20 Years of the Inverness Reds… Online

2019 marks a landmark year for the Inverness Reds, as we celebrate 20 years of our website!

Inverness Reds Online went online in 1999 and has been bringing you supporters club info and Aberdeen FC news ever since.

Developing a website in the Scottish Highlands on dial-up in 1999 was a bit of a challenge – uploading and downloading to servers took hours – let alone hogging the telephone line all evening – everybody will remember those dreaded tones of connecting to the internet.  Our next challenge was in the world of smartphones and tablets and designing a website that would work on those – but we did it, eventually!

We went through a few name changes too, initially Inverness Reds Online, then afc1903.scot (in 2014) but we landed back at Inverness Reds in 2015.

We were maybe ahead of our time when we launched, the internet was barely a thing to supporters in Scotland at the time, having only launched in earnest in 1997, dial-up was still the order of the day and it took until 2002 until faster speed broadband was made available in our major towns and cities.  To be more precise 2003 when we managed to make use of these faster speeds in the Highlands.

In 2005, the AFC DONScast was launched, our first ever podcast to provide a weekly update about Aberdeen FC and Scottish football.  In the initial years the podcast was sponsored by Setanta Sports – yes, the TV company that went bust and caused a lot of financial strife for Scottish football clubs.  The AFC DONScast closed 10 years later in 2015.

In 2009 we launched our Facebook and Twitter services – as we took to social media, so marking our 10th year on the popular online platforms.

We even had special coverage for the Scottish Referendum in 2014!  Politics and football should never be mixed, right?

In 2017, we launched our companion The Kingsford Stadium website that tracks all the news about the new stadium at Kingsford.

Aberdeen FC finished 10th in the Scottish Premiership in 1999 under the management of Ebbe Skovdahl and reached both the Scottish Cup (v Rangers, losing 4-0) and Scottish League Cup (v Celtic, losing 2-0) finals.

Our top goal scorer for the season was Arild Stavrum with 12 goals.  The average home league attendance was 12,809.

It was the year that:

• 20% of the UK population had access to the internet;
• Scotland’s first Gaelic medium primary school opened in Glasgow;
• The Scottish Women’s Football League was established;
• Charles Kennedy was elected leader of the Liberal Democrats;
• The Scotland team failed to qualify for UEFA Euro 2000 after a 2-1 aggregated defeat by England in the qualifying play-off round;
• Travis released their album The Man Who which went platinum;
• Ironically, the Euro currency was launched;
• Ross Kemp left EastEnders;
• The minimum wage was introduced at £3.60 per hour;
• TV presenter, Jill Dando was shot dead;
• The first elections to the Scottish Parliament took place and the formal transfer of powers from Westminster to the new Scottish Parliament happened;
• The solar eclipse attracted the attention of 350 million people across Europe;
• The Royal Bank of Scotland launched a hostile take over of NatWest – that ended well!
• The Ladbroke Grove rail crash claimed the lives of 31 people;
• Millennium celebrations are held across the country including the official opening of the Millennium Dome and unveiling of the London Eye

So what do we have in store this year?  Well, we announced the re-launch of the AFC DONScast – that will be happening later this year and you’ll be able to catch us on Instagram later this year too.

But we couldn’t have done any of this without your years of support and we’d like to thank you for casting your eye over our musings over the past 20 years.