Prehistory:
In early December 2007, Drac was setting up a forum to be use by an online gaming group and asked me to help with his testing it. After work was completed, the gaming group went in another direction and Drac told me I could use it if I wanted to with whatever I wanted just to not have the work go to waste. I forgot about using it though.
History of Football Fans United:
On ESPN the group founder Patriots Dynasty got really fed up with some off-topic stuff on December 27, 2007. So he put out the call for a new crew -- a group of people who wanted to just talk football. From that historic post:
"anybody wanna join?
We will be called FFU for Football Fans United!
Everybody is welcome except for idiots and trolls."
Several users agreed to join his vision including Lindydawgs, Butters, and myself. Drac joined as our renegade honorary member because he was going through one of his "screw the rules" times and said he could not follow any rules.
The next day, one of the members suggested we have our own forum space so that we could meet without trolls. I remembered the forum Drac already had set up but not using so told Patriots Dynasty who said sure and asked Drac if it was still intact. It took a few minor changes because of the name would be different but Football Fans United had a home. Our renegade member would have to be our admin due to the web space and url already belonged to him.
Many of those originals did not make it over to the forums as of this time. So when it was time to begin the growth of the forums, one person who was one of the final originals stepped up to do whatever he could. Lindy showed fast -- that's why he's called Flash -- what he's capable of and became one of the mods.
Next mod that was added to the mod team was psucoltsfan by suggesting we have a Hockey section. So he was awarded to being the mod of that. However, that helped show we had a problem with our name.
The Fall of Football Fans United & The Rise of Sports Fans United:
As the forums began to grow, Football Fans United added other sports and we were beyond the name now. So Patriots Dynasty agreed that we should be renamed to Sports Fans United. There may still be things around the forums that says "FFU" or "Football Fans United" but now you will know the connection and why.
The User Admins:
The current group of moderators (Drac, Patriots Dynasty, Lindy, and psucoltsfan) at this time were the group that made up the original User Admin group. This group is responsible for upgrading new users to full status. While I have the power to do it too, I consider myself to the reserve member of this group who helps out whenever needed. This group is not to be applied for but is more assigned from the moderators and more are added if the workload needs more.
New Moderators:
The moderator group increased with the additions of jjpoole, Skater, and gobrewers while the forum was growing again in scope. The Entertainment section was added to the forums. The YouTube area was the brainchild of jjpoole which shows one way to become a mod here.
The Return of an Original:
Even though, Butters was an original member he took a little while before appearing on the forums. He finally signed up on January 2 to come to the new home.
The Posting Phenom and the 500 Post Club:
It looked like Lindy would be the first to discover the 500-post title and was a lock. That is until a posting phenom named Heather joined the group on January 1. She was suggested for the group back when it was formed but she was serving one of her many ESPN bans. She was the first without a special title and second overall to reach 500 posts on January 24, 2008. Heather has since become a moderator for the forums.
What was United became X:
On February 2, 2008 the team wanted to have an unique url. However, Sports Fans United was unavailable to use. I guess that soccer team in Manchester has something to do with it. So we found the name sportsfansx.com was available and grabbed it. The X-Factor is simply we can be more without being limited.
