Its Been A Good Run

Its a sad day for me, and the other writers of this page, but we must announce that the Real Madrid Offside is shutting down and packing up to a new site, Real Madrid Football Blog. The change has been in the works for awhile now, and some of you who have been faithfully reading this blog for years will know I always wanted my own site. The change comes at the right time for us, given the change in hands of the Offside, as well as the expanded capacity of the writing staff here. As of this Sunday, May 8th, we will no longer be posting new material on this site, only clips of what we are posting on Real Madrid Football Blog.

The writing staff will stay the same, as will the content and hopefully the community. That means myself, Bassam, Kaushik and Jordan will be joined by Marc Denis Ong (Madridista Mac) on this new ’super site’. I say ’super site’ because it is going to be a one stop shop for all Real Madrid news in English, and even some in Spanish in the future. I wanted to make this site as recognizable as possible for everyone involved, so we have not shaken up anything all that much. Hence no change in staff, as well as the use of the Disqus commenting system, and the expansion of our multimedia offerings, including Twitter, Facebook, podcasts and Andres’ YouTube channel. All will be better integrated in to the new site, a long with the freedom of having an independent website. Its a win-win for the writing staff as well as for the readers I think.

Of course we cannot just wipe away three and a half years of history here on the Offside, but we are hoping to start our own with the new site. Thats why I am asking for all of you who read and comment here to come join us on the new site. The only way I would consider this site a success is if we were able to keep the community of readers and commentors together, so I would humbly ask that you come with us over to the new site. Your Disqus profiles will carry over, meaning the only difference you will notice is that you have to bookmark a new site, that the Facebook page has had to shut down and open up with a new name (long story, wont bore you with the details but its typical Facebook!) and the the new site is mighty purtty!

Having started writing here three plus years ago with barely any readers, I have been completely humbled by what this website has grown in to. If you are not aware, we regularly attract 90,000 pageviews a month here, which is astonishing considering this page was non-existant a few years ago. I think we can keep that going on the new site, and become bigger and better then ever. Thats why I would like to thank all of you who read and comment everyday for your continued support here on this site. If you have questions about the new site, I would be more than happy to answer them in the comments. Again, as of Sunday, nothing “new” will be posted on this site beyond previews with links to the new site. As of next Friday, the 13th, we will be fully migrated to the new site, and what happens with this page is up to the new owners of the Offside.

Thanks for all of the memories everyone, it was really great to write here for all of these years. But this isnt a sad moment, its a happy one. We have our own site now! I look forward to seeing everyone there for years to come. HALA MADRID!

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Category: Editorial/Opinion