| Tiger Roar is a name that has been associated with Gloucester City AFC since 1988 when a small band of supporters got together to produce a fanzine as the club became Midland division Champions in the Beazer Homes League. Issue number 23 was the last one published in 1993 but the Teaboy was quite happy to see the fanzine given new life when Tiger Roar Online was born back in 1998. |
| It was way only a year earlier that I first arrived 'online'. The Internet was quite an experience for me because my PC was quite unique in that it didn't come with a modem and I had to have one fitted at a later date. Sadly for me, there seemed to be a strange conflict between the mouse and the modem and it required me to have to keep the mouse moving for any activity to occur online. Just so you can empathise with me, put your hand on your mouse and keep moving it in circles, if you stop you drop the connection. That was what I had to do |
| Anyhow, I digress! Amazingly, as far back as those dark days there was a City site on the net. It was produced at Cardiff University by T-Towel. Yes, the has been with us for a long time! |
| About the same time, on my birthday I was bought a book on HTML by my brother and using that produced a simple website devoted to my favourite band . Of course, my favourite waste of time wouldn't be long in getting their own webpage! |
| On the final day of the season I took my camera up to Bromsgrove and got a few 'action' shots of City losing 1-3 to the Midlands side as Rovers hung onto their place in the Premier Division by the skin of their teeth. At the moment, I can't find a copy of the website, but with those pictures I created the first ever online version of Tiger Roar. |
| Of course, I spent the summer working my way through my HTML book, neglecting the sun and having a life and by the time the new season came around I'd given the world . This came at a time when the design was crap but the content was half decent. I used to enjoy writing my match reports, God only knows if anybody actually read them! Major happenings at the time of this issue were our 5-0 win at Chertsey Town in the FA Trophy, a good performance and win by the City and also remembered by me cos as I left the ground, some old git chuntered something about us thinking we were good but Woking would beat us. Oh the irony! |
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| All I said was the T-End was louder than the Shed! |
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| A slight improvement came in the shape of . It was essentially the same site but things had started to take on a different look. In fact, this version of the site is only a few weeks older than TR#2, but I've included it here to show how I started to use 'frames' and a snazzy little menu. The content is pretty much the same, although sharp eyed viewers will notice that it was at the time that Kidderminster knocked us out of the FA Cup and Leroy Rosenior had just resigned. |
| shows us not only a different style of site, but also that the descent had started for City. You'll immiediately notice that this was the first time that the use of a digital camera became evident, something that has helped me immensely on the TR projects over the years. It's funny really though when you consider that I always had a camera yet never owned one until 2003! |
| A deeper look into site #4 reveals that Tiger Roar was The website that caters for Gloucester City fans in all four corners of the World and gives them some of the most biased views on the 'net!, who can ever accuse me of not being biased! This was to be our last season in the DM Premier and it also saw tension grow between the ever dwindling fanbase and the board of directors. It was also very yellow |
| A few months later saw a redesign to a simpler format for . It looks tidy but it looks very generic too, I like my yellow sites! Besides, it's the content what counts and boy did this have content. All the usual suspects had beeen dragged forward from previous versions but now the match reports were getting somewhat spicy. We lost 1-5 down at Twerton Park to a rather mediocre Bath City side (although, clearly, we were worse). During the course of the game we had seven players booked and one sent off, my report concentrated on the referee. I was later told that that ref actually read what I'd written and wasn't best pleased! |
| If you thought the Bath report was stinging, then scroll down the page of November reports and read about our trip to Welling... |
| City were heading for relegation and then little did I know but disaster was to strike with Tiger Roar. I had unwittingly managed to delete all the updates that I'd done and had to work very hard to present , which was a makeshift verion of TR#5. It doesn't make much reading sadly, but it was useful as a guide to the new clubs that we'd be facing after being relegated |
| Another total redesign and we had . I was keen to keep the tradition going but it was getting bloody hard. The front page shows that City had just lost 0-3 at Paget Rangers, a game that I believe was the lowest point that Gloucester City ever reached. TR went into hibernation soon after. |
| was another stop gap version as things started to pick up. This came at a time when I'd missed more games than ever but things were picking up and I sensed that the club was bouncing back from that day in Paget. I was right! |
| Some people might think that the format that you read TR in these days might look tired, but as Homer Simpson says they perfected Rock and Roll with Grand Funk Railroad in 1973 so why change it? The banner has always remained the same because it features the sadly departed Pete Chase stood up on the T-End at Meadow Park, also no more. Another reason why things are added and not altered is because I can no longer call upon the help of my brother who also passed on (in 2005) and I never was much of a technical whizz! |
| I hope you enjoy the work that I've done through the years and continue to visit the #1 website in the Southern League ;) |
