Hertha for the ladies

OMG. My husband was reading the nasty, sarcastic commentary from the "Berliner Zeitung" to me this morning as I was getting breakfast, so I had to have a look before pouring coffee.

I shouldn't have done that, don't look at this page on an empty stomach....

http://www.herthafreundin.de/

Hertha, the Berlin major league soccer team has discovered that women like soccer. So there is now a page "just for women".

Just applying the basics from my course this semester in "Gender & Computing" is enough to make you really angry and want to mailbomb their site:

• The logo-lady had long blonde hair and breasts that would seriously impair any attempt to play sports on account of gravity. We actually wear sports bras when playing to keep the bounce down. Her blue tricot has a bow on it ....
• The title of the home page is "Startseite". Okay, they've just been through HTML-for-beginners and haven't learned how to set a useful title.
• Someone seems to have glanced through the gender literature and picked up: women prefer lifestyle. So there's a menu point lifestyle. Now, if you are interested in soccer, this is a special kind of life style, so I clicked on it curiously - and find beauty tips for keeping my skin fresh and young during all that time spent outdoors in the wind and weather watching a game. Duh.
• Picture caption: "Gut gestyled ins Stadion". Check with a Duden. If you are using English verb forms inside of German verb constructions you would want to have a "t" on the end of that verb and not a "d".
• One thing they got right - interviews with the players. But the focus is on gorgeous pictures of the guys half-naked (okay, we'll at least tolerate that). Oh, just one guy on the list for now, but maybe we'll get more. And the interview is crocked - they ask twice when he gets up in the morning, once he gets up at 8, once at 10. The - I suppose - more interesting question: does he already have a girlfriend? - is not asked.
• Playlists of the players for your own MP3 and online shop, wow. So I can listen to the same music as the players. And get me a "fitted" tricot that fits my supposed amazing chest size.
• Scroll down a bit - "Die Regel des Monats", rule of the month. The offside rule is explained. Um, gee guys, if women are interested in soccer, I bet they already know that there are 2 teams playing in opposite directions, that the ball is played with the feet or head or anything but hands, and what offside is. "Abseits ist wie Schuhkauf", offside is like shopping for shoes. I am speechless.
• Missing in action: when is the next (home) game? The standings! Hertha is actually not in danger of relegation to the minor leagues this year, but no hint of that here.
  

Check out the guys page, I took the German branch after the pics loaded.

Okay, so we have incompetent web designers here, guys who want to show off all the different HTML and Flash tricks they have learned. . I count 27 different content/navigation frames, unnecessary animation, font-o-rama, hidden extra navigation frame, deep digging necessary to answer the simple question: how do I get to the stadium???

Sigh.

We've got a long way to go....