson , fly fishing in the mountains last week." A quote, presumably from Ranson, says: "He is a genius with a fly rod and caught loads of fish, I mainly hooked myself." Rivetting stuff.

Worst was to come with the news that the average temperature in Tasmania is 15 degrees and they have had snow this week (?) - whoopee doo. Steve Stubbings , who is working as a groundsman down there is said to be "depressed because he cannot get on to his wet wickets."

At least the site has next season's fixtures uploaded - which is more than some of the other official county sites have, but yet again we have to endure more pointless advertising banners. This time, a banner for River Belle Online Casino which didn't have an associated link to the casino site. Why have a banner that you can't click on?

Surely the county could produce a more professional site than this. Don't they realise that this site will be the first port of call for readers searching for information on the county and it doesn't present a good image of the club if the site looks amateurish.