Palestino Academy

A football academy sells to parents, and parents ask the same four things: who is coaching my child, what will they actually be doing, how much does it cost, and how do I sign them up. Answering that over the phone, one family at a time, is how most academies spend their evenings.

There is a second problem underneath it. An academy's life is its news — match results, trials, tournaments, the player who moved up — and news that has to go through a developer to be published stops being published by about week three.

A site built around the four questions. The coaches have a page, so a parent can see who will be running the session. The programmes are set out by what each one involves and who it suits. Registration is a form on the site rather than a phone call, so a parent can sign a child up at ten at night, which is when parents do these things.

The academy publishes its own news. There is an admin area behind a login where staff write posts, organise them into categories and tags, and put them live. No developer in the loop, which is the only arrangement under which a news section is still alive a year later.

That distinction is the whole point of the build. A brochure site is finished the day it ships and slowly dies; a site the client can write to stays worth visiting, and for an academy the news is the reason anyone comes back between seasons.