He's English...Soccer/Fut Ball to those guys is like Football or Baseball is to America. It's probably bigger, I mean them Europe soccer fans really get into team spirit! If I ever go to Europe, I'm going during the Soccer/Fut ball season and watching me some games
Little late. I like the colors and the basic style. I would move the "Stats" to the bottom. Most users don't care or need to see them and they prevent your content from being above the fold. This is critical. If there is no content above the fold, then you have nothing to capture that audience when they first visit. In general people are lazy and you need to think hard about making them move the mouse in that first 10 seconds. Most will just move the mouse to the back button. Are most of your users on 800 X 600 monitors? It seems that you're designing for older technology. Also I would reduce the number of categories on your site. Not the forums where they can post but the categories. Maybe have a "Life Discussions" where you can put women, gambling, around the town and similar forums. Then a "Stuff Discussion" where they can talk about video games, cars, and tools, etc... This will make your forum home shorter, reduce the scroll use and make your site look more active.
Ok so as you can see i have merged the poll forum, and also moved stats to the bottom.. i dno why but i'm scared of mergeing more forums into same cats hmmm maybe its hard to group them under one name? also i plan on expanding the more active we get like breaking the sports forum into categorys etc!
i like the status icons used they really set the scene for the website - who ever made them for you did a fantastic job.
At first I was going to say the sidebar looks kind of weird just "out there". But after looking at it, and seeing how it's only a 'connect' sidebar, it kind of fits to be like that.
I'd recommend changing the stock banner for your theme as well. The site is manly stuff, with a guy holding a beer beside that. Then the head banner is a soccer ball sitting there, which doesn't really scream manly. I'm thinking John Wayne riding on the back of a rhinoceraus stabbing a lion with a pocket knife while having a chick hold onto him by his chest hair with one hand and pouring a bottle of straight whiskey down his throat at the same time. Now I'm not saying that should be your banner subject, but it'd encompass the description of being "manly stuff." Soccer is big in your area, so if you want to incorporate that, make it a grimy ball, some mud on it or something. A little sweat and tears, a babe and a beer or something ya know. Make me go "yep, this is for MEN!" Other than that, pretty good layout, though a bit narrow.
