Spurs' website gets online sicknote...

NEWS Tottenham fans, still reeling from the 'traitorous' defection of Sol Campbell, now have something else to moan about before the Premiership season has even started: the performance of their club's website. Demonstrating slower reactions than 'big' Les Ferdinand, the site took an average of 11.98 seconds to download last week. At one point - between 12:00(BST) and 13:00(BST) on 6 August - it took an Andertonesque approach to its job, and practically seized up altogether. In that hour, a typical surfer would have had to wait 38.93 seconds to get the information they were after. In the week Spurs suffered, Charity Shield losers Manchester United had the slickest site - zipping down the lines in 1.61 seconds. The figure for a typical UK-based business is between three and four seconds. In preseason training, Sunderland weren't monkeying about, with an average download time of 2.16 seconds. Other polished performances came from Liverpool (2.39 seconds), Charlton (3.25 seconds), and tractor boys Ipswich Town (3.49 seconds). Of last season's high flyers, Leeds did worst, inflicting a criminal 10.27 second delay on fans - but then compared to a nine years and counting wait for a sniff of silver this probably doesn't seem too bad. Another side who'll soon be checking the 'best before' date on their bottle of Brasso is Arsenal and their website was as creaky as Tony Adams' back, hobbling along with all the grace of an arthritic donkey at 6.75 seconds. silicon.com, in association with web monitoring company Keynote, will be measuring the performance of the Premiership's top clubs throughout the season to see which ones have got their online tactics sorted out. So if you want to find out more about the technology which supports your favourite side, log on to silicon.com on the last Friday of every month. Eric Nataf, director of European product marketing for Keynote, said: "It's interesting to note that Manchester United, last season's champions, have the fastest website. They probably sell a lot of products to their fans around the world, so it's important that their site performs well. But it's critical for all organisations to ensure their sites are available and deliver a good experience to their users - especially when ecommerce is involved. Performance and availability directly influence revenue." He added: "Net users are becoming less and less patient. If your site takes a long time to download, you may end up in a competitively negative situation." Keynote monitors the sites using six computers based in the UK and Ireland, which are plugged in to the main internet backbones. They visit the sites once an hour, every hour, to simulate someone logging on using a fast net connection. Anyone using a 28.8k or 56k modem would be likely to experience slower times than those listed above. For more information, see http://www.keynote.com