Its sneaked up on us almost unoticed but this week ses the tenth anniverary of The Ugly Inside debuting on the internet.
It was back in the summer of 2000 that we were approached to join Rivals and publish their Southampton site, up till then since its launch in April 1988 The Ugly Inside had been a paper only fanzine and just as it had been at the forefront of the fanzine boom of the late 80's early 90's, it would be in at the start of the internet fan site boom.
Of course we werent the first unnofficial Saints website, there were of course the odd one or two knocking around, including the excellent Saints Forever, but we are now probably the longest running.
We went live at the Start of August and it was an exciting time for Saints as the new ground started to take shape and we prepared for our last season at the Dell.
We soon grew into the biggest Saints fanzine on the web and at our peak in 2002 we were getting more page impressions than the official club site, I know this because Rupert Lowe excitedly announced their figures at the AGM, however i knew we were doing more.
The mid 00's saw more Saints sites hit the ether and of course this diluted the traffic, but many remained loyal to TUI as we remained loyal to our original ethics of 1988 which was to give Saints fans a voice, a voice that could be heard in the main uncensored.
Over the years we have tried to adapt, with demise of Rivals we moved to Club Fanzine, in hindsight they were not set up for the task and the standard of the site declined along with the traffic, however the message board was still the foundation and slowly ttraffic started to move in the right direction again until the founding of Fans Network.
With far better sites and superior technology TUI launched into its 11th year on Fans Network and the initial signs are this is the right move, the technology is good and is being improved on a weekly basis and this has seen more and more returning members, including some old faces we have barely seen in five years,.
We are continuing our aims of providing Saints fans with a voice and ofering them the chance to air their views when other mediums do not, football is a boom and bust industry and even in the good times there are still things that nedd to be challenged and discussed, personally I want to see Southampton Football Club back at the top and respected and that is not going to be achieved in the long term if we blindly accept what is put before us, football clubs are part of the community and that being the case the community deserves and should have a say.
Its been a rocky ride for The Ugly Inside, not just on line over the past 10 years but in over 22 years of existence, frighteningly enough if it survives another 22 years I will be 70, I certainly hope that both of us are still around.
So finally thanks to everybody who has helped along the way, be it writing articles or just by contributing to the site by posting messages or even just reading, I have got a lot out of the past decade, I have learned a lot and had plenty of good times, long may they continue.
Thank You !