Welcome back to another Through the Turnstile of Non-League Football meets, this time I am sitting down with Mike who is the man behind the amazing work of the app ‘Telescore’. Now if you are a football fan you will remember the days of sitting at home waiting for teletext to refresh on your TV screen, it was an iconic part of the weekend and had a very distinctive design to it.
Well Mike, decided that a bit of nostalgia was needed for football fans and developed a football scores app with the same look as Teletext – a beautifully designed and great app that really does hit the mark for users.
I managed to grab him to answer some questions about how this all come out and see what his plans for the future of the app are!
Name – Mike
Favourite Team – West Ham
Occupation – IT project management
Thing I love about football – For me, the rollercoaster of supporting West Ham, the team aspect of the game and of course the match day beers are all well up there. But what I really love is that football is truly a universal language. You can be anywhere on earth talking to any stranger and connect instantly over football. Everyone (generally!) has some kind of connection to a team or player or match that they can talk about.
What inspired you to create Telescore, and was there a specific moment the idea clicked?**
I started off wanting to make a football stats app, most goals, most assists etc as every weekend the wife asks me who she should put in her bet builder! So I started making something but I knew it needed to include live scores. When I was walking my dogs one day I thought it would be awesome if I could make the scores look like teletext.
How much did nostalgia for Ceefax and teletext influence the design and concept?
Completely to be honest. Once I had the idea, I did some research to see if it had already been done, and to my surprise it hadn’t – not specifically for mobile at least. There are some excellent web based versions available too.
Did you originally see Telescore as a small side project or something with long-term potential?
Once I created my proof of concept and I could see it working, then yes at that point I thought it had potential to be very popular. I knew from my research that there was still some kind of adoration for teletext and the buzz we all got pre-internet. I’m also a big fan of retro shirts, and again I know a lot of others are too. I think perhaps there are a lot of us that think football used to be better, and teletext is definitely a part of that.
What development tools or frameworks did you use to build the app?
For the techies out there I’m using Flutter for my front end and Firebase for my back end.
What were the biggest technical challenges in recreating the classic teletext look on modern devices?
In terms of look and feel, there are two main challenges.
The first is the screen size and shape. If you think about teletext we’d all watch that on older TV’s in a 4:3 format, which is obviously very different to a mobile phone.
The other thing is the data to show and I guess, modern day expectations. I’m still battling with this a little with for example Assists. No-one cared about assists years ago, so they weren’t on Teletext – but now I need to figure a way to show them. It’s a good problem to have I would say though.
How do you gather and update the live football scores and goal-scorer data?
Basically I pay a 3rd party to provide the data to me. They essentially let me access their data every second to get updates. I can then use this data to update the scores. For the techies – it’s an API.
How do you decide which features or refinements to add in each update?
Bit of a mix of user feedback and what I think works. I would say I’m a heavy user of live score apps myself – so I know what works if you see what I mean. I ask myself a lot ‘What do I need to do for me to stop using other apps?’. And that’s essentially my goal – how can I get people to uninstall other live score apps – and I’m aware that plenty have! Also the community of people on X has been brilliant in helping with design decisions and more ideas. I’ve had so many great emails too (keep them coming please).
Since the app is free, how do you manage the ongoing costs of running Telescore?
Thankfully the costs currently aren’t too high and I’m still managing to get dinners on the table. The costs do grow with each league I add (this is a direct cost with the supplier) and the more use the app gets means more server time I need to pay for.
I do have something called Affiliate links on the app. Basically if someone buys something from one of the advertisers, I should receive a small amount as a commission. It’s not much but it all helps. There is also a ‘Buy me a beer’ link which is really cool – lots of very generous people have donated there to which I am very very grateful.
Do you have plans for monetisation, such as a premium or ad-free version?
You can actually go ad-free for free. Go into the settings, you can remove them for 10 days. But no I don’t as football scores should be free, football is for the people after all.
How much time do you personally spend maintaining or updating the app each week?
Varies greatly. I’ve got a full time job and a family, so they have to come first. Then obviously I want to watch football when I can. So after all those things really… which doesn’t leave lots of time, especially if I try and squeeze in playing football manager games or something too! In terms of maintaining the News which is manual – I’ll spend time on this every day.
And I know I need to get better at updating News stories! The scores/fixtures/tables etc, I don’t need to do anything on – that’s all automated (unless I’m adding a new league). So then really it’s just coding new features or making improvements which yes generally I can only do once the kids are in bed.
What was the initial user response like when Telescore launched?
It has literally blown me away to be honest. I’m so grateful for all the nice comments I get and genuinely some of them make my day and week! I’m so pleased that people like it and take the time to tell me and others – I couldn’t have hoped for a better response.
What has been the most surprising feedback you’ve received from users?
Great question. I’ve had so many people ask for me to bring Bamboozle back, which on reflection isn’t that surprising as it was great. I think the thing that threw me most was when someone asked me what the numbers were about! This made me realise that maybe people who aren’t even familiar with teletext are using the app.
Have you seen any spikes in downloads or engagement during major football events or social media moments?
The biggest spike came from a random X post during September. Completely unintentionally, a chap called Jules from Cardiff who I didn’t know posted a screenshot along with a very short message saying he liked the app, and it was viewed 900,000 times. The X algorithm was very kind to me that day. Jules was as surprised as I am with the response he got.
Ps if you want a commissioned Lego football stadium – then Jules is your man – find him on X @ccfc_jules – no commission for me on this I’d just like to see him do well!
Are most users UK-based, or has the app found an international audience as well?
Yes, about 95% are from the UK. I’ve heard from lots of people from all over the world from Croatia to France and Japan which is great. Lot’s of people are also using it in Australia too. There is a relatively big Irish following as well and I’m hopeful of adding the League of Ireland when their new season kicks off in 2026.
What future features are you considering, such as additional leagues or deeper match stats?
As mentioned, definitely Irish leagues. I want to add more non-league too below the National Leagues but my concern is the availability of data I can get.
Maybe I should just try it and see what happens. Adding leagues comes at a cost and it’s quite hard for me to know where my money is best spent.
Stats – not specifically at this point in time other than Assists and Subs. Something for the future perhaps.
Do you plan to expand beyond football into other sports, or stay focused on football for now?
I do want to branch out into others, yes. However similar to football, data for other sports also comes at a cost to me. So finding data suppliers that are good value for money can be difficult. I’ve got some potential suppliers in the pipeline but if anyone out there can hook me up with some good data – let me know!
I do need to keep in mind though that I can still make the football side of the app better so I need to balance where my focus is.
How do you balance maintaining the retro aesthetic with modern expectations for usability and speed?
Well, the retro aesthetic helps with speed. I don’t need to send any photos etc which does help. And perhaps another one for the techies here – did the teletext format nail the best UI? Quite possibly!
But yes, the hardest thing is getting more data shown with a limited amount of screen space. Other apps can add more to the screen easily, just by simply placing teams one on top of the other, instead of side by side like teletext! Or they can add pretty graphs and heat maps – they will look perhaps a little out of place on Telescore.
Have you faced any licensing or data-access challenges with live football information?
Interesting question – I’m not a lawyer but I’ve done my research. And if I’m not mistaken, a football score or fixture is a ‘fact’, and therefore not available to copyright. I hope I’m right on this – but don’t take this as legal advice if you wanted to do something similar.
Where Telescore lends itself well to me on this topic is the lack of images. Team badges, league logos and player images are generally all copyrighted.
Do you see Telescore evolving into a broader platform or staying as a simple, clean score app?
I think for the most part it will mostly stay as is. I think if you look at other score apps, they are kind of limited to a certain extent anyway if you see what I mean – a live score app is there to deliver live scores. But who knows. I do hope to get back to my original idea one day of a stats app – but this would be separate to Telescore as I don’t think the look and feel would work.
Where do you hope Telescore will be in two or three years’ time?
My ultimate dream is for the app to be paying all my bills so I can quit my job and focus on it full time with the odd day off to play Golf and be able to get to more matches. But you know, if the app is still popular in a few years and I’m still getting awesome feedback I’ll genuinely be more than happy. If you ask the wife she will only be happy if all the costs are covered and then a little bit extra!
Now I just wanted to tip my hat to Mike and say a HUGE well done for everything he has done so far with the ‘Telescore’ app to provide something free of charge to so many users is something that needs to be applauded.
I would encourage you to donate every a few pounds to him to enable him to continue providing this app free for all and also allow him to expand it for as many leagues as possible, to do so you can visit his ‘Buy a coffee page’ right here: https://buymeacoffee.com/telescore
Thank you all for reading – Until next time!!!
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Through The Turnstile of Non-League Football 
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