Websites of the week

http://www.connect.ie/users/shels/shels.htm

http://www.geocities.com/Colosseum/Stadium/8899/

Gone are the days when most football club websites comprised of one page, featuring `useful phone numbers', and were updated at six-monthly intervals. Nowhere has the improvement been more marked than amongst the websites of League of Ireland clubs, and ShelsWeb, the official site for Shelbourne, is one of the most impressive around.

Written and maintained by supporters, but officially sanctioned by the club, the site features a regularly updated news section, as well as information on fixtures, the squad, club history and a `message board', where supporters can happily hurl cyber-abuse at Bohs, St Pats and Shamrock Rovers and discuss the latest happenings at the club.

The site also includes downloadable video clips of the 1996 FAI Cup final (and replay) between Shels and St Pats and one of the most comprehensive links' sections to other League of Ireland websites. One of those links will take you to Inchicore Saints, a St Patrick's Athletic site that might not quite match ShelsWeb just yet, but features an epic account of a trip by St Pats' supporters to a match in Sligo last season. On their way back from the game they were stranded half a mile from Rooskey, Co Leitrim, after their coach driver discovered they had a puncture, when they stopped to answer a call of nature.

While he got to work on repairing the damage, the lads walked the half mile to Rooskey's Weir Lodge bar, where they discovered a Christy Moore "wannabe" singing a cover version of Tone Loc's Funky Cold Medina and. . . ah, it's a long story - visit the site and read it for yourself.