Life has been difficult of late and this past week in particular has been a real strain for me in one way or another. I nearly resorted to temporarily pulling the whole web site down on Wednesday due to a serious issue, which cost me a fortune in stolen bandwidth . . .

I do occasionally (when I am really angry at it) mention the copyright and bandwidth thieves in Wyenot News but nowhere near as often as the thefts actually take place. This week alone I have discovered no less than a further ten of my photos being pulled and used on other web sites without permission. What most of those responsible do not realize is that when one of my photos is inserted in another web site by 'hot linking', not only have I lost any due royalties, I actually have to pay for the bandwidth used when the offending web site gets visited. This can be thought of in the same way as somebody you don't know running up your telephone bill.

The photo of the knight below left, which I took at Goodrich Castle in 2004 is the most stolen photo on the whole of Wyenot.com. It comes up on the front page of 'Google Image' when people search for 'medieval knight', a very popular search. As a result, there is not a week goes by when I do not find it on somebody else's web site. And that is without looking particularly hard.

Continued . . .

This week, the photo was stolen and used as a logo on a hugely popular American Football magazine forum web site and this caused me a serious problem. The offender, an 'Oklahoma Sooners' fan with over 6,000 postings on the forum, 'hot linked' it from my own server and for 36 hours in total, it was being downloaded between one and three times per second.

I tried every angle to try to get it removed but, as to be expected, the owners of the web site infrastructure blamed the football magazine publisher and they in turn blamed somebody else and I could not get to the bottom of it in the time available. The bandwidth bill was running up in the mean time, to the point where I very nearly resorted to temporarily pulling down the whole of Wyenot.com just to stop it escalating out of control. I renamed the file several times but every time I did that, the thief changed his 'hot link' to the new file name. Once he realized he was costing me money, he went out of his way to make sure he continued doing so. After all, how could he get caught? (His unique I.P. address at home is: 182.68.228.xxx, his internet provider is 'Cox.net' and he lives in Oklahoma. Further study of my server log now that I am no longer under time pressure would tell me what he ate for breakfast on Wednesday.)

In the end, I changed the photo completely, exchanging it for the image shown above, right (amongst others). That made a difference. The image was seen by thousands of American football fans all over the continental United States and somebody else, a nice American young lady wrote to me saying, 'Did you know that you and have become an internet celebrity in America?'.

A posting on the forum entitled, 'International Incident' which included a photo of me, electronically adapted so that I was wearing a lime football helmet was posted on the football web site and the downloads stopped within hours. Things are currently back to normal and my through my joking with the football supporters via the forum I have made many new friends in the USA. Especially after showing them this one on the Jehovah's Witness web site (guess which image is being pulled from my server).

The copyright and bandwidth theft does my head in but it is nice to resolve things in a friendly manner, whenever possible. Especially when friendships can be formed along the way. I do like Americans really - they are OK when they are asleep.

For Sale

Peavey mark 3, 150 watt bass amp

and

Peterson Bassmaster PWT 300 speaker cab with a 10" top and
15" bottom speaker.

£200.00

Telephone Steve
07971 535 064

Ross Juniors Football Club, who provide football activities for both boys and girls, has just received notification from the Football Association (F.A.) that they been awarded the prestigious F.A. Charter Standard Club Award.

The club was formed as recently as June 2004 and has gone from strength to strength, catering for over 100 children from the age of 5 to 13 years of age every weekend with training sessions during the week. Numbers of children attending the sessions continue to grow.

In addition the Club has just started to provide training sessions for special needs children. This is an area that the Club is looking to develop through Amanda Willetts, a coach who is specifically trained for this activity. Amanda understands that special needs children have a wide range of abilities and needs that have to be taken into account when coaching.

Continued . . .

The club, driven forward by a very keen and dedicated volunteer workforce of parents has joined forces with the F.A. to develop quality procedures and practices such as implementing a recognized club constitution, child protection policy and procedures, appointment of a designated child protection person, CRB, codes of conduct for players, parents, managers, coaches and club volunteers and F.A, qualified coaches.

Paul Carpenter, Herefordshire Football Associations Football Development Officer commented, 'this is a fantastic achievement by Ross Juniors. From day one, the club, driven forward by a fantastic committee and a dedicated team of club volunteers have been an absolute pleasure to work with. It has been obvious that the motivation behind Ross Juniors is to provide the opportunity to take part in safe, fun, structured football activities whether as a child playing or adult coaching.

Ross Juniors will continue to work with us at the FA to ensure that the high standards they have set are maintained and built upon.

As well as demonstrating to members, parents and the public that you are a safe, well structured club, Charter Standard benefits also include a starter pack, access to kit and equipment grants as well as many other benefits including ongoing support from the FA Working with clubs like Ross Juniors is what football development is all about at grassroots level.'

Ross Juniors Chairman Jim Loftus said, 'This is a phenomenal accomplishment for a club that is still in its infancy. The club owes an immense amount of gratitude to Amanda Willetts for being proactive in ensuring that the club earned the award. Paul Carpenter from the Herefordshire Football Association has been brilliant to us in terms of supporting and guiding the club.'

If you wish to join Ross Juniors Football club or would like further information on how the club is run, please contact the secretary Mrs Cindy Payne on 01989 568933. If you are interested in any form of sponsorship with the leading Junior Football Club in the area please contact Jim Loftus on 01989 566255.

Cotham Park 0 Ross-on-Wye 27

Ross travelled to bottom of the table Cotham Park on Saturday looking for their sixth consecutive league win and hopeful of supplanting Dursley at the top of the table. Although bottom of the table, Cotham Parks recent results had shown sign of a recovery and Ross where careful not to underestimate the home team.

From the kick off Ross were the quicker team out of the blocks, with both Tara Barnett and Mike Davies showing their ball carrying skills. Diving hard at the Cotham defence, Ross were looking to secure quick ball to release their dangerous back line but were frustrated by Cotham's ability to slow the ball down. Without quick ball Ross began to get frustrated and as a consequence the error count began to rise. With all the territorial advantage Ross were the first to open the scoring. After a destructive scrummage from the Ross eight, the ball was picked up by the Cotham eight. In an instant both Ross breakaways, Richard Russell and Gavin Oates tackled him and won the penalty for not releasing. Chris Gage converted giving Ross a 3-0 lead.

When Cotham Park did attack they were well marshalled by the Ross defence, with Nick Rawlings and Wayne Williams putting in some big hits. After regaining the initiative, Ross put together the best move of the match. After Richard Russell won a lineout on the halfway, the Ross pack set up a driving maul and Dave Mince took the ball up into the midfield. From the resulting quick ball Tom Gainsford moved the ball to the left and some great hands from Adam Clements put Wayne Bishop clear to score. Unfortunately the ref blew for a forward pass and Ross went in at half-time 3-0 up.

The break seemed to benefit Ross more than Cotham. Straight from the kick off the Ross pack were quicker in deed and thought. After a midfield break from Huw Bellamy took them into the Cotham twenty two, the Ross pack took over. First Gavin Oates and then Wayne Williams took the play to within 5 yards, which set up Tara Barnett to crash over. Chris Gage converted putting Ross 10-0 ahead.

With the fresh legs of Matt Redman and Paul Hayward entering the frame, the Ross pack tightened their grip on the game. This created space for the Ross backline from which the next score came. After another dominant scrum, Simon Gwynne moved the ball right. Some quick hands from Adam Clements and Huw Bellamy set Alistair Rees away to outpace the cover defence to put Ross 15-0 ahead.

Ross were now in complete control and Chris Gage added another try to put Ross 20-0 up with less than ten minutes remaining. Ross saved the best try till last. The Ross pack once again delivered quality ball to Tom Gainsford who fed Simon Gwynne. A double dummy switch held the Cotham defence, which enabled Chris Gage to slice through the defence before delivering a beautiful scissors pass to Matt Jones. The lock galloped under the posts to give Ross a 27-0 victory. The victory was marred by an injury to Nick Rawlings who suffered a dislocated tongue. Training will be very quiet this week and some may say it's a blessing.

Ross are in league action next week away to Cheltenham Saracens. Kick off is at 2.30.

Ross-on-Wye Weather Station is located by the tennis courts and bowling green at 'Crossfields' and is one of the important stations around the country which regularly sends data to the Meteorological Office. This is why Ross-on-Wye is sometimes mentioned on the BBC weather reports. It is currently still a manually monitored station and readings are taken twice per day by husband and wife team, June and Rex Swallow.

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