Launching a new cricket site

I’ve dusted off my old PHP cricket statistics website code, added a few necessities and am about to launch Butcher Cricket (presently http://ndcc.mike250.com while in transition from development to deployment). This is my brainchild from 2 years of work back in Colorado where I needed a cricket database but found everything out there useless or ridiculously high priced. It all started with www.coloradocricket.org which I am proud to say runs independently by a group of cricketing volunteers.

I no longer have involvement with the league or it’s website. That’s what I had planned all along.

The league I play in now has it’s shortcomings but is obviously much better organized and better funded than the one running in Colorado. The team I play for has five different grades and plays in 3 different competitions. I needed to add multi-grade and comp functionality as well as jazz it up a bit for 2008/09 standards; including social networking interfaces, dynamic graphs and “team pages”.

It looks sensational. It functions beautifully. It is data driven and dynamic. PHP is the language of choice and MySQL the backend. I carefully watch major players such as CricInfo, ESPN and MLB/NFL/NHL.com’s for inspiration and ideas to maintain my own high standard of statistics reporting.

And there is no retarded flash animations or anything too shiny. “Designers” of the world like to create their little flash animations that are so devoid of content it’s not funny. Flash is stupidly easy to create these days (hello SWiSH, Coffee Cup, Dreamweaver) that I challenge their design abilities in the first place. AJAX is another that tends to be overused, try browsing around Rugby League’s headquarters over at www.nrl.com.au some time and tell me you didn’t bite/hit/thrash/slap something. I’ve got one AJAX like component to save space with the mini-standings widget, and that’s it.

Have a look some time. I’m quite fond and proud of my work. My last check I was past 57,000 lines of code, not including PHP classes and JavaScript’s I have sourced. You didn’t mis-read that! I want to give a massive shout-out to Andy Collington who got me started in PHP and MYSQL and was a source of inspiration and technical support for what seemed like years! A top bloke.