Field note · 12 March 2026

Why the half-time screen is empty

On a guest login, the live blog often sits under a shop tile the moment the whistle goes. A note on what supporters actually open at 45 minutes.

Half-time is eight to fifteen minutes, depending on the referee and the water break. In that window a supporter in the stand has a phone, a queue for drinks, and a question: is it still 1–1, and did anyone come off?

On three club apps we read this season, the screen that answered that question was not the screen that opened. The home tile had been reset at the interval to a shop campaign. The live blog was still updating. It lived one tap under “News”, and “News” opened on a transfer interview from Thursday.

A guest login does not lie about this. The admin panel will show that the blog received posts. The supporter thumb never arrived. The fix that clubs actually make, when they make one, is not a new module. They pin the blog above the shop until full time, then let the shop return. That is a match-day instruction to whoever still has the CMS password, not a rebuild.

If your half-time plan is a player vote, look at the clock. A vote that closes while the teams are still in the tunnel is a vote among people who already went downstairs. The match-day observation is the reading we use when a desk wants this sequence written down for one Saturday rather than for a whole season.