TOP OF THE BLOG

Printed in the Southern League South and West match v Cinderford Town
Tuesday 3rd March 2009. We lost 2-3 in front of 176 people. We now have
a new manager, in former player Steve Bateman.


Brace yourself - you are reading an article from one of ‘the most
influential blogs in the UK blogosphere.’ Yes that’s right, my Slough
Town Soapbox currently features at no.61 in the Wikio Sports hit
parade. Up six places and the highest ranking non league footie blog
in the monthly charts, just behind Real Madrid.
Let me explain. All the articles I write for the match day programme
get stuck on my blog for all the world to see. A blog is basically a
website written by anybody with something to say, reviews, rantings
and ravings, anything basically. And there are a hell of a lot of
blogs in the world - a year ago there was 112 million (I don’t know
who had the job of counting them). For the most part they are pretty
dull, and you do wonder who reads the stuff. Where once a private
diary, rant in the pub or tatty old fanzine would have sufficed now
it’s posted onto the internet for everyone to see. Now I’m all for
everyone putting forward their views, but to be brutally honest most
of what is posted is crap.
So how did articles about Slough Town get to rub shoulders with
Arsenal, Liverpool, and Letchworth Girls Rugby? To be honest I’m not
quite sure but they explain “The position of a blog in the Wikio
ranking depends on the number and weight of the incoming links from
other blogs. These links are dynamic, which means that they are
backlinks or links found within articles. With our algorithm, the
weight of a link from a top blog is greater than that of a link from a
blog that is less well ranked.” Which sounds like a load of bloggocks
to me!
Not surprisingly, in the sports blog top 100 football dominates, but
there’s also rugby, cricket, motor racing, and motorbiking. However it
is dominated by Arsenal blogs – twenty of the bloody things. Don’t
they get enough coverage in the national press? Is this just
confirmation that Arsenal have the geekiest supporters? It’s also
quite disconcerting that Letchworth Girls Rugby and Swaffham Girls
Rugby are higher up than me! There’s also 7 Formula 1 motor racing
blogs, writing about a sport that makes televised darts seem exciting.
I couldn’t quite bring myself to read them but at least I now know
where to go if I have any bouts of insomnia. There’s a blog called
Beautiful Aim – about ‘a 23 year old fanatic with average footballing
skill, who hopes with the guidance of a team of experts, to make
Premiership football in just one year.’ Don’t know about Beautiful
Aim, more totally deluded.
Oxford United are the only other non-league club in the top 100, and
well they aren’t proper non league really are they? The most
interesting are ‘The Referee - The Ups & Downs of an English Football
Referee’ just for an insight into referees minds. ‘Ground-Hog’ with
reviews of one mans visits to various footie grounds and ‘200 hundred
per cent’. This is easily the best with excellent, well written, in
depth footie articles with a non league slant. Some of the blogs
mentioned I reckon shouldn’t be allowed in the chart, with the BBC and
Times included, with both organisations having substantially more
resources than little ole me .
So there you go, this article was bought to you by your very own blow-
its-own-trumpet top non league football blog in the country. Now I’m
just waiting for the New Years honors list invite to drop through my
letterbox. Sir Brighton Rebel has a ring to it don’t you think?