Sites unseen

Sporting websites worth a visit

David Hills
Observer

Sunday February 3, 2002

Lee Bowyer talk
www.leebowyertalk.com
Not what you'd expect... 'Make Quick and Easy MONEY!!!!!!!' says Archery66 on this real-time talk board. 'Reading this could change your life!!!!'. 'Hello', replies Bruce. 'I wish to know a Japanese girl as my wife.' 'Do you use Mach 3 razor blades????' asks Body_builder469. 'I can get Mach 3 blades in bulk at half the cost!!'. 'Oh I wanna sexy girl to make her my girl friend,' adds Simer. 'Please reply any sexy girl ready to make my girl friend'. In fact, Lee doesn't get a look in, but fans can spend time buying online Bowyer Valentine's cards (two cows kissing, with the inscription 'Your love moooves me'), checking out his online dating service, and buying concert tickets for venues across Seattle. Weird - but good to see Lee's found a new way to fill his spare time.

Italy's stats and stands
digilander.iol.it/stadiapostcardsdgl/
The Italians are at it too: along with attendance figures for Serie C2 going back to 1962 - mmmm - there's a range of dirty postcards of grounds throughout Europe. 'Collector since August 1990 when my friend sent me 2 postcards' explains the site's owner. 'So I thinked: "All or nothing?" I choiced all! Now a lot of friends worldwide.' It's got nothing on our all time favourite postcards site (Mike Floate's Football Grounds Frenzy - www.mikefloate.clara.co.uk - where you can still download images of the country's best floodlights) but there's promise.

Online games: update
The online sports boom booms on: Sports Illustrated for kids (www.sikids.com) now offers office workers (and kids) Indy Car Frenzy, Dancing Ref, Online wrestling and Super Speedboat; and tartarus.uwa.edu.au/~wedgey/slime1 has two player Slime Volleyball. Don't ask.

Autographs
dspace.dial.pipex.com/town/terrace/od12
Dig out your old autograph collection: even 'ooh ahh' Phil Barber (Dover, Palace, Millwall) could be worth a mint. This online autograph trading site has a big price list: among current stars the most valuable signatures (around £20, depending on the quality) are Gianfranco Zola, webmaster Lee Bowyer and Selhurst Bluenose Trevor Francis. At the other end of the market: Emlyn Hughes (£4), Harry Bassett (£2) and, bringing up the rear, Harrow disciplinarian David Elleray (£1).

 

 

 

About this article...

The Observer is a (very old) British Sunday newspaper, with a sale of about 450,000 and a readership of about 1,000,000 - it is quite important. Every month they publish a sports magazine with the paper, and one of the regular features concerns websites, the more obscure the better (which is why they like Mike Floate's).

 

The Observer is owned by The Guardian Media Group, so the page you are watching is the Internet version of the Observer's Sports magazine. The Guardian is a big daily newspaper, sale 400,000 every day. Guardian Unlimited is the brand name for their Internet stuff.

 

Basically, this is a very good piece of publicity!