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Today, after eight years and many hundreds of thousands of user comments, we are closing down the .

The 606 radio show continues, of course, as one of the lynchpins of the 5 Live schedule and the long-established home of grown-up football debate. But its online counterpart has come to an end.

I explained in my original blog post back in January why we had taken this decision. The headline is that the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ as a whole is cutting costs and is taking a more streamlined approach to its online offering. For us at ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Sport this means we are focusing on the priority areas of our website: the latest news across a whole range of sports and live coverage of the biggest events.

In many ways 606 belongs to an earlier era of the web. Technology and user behaviour have been transformed in the years since it was launched in 2003. As I have mentioned before, it is worth remembering that this was back in the days before the likes of Facebook and Twitter came along to change not only the internet but, some would argue, create whole new forms of social interaction.

I know many people still use 606 and enjoy the banter and the chance to exchange views with fellow fans on the sporting issues of the day. And it is worth stressing that all of us at ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Sport Online are proud that 606 established itself as such a popular forum for debate. But we have had to accept that things move on and, with user numbers declining for a number of years now (the audience has halved since 2008), the end of the 2010-11 football season feels like an appropriate time to bring things to a close.

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Exactly one year from today, the Olympic torch will arrive in the UK, signalling the beginning of the official countdown to the .

And to mark 'one year to go' until the torch arrives, two major announcements are being made regarding the evening stops the torch will make during its and the nomination process to decide who will run with it.

There will be extensive coverage across the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ with details about where the main evening stops will be in your local area, plus details about how you can nominate someone to be a torchbearer.

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