The Kiwi connection for LU is a very strong one - no less than three of the first half a dozen or so members were from New Zealand.
Thanks to Rich for bringing it up and to ozbash for providing such a detailed analysis of LeagueUnlimited's history. There are a few things I can add or clarify.
In the 1990s, we became aware that there was a Rugby League community online. From 2000-2002 we saw the emergence of forums eager to reach a wider audience. From 2002-2003 we saw an escalation in forums and increased rivalry. From 2003-now we have seen a hundred upgrades and a thousand lessons learned.
'In the beginning', forums or discussion boards were quite primitive. The first I knew of was in 1997 and was run by a guy called Glenn Baker - it was called Jubilee Avenue and the internet home of the Dragon Army. He also had a website of the same name.
Around the same time, or not long after, Mathew O'Niel (matto) was engaging in similar online activity for the Bulldogs supporters.
It was all new and everyone was very wide eyed. I was happy to be a follower.
Around 1999, I started a raw website called Saints On TV - full on content, low on design. Glenn was very helpful in telling people about it. In 2000, Glenn and Matt joined forces and Jubilee Avenue moved to rleague as a subdomain. Because of Glenn's connection, I kept close tabs on it.
Also in 2000, matto's WORL (World of Rugby League) set up forums on a format hosted by NineMsn. It was for all RL supporters and it soon took off. At a guess, WORL had 90% of the RL forum membership in those early days. St George and Canterbury supporters made up the majority of the early membership by virtue of the input from Glenn and Matt.
By 2001, there were grumblings about the moderating on WORL - not like we have here, seriously. At WORL the membership was in regular riot mode. Legend and I starting chatting on Messenger about starting another website for RL news. Legend had already set up a discussion forum for himself and few of his workmates - called LWOS (Legend's World of Sport). It was also the same format as WORL and hosted on NineMsn.
I got wind of the 'exodus' to LWOS when Ozbash said he was leaving WORL - his post was quickly deleted by a WORL moderator but not before I saw it. Now Ozbash and I had a few dust ups on WORL and I recall we got under each other's skin a few times, but when I read that he was leaving, I thought 'no way' and sent him an email (you could see members emails in those wonderfully innocent times).
Anyway, Ozbash told me about LWOS so I went there and saw that were all of five ex-WORL members in attendance. Apart from ozbash, I recall seeing Roopy (who started the world's first political thread on a Rugby League forum - LWOS), Gav (our old mate from the UK), Bronco (aka salivor) and legend there. All good eggs so I decided this was the place to be.
AliN popped in soonafter, as did El Duque (aka El Diablo). Dodge (Timmah) not long in after that. I remember SpaceMonkey joining, Everlovin' Antichrist, Kiwi, Raging Bulldog, and Moffo with his 'So this is where all the dissents have gone' thread.
The time frame is vague - I mean, trying to work out exactly when the WORL-LWOS breakaway began to gain momentum. It's fair to say that it started in 2001, but the momentum was noticeable in 2002. Within a few months we went from a handful of LWOS members to massive 300. Yes, just 300, but at the time it felt good. From a few mates to a community.
What followed was a lot of hard work and learning curves.
But there were some truly great posters in this time. We all knew each other. If someone mucked up, we sort them out inhouse. No one at LWOS was ever banned (easy with 300 members). Moderators were members first, and moderators second. This is a policy we have tried to stick to on LU.
Meanwhile, there was a changing of the guard at WORL. Matto handed it over to Dragons supporters. WORL also became known as Jubilee Avenue. Matto set up new forums on his own webhost.
In 2002, LeagueUnlimited-Online.com was born. It was supposed to be part of the SportsUnlimited.com.au website where we covered every sport 24/7 but that never worked out.
I remember this great kid who used to write for us - giving a blow-by-blow account of his school sports carnival. His story about him running in a long distance event was rivetting to say the least.
In 2002, we also started to do live updates of every NRL match. AliN, Bronco and myself covered them mostly - and we very much playing to an empty room in those days, but we felt like pioneers. It was all done in txt and uploaded by FTP to the website. Very antiquated but it worked.
I recall once doing a live update one night and my internet connection just died. So I phoned up Bronco in New Zealand. It was late in NZ, his mum answered and was understandably not too pleased - but got him out of bed. Bronco said he'd get on the case right away. It meant an even later night for him. Amazing dedication considering the small size of the site. We all did stuff like this, I can only assume it was because we were a team and that meant backing each other up.
Also in 2002, we made several failed attempts to move the forums and our membership of 300 to a format hosted on our server. It was a learning curve as we grappled with various formats on asp and php.
In early 2003 we seemed to get it right and by May we launched The Front Row forums, hosted on LeagueUnlimited-Online. Although we all seem to call the place LeagueUnlimited.
It was around this time that we secured the name LeagueUnlimited.com, so we were able to drop the "-Online" bit on the end.
In 10 years of doing this we have seen a lot personnel come and go. Our first IT guy in 2003 was Eli. Now Eli was great but left after a year or two. This put us in a real pickle. And suddenly, I was masquerading as the IT guy. To be frank, the place was being held together with the proverbial gaffa tape. This went on for 2-3 years and saw a lot of 3:00am finishes. It was a difficult period with a lot of people going on their own hiatus. One or two self proclaimed IT guys popped in with their expertise only to leave after a month - presumably because it was too hard.
One day CobyDelaney asked me if I needed any help, he said he had already fixed one thing for me - how I don't know. Suffice to say I didn't need to be asked twice. Coby's timing was perfect because I'm not sure how much longer I could have gone on. Another few months and LU may have folded.
On the RL news side of things, this has been handed around a lot but Starkers stepped in and handled the job in beaut fashion before Timmah stepped in. Now, thanks to an excellent content management system and a team of good folk, it has taken on a life of its own. The volunteers watch each other's backs just like the old days which suggests to me that original culture of the place is still going strong.
This is no more prevalent than what we have in the Live Updates nowadays. I think it would be great if everyone here had a peek at the hidden Live Updaters Forum and see how these people operate.
On the subject of Timmah, he has been with us since the WORL days, when he was just 14-years-old. I know he has taken on a ton of responsibilities, often while being told to put a sock in it. He's now in his mid-20s (I think). I joke about how LU has played a part in his upbringing. But when I say that Timmah might take over LU one day, I'm not sure if I'm joking.
On the forums front, Twizzle took over the forum administration about three years ago. It's a hard job at times.
As something of a full circle, NineMsn shut down their forums a few years ago. The old WORL/Jubilee Avenue site, by now completely taken over by Saints supporters, made the move to here. Jubilee Avenue now resides in gated community in these LU forums.
The nett result was an influx of members (myself included) to LeagueUnlimited.........and this site went from there and grew like topsy.
LU was already growing at quite a rate prior to the temporary closure of matto's forums in 2004. I used to watch the number of members joining very closely in those days and every day LU was closing in - there were a number of reasons for this. The fact that LU's membership continued to grow after rleague returned is proof of this. In fact, LU has had many more members join in the last five years than in the previous five years.
IMO, matto never needed to shut it down but that was his decision to make. And FTR, all the old rivalry that existed then between LU and rleague has completely disappeared.
Later on, I'll scan and paste a 'Social Media' chart published in the Rugby League Player magazine. It has LeagueUnlimited at the top, and it is daylight to second.
30,000+ members, tens-of-millions of page views per month... quite a leap from the original 300 who held the gap in 2002.
For anyone who wants to see any of the old LWOS threads, we are lucky to have saved most of them in the Classic Threads forums. Coby did the work to retrieve them before NineMsn pulled the pin.
Link:
http://forums.leagueunlimited.com/forumdisplay.php?f=270
