Since I survived my first season blogging from writing ideas down on a piece of paper in Budapest, it seems very appropriate to release this at the end of the season! This is a little bit egocentric, but I suppose I have to do this thing where bloggers thank people, ask for feedback and say “LOOK WHAT WONDERFUL UPDATES I HAVE! BRAND NEW EXCITING STUFF COMING SOON” and not doing much about it.
First off, I’m definitely going to carry on this gig. Not really much news, but considering I had very low expectations on how well I am going to do this and what sort of content I’m going to come up with, I never thought I would get complimented by a BBC journalist and have an article translated in Russian. I have no idea either, though I now know that “о нет мои дорогие!” means “oh now my dear!”
I never really had any expectations with how many followers I would have or even gave two hoots how many is good enough and whether what I wrote was any good. I was very sceptical about Twitter as a whole too, as I thought it was full of people who look for an excuse to get offended and eventually bring out a Trump or a Hitler card. Okay, I have yet to reach those depths (thank god) as the snooker community are so lovely and interested in talking about snooker in general – fans, bloggers, players, tournament directors – even Barry Hearn himself. My writing has improved and some of you appreciate my work, social ramblings and the like! So honestly, a massive THANK YOU. I enjoyed the hell out of this!
Now, for the boring stuff:
FEEDBACK
Yes, I’m going to be that annoying guy I’m afraid. Any feedback, good or bad is appreciated. Whether it is the quality or the content of my articles; the website itself and if that needs improving for updating; my obsession with puns – anything! Private message me on Twitter or send me an e-mail at clusterofredssnookerblog@yahoo.com. Of course, I’ll accept constructive criticism, but keep it clean. You are not Joey Barton.
If anything, this is the only thing I need to improve on and that is keeping tabs on this more often than I do. Of course, I put some updates, over 100 likes isn’t too shabby but my presence on Twitter/Facebook is heavily unbalanced. Check out my Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/clusterofredssnookerblog/
ARTICLES
I tried to keep it as diverse as possible, with countdowns, previews, featured and final articles. I’ll try and increase countdown and featured articles and lower on the previews a tad as viewing figures seem to tell me which are more popular. I’ll do more women’s snooker as well as amateur snooker too! I hope to make the content more inclusive, encourage debate and cover snooker much more broadly, which is the main aim for me for next season, as well as broaden my horizons a tad.
Articles coming up include: Is Selby finally a popular World Champion?; Sisters Are Doin’ It For Themselves: Women In Snooker; Should Snooker taste the Olympic Dream?; How prestigious really is the World Cup?
Next article will be on the Q School and we find out who wants to be part of the 12 snooker players out of what feels like 20 billion players to qualify for the snooker tour.
WEBSITE
Need to update the website to make it fresher. Not entirely such how and what but this will happen. Anyone with massive WordPress knowledge who can advise me on this is gratefully appreciated!
#PEOPLEWHOSTAREATLIVESCORES
This was a mini fun thing that happened during the World Championships especially the Qualifiers and I have a few German Twitter mates and Fergal O’Brien to thank for this. Due to finishing at 2:30pm vs. Tian Pengfei and the longest frame in snooker history vs. David Gilbert, we got this trending, essentially a piss-take of how slowly the matches were going. Can’t wait to have fun and weird stuff with people like this. One of them, @LulaWitzescher and author of SnookerPro wrote a recent article here: http://snookerpro.de/artikel/on-the-loneliness-of-a-snooker-enthusiast/
Onwards and upwards people! Thank you again – you guys are just lovely! Now, let’s make silly people feel foolish! 🙂
