UKFSC STORY

I’m Craig, the creator of UK Fantasy Football Club (UKFSC)

UKFSC is a FANTASY FOOTBALL site where “Goals Scored” in real-life matches will determine the FANTASY RESULT.

UKFSC is FREE to register and FREE to play. (Just a valid email address is required)

You can select the team offered at RANDOM or select your own team.

Go to http://www.ukfsc.com to join

THE STORY BEHIND UKFSC

 

This is the story behind UK Fantasy Soccer Club (UKFSC) – the “Fantasy soccer” website which was created by myself after having a massive Stroke in 2005.

The Beginning

In May 2005, I had a massive Stroke at the age of 41. I was in an induced coma for the first 48hrs. I pulled through, probably due to the latest life saving machines and luck, I guess.

Having made it out of the critical zone my aim was to get back what I’d lost due to the severity of the Stroke.

I had speech therapy to speak again, I had physio to learn to walk again and had physio to get my left arm and fingers to move.

I also had to keep my brain active to assess what damage was caused in my brain. (doing easy jigsaws, like 8 pieces etc)

This helps assess if I have lost the ability to do shapes, numbers, words etc. This was a very important stage as I didn’t want this area to be affected.

Time passed and the World Cup 2006 was starting. Having Run my own Play-by-Mail and Dream Team games in 1995 and also played since 1993, I thought that I could try to start a new Fantasy Soccer website to help keep my brain active .

(Making the UKFSC format )

After doing research online, I found that most sites were Dream Team style and Prediction style games.

I couldn’t find a site which used “clubs” instead of players, so I decided to make up – from scratch – a “Fantasy Soccer” site using clubs. I based it on Goals Scored in real-life matches which determined the “Fantasy” result. To use the clubs’ names/results I had to get a license from the Football Data Co.Ltd

I used teams from England and Scotland and made it 100 Groups with 100 teams in each, this gave 10,000 maximum teams.

I had to make it like Group 1A,2A,3A etc. This was to help identify each member and their team since there’s 100 Man Utd’s, and 100 Chelsea’s etc.

The UKFSC admin had to be easy for me because I don’t have the use of my left arm or fingers so it had to be one finger to click etc.

It was done in a way that I’d just add 100 results and click “update scores” and the whole 10,000 teams are done automatically. This also applies when doing the Group Tables. The tables are automatically calculated by points, GF, GD, alphabeticall if joint teams on same points etc.

This made UKFSC easy for me to do admin and doesn’t take up all my time to add – about 10 minutes all-in.

(Helping the Chest, Heart & Stroke charity CHSS)

I decided to help the charity when making the UKFSC website. After what I went through in my road to recovering, I realised that the life saving machines that kept me alive wouldn’t have been there if it wasn’t for kind people making donations to help pay for such. I wanted to help the next person who finds themselves in my position. So, I contacted the CHSS via email to explain to them that I wanted to help them thru my website at UKFSC. They helped me by giving me an official letter to prove that I am helping to raise money for their cause. (This helped me get free donations to use as Prizes).

I put a link to their website on the UKFSC homepage so that visitors to my site could click on it. Once clicked, it takes them to the CHSS site where they can make a donation. I thought doing that instead of a donation button on my page would be better cos all the donations made would be 100% to CHSS and there’s no way of UKFSC receiving anything out of it. This was to put peoples mind at rest knowing that the charity gets all the donation and I or UKFSC get nothing. (no scams etc).

This was to encourage more to donate.

I recently added the STROKE ASSOCIATION link to the UKFSC homepage,

Prizes at UKFSC are always difficult to get because I fully depend on donations and its not easy to get something for nothing especially in the current climate.

The Story Behind UKFSC by Craig Braidwood