News update and announcement

To our faithful readers, supporters and friends,

 

As the strangest season in living memory comes to an end, I think it’s time for an update.

First and foremost, I hope you and your loved ones have kept safe and sane during the lockdown months, and are slowly finding your way back to something close to normality; the return of football was welcome, but it’s no real consolation for what has happened and the lives which were sadly lost during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Secondly, a big thank you to everyone who has engaged with us on social media and who has used our platform as means to engaged with other football supporters in a healthy, unconfrontational, pleasant and mature way; this is what we wanted to create and I am truly delighted when I see it. This website is nothing without its community. So, thank you.

Finally, and this is an important and quite sensitive issue for me, I need to bring up paywalls. When the website was created, I was adamant in keeping it cost-free for the readers. I was of the mind that discussion, insights and opinion shouldn’t cost money. I also wanted to avoid the website becoming a conduit for gambling companies, which, as many are aware, are those most willing to offer advertising revenue to independent football websites. I set up the Patreon and made available the stripe donations to try to offset a portion of the running costs for the site in a more honest ‘pay if you want to’ manner, and, to an extent, this has been successful. Unfortunately, with rising hosting, security, and domain costs, it is beginning to look unlikely that I will be able to renew the website past its second year when the time comes. It is something I will figure out closer to the time, but at the moment it isn’t looking good.

With this in mind, I’ve taken the decision to begin publishing some content as Patreon exclusives. This means only subscribed Patrons will have access to it, the minimum on Patreon at the moment is $3 per month. I hope you can understand why I need to take this step, and rest assured that I will do my best to ensure as much future content as possible remains available entirely subscription and advert free on the website. If you would like to support The Tactical Times by becoming a Patron you can visit our page HERE.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact the website via our contact page (available HERE) or send a direct message on Twitter.

Thanks again!

The Tactical Times