When I first started this forum in 2006 it was just for a small club in the Midlands called Yale AC. We had matches every Sunday and some of the member had computers so I made a website and these forums for the club. A place to put results for the matches and the overall points table in the league oh and of course embarrassing pictures
There was only about 15 members at the time and we had a laugh. Then TK asked me for a spot on my forum for his(a club he was in) Club called 'Cashmores'. I said yes and created a section for his rabble
Thing were still good and there was a lot of banter between the 2 clubs, taking the yellow stream out of each others results. The a famous angler that used to fish called 'Woodhouse' also asked if he could have a section for his canal club called 'HanKat AS' derived from his kids names. I said yes and set his section up, more people joined and the banter was cracking, mostly at Lee's expense. Many many anglers photo's got photo shopped and it was a right laff.
I left Yale AC and over the next 2 years Yale AC unfortunately folded. I was gutted but kept the forums going for Tony and Lee and removed the Yale section but kept all the posts and added them to the 'Going Fishing' and 'Upcoming Matches' section. I still go back and read the Yale stuff and it always brings a smile to my face.
Thread here.... YaBB.pl?num=1248446360
I then thought it best to change the forum name from 'YaleAc Forums' to somthing else. A thread was started and in the usual fashion it was full of crazy suggestions
A combination of what Mugger and Woodhouse suggested lead to 'Simple Match Fishing'
Thread here.... YaBB.pl?num=1248537680/15
TK (Tony) was running his Grueller Series ever year which was very popular. I even won the series one year which I am quite proud about as there was some cut cracks fishing that year....Woodhouse was also fishing it too
Next to ask for a section on here was DaveC and it was for his club Marsh AC, A club from London. This lead to much banter as these boys only(mainly) fished carp waters and had frequent big weights, although you wouldn't think it reading this years results
(kidding)Last but not least is a great guy called Larry Teepot. His section 'Cornerstone' was added, its fair to say he does not use it much but its there for when he does need it
Over the 6 years I have watched the forum grow much to my amazement if I'm honest.
I think I have only ever had to delete a few posts and lock a few threads and that's because everyone just gets on with it and has a laugh as well as getting the latest info on everyone's matches.
What does the future hold for these forums.... Much of the same I hope
If anyone has any suggestions, fire away. I'm all ears 
Earlier this year I was planning on moving away from YaBB (forum software) but the migration did not work. I am glad it didn't really because I think most other angling forums use that software and it would have ended up looking like all the others.
Over the years I have had to change the hosting size and bandwidth allowance lots of times to cope with the growing forum. I never imagined it would ever be this big, I know its not as big as the others but its bigger than I ever thought it would be.
We did have sections for Tackle Talk and things like that but they never got used much so I removed them. I always sit here thinking of adding them back but I think it's nice the way it is.
A kept getting asked why the forum was set out the way it was, I hope this answers that.
Thanks for reading.
Simon Mound - Simple
some of that was written 'tongue in cheek' as I'm sure you know
