In actual fact the site started sometime in Early June or late May 2004 however we lost the original start date in forum moves and pruning of threads that had to be done back then, before the web realised pruning content was dumb.
I still remember trying to sell the idea of starting the site to my then girlfriend who was an accountant.
The site had been up a fair while before the Penrith game, as I was sitting at the Steyne with Ryan and Chuckwood during that game, and I met both of them through this site, so it had been up long enough to forge a friendship with them.
My guess is that the actual date that Silvertails started was actually a fair bit sooner to when we generally accept its birthday.
More or less the site started because of the Oracle basically running riot on OEE and haig and Aaron being unable to do much to stop him, at the same time MWSE was controlled by one group of guys who really had a disliking for us, for whatever reason and we had no where else to go. So a few of us decided to start the site, I had the technical know-how or was learning at any rate and the guys had the passion.
We went through some great times together on the hill even during the dark days, and we also copped a lot of ****, from other fans and some club officials, we stuck together and pulled through many attempts to shut us down.
We have outlasted many of the club officials that repeatedly tried to silence us and who directly accused me of many things including accusing me of hacking the MWSE site, hilarious, since the actual issue was a crashed database on their site, and my persecution came from pointing out the bleeding obvious of what had happened and referred them to articles on the specific topic I had researched after seeing it had broken. Quite amusing really and I never forgave those two people at the club for that ****, nor the fans who instigated it.
However it was that kind of stuff that spurred me on and made me determined to make the site successful even despite those obstacles and in fact to spite them.
I knew deep down I could make a better product than the club website and the alternatives and feel that i have been successful in that. There are always areas the site can improve in and my complete and utter lack of design skills certainly have made it difficult but I think overall we have a pretty complete site with great custom features that many don't have