Where have the past 3 years gone? Sitting down to write this post I can't quite believe that it is 3 years since we started Edge of the Area. It was 3 years ago when I was convinced by a few people online that I should create my own separate site for my football content as they enjoyed reading it. It is safe to say looking back to that day 3 years ago I am glad we made the decision to get things going as the past 3 years have been absolutely brilliant, not only has my love for football grown, which I didn't think it could get much bigger but I have also developed so much personally thanks to Edge of the Area, I am putting myself in positions I never dreamt of and due to that my confidence is growing so much. So here are some of the highlights from the past 3 years...

2019

Everything got started in October 2019, when a little idea brought Edge of the Area to life. After a week or so of debating on a name and getting everything in order it was time to get things moving, the website was created and what better way to kick things off than heading to watch our local women's side Bradford City take on local rivals Brighouse Town. We came back from the game absolutely frozen but sat up until late working on the match report, which was our first post on the new website. We even started writing some content to go in the Bradford City Women's match day programme which was a fantastic opportunity and one that has help develop our writing a lot more. 

Just a month after starting the website we got invited to our first event which was an amazing experience. We went to the launch of the National Football Museums exhibition called when football gets shirty. This was a brilliant evening out with the chance to see some amazing football shirts on display. Since then the Football Museum has been one of my favourite places to visit.

2020 

2020 started off great, some great football matches were watched but then the pandemic hit. It certainly was a strange year and honestly at one point I sat and wondered how on earth the site could carry on when football had stopped. We managed to put a good plan together though and got through the pandemic and had a great year in terms of viewers on the site. We adapted by doing interviews and ended up adding in a lot of shirt content, which honestly just gave me more of a reason to purchase the shirts I wanted to. The shirt content was definitely some of the most popular over the course of the year. 

2021

Finally in 2021 the world started returning to some form of normality and we got back to going to games which I couldn't have been any more excited for. The match reports became more frequent and to be honest the year showed me just how much I loved writing match reports, even now they are some of my favourite pieces to write and people seem to enjoy reading them too which makes it all worth while. In 2021 we seemed to stick to FAWNL content in terms of the women's game but we also did a lot of men's content especially surrounding Bradford City which got us noticed a fair bit, we even ended up going on the radio to discuss the team and I can safely say that is something I never thought I would do. There was also plenty more shirt content being added to the site as that was still popular. The high light of the year for me though has to be going in the press box for Bradford City Women vs Leeds United Ladies, I never thought I would be sat in a press box let alone reporting on the Yorkshire derby from there.

2022

What a year 2022 has been and we still have a few months to go. In the birthday period though it has been absolutely fantastic and so much has happened. The Euros took a big chunk of the year with build ups and then the competition itself. The month of July was spent travelling to games with it ending at Wembley where we witnessed the Lionesses lifting the trophy. It is safe to say that was an emotional day but it also inspired in so many ways. One thing that came from the month though is that we were inspired to switch up content, now we are solely focusing on women's only content, we want the site to be a place where we can help grow the women's game alongside keeping people up to date with what is going on week in week out. We definitely have some ideas in the pipeline for how to increase our content and cover a wider range of leagues. Thanks to us purchasing Man Utd Women season tickets we will no longer just be focusing on the FAWNL there will be match reports from the top flight too alongside plenty of other content. 

2022 has been the best year since we started the site with July and August giving us our best months yet in terms of views and I have to say seeing those views grow just makes us more determined to push on with the content we are creating. We did plenty of coverage for the Euros but I think my favourite was going on the Since 71 podcast to do our predictions, this was our first podcast and it was a brilliant experience, one that we can hopefully do more often if opportunities crop up. It certainly has been an exciting year with the Euros and some very competitive football to watch but it has also been an inspiring year... I have been inspired in so many ways and the main one is that I have been inspired to play football once more. Because the website clearly doesn't keep me busy enough I had to add training and playing to my weeks. But that could very easily create more content ideas in the long run I guess... maybe some boot content again. 

The past 3 years have been absolutely fantastic and I can't wait to see what year 4 holds, fingers crossed next year when I am writing this post there is a whole lot of good stuff to report on, if things go to plan it is certainly going to be a busy year. With the site now being women's game focused we know exactly what direction we want to go in so expect more regular content from and a variety of leagues in a variety of formats, we are hoping to get some player interviews done in year 4 so fingers crossed we can make that happen. 

It is time to make year 4 the best year yet.