Football club management software, for a grassroots club with a committee and a set of volunteer managers, has to keep players organised by team and age group rather than as one membership, subs that are paid once a season alongside match fees that are paid on the day, a register taken at training and on match day, a team sheet drawn from registered and paid-up players, and the details the county FA and the league ask for when the club affiliates and registers its players. Most clubs run all of that through the managers' phones and the treasurer's spreadsheet, and the two disagree by October. This page sets out what the software has to keep for a grassroots club, how a season runs through it, and where the free worksheets on this site fit.
Players by team and age group, subs by the season and match fees by the day
A football club's list is a set of teams, each with an age group, a manager and a squad, and a player moves up an age group each season. The subs are set per age group and paid once a season, and match fees are collected on the day by the manager and are the money that goes missing. Keeping each payment dated against the player, whether it is the season's subs or a match fee, is what makes the arrears a list rather than a rumour. The club treasurer subs sheet on this site takes each age group as a tier with its subs, and returns the subs due, the arrears and the share the club has to collect to cover the pitches, the referees and the affiliation.
The register at training and the team sheet on match day
The manager takes the register at training, so that who is turning up and who has drifted is visible, and draws the team sheet on match day from players who are registered with the league, paid up with the club and were at training. Software that keeps the register against the team and the team sheet against the fixture, with the same paid-up status the treasurer sees, is what stops an unregistered or unpaid player being fielded. Subsroom Pro keeps the register against the team and reads the block as an attendance rate and the count of players training without being paid up.
The affiliation and the player registration are a filter on the same list
Every season the club affiliates with its county FA and registers its players with the league, and the details asked for, the players, their dates of birth, their teams and the club's officers, are a filter on the member list if the list is kept well. Software that exports the squad per team with the fields the league needs turns an evening of retyping into a file, and keeping the manager, the welfare officer and their DBS checks against each team is the other half of the same return. None of that is the league's system, which the club still uses; it is the club's own record that feeds it.
Questions people ask about football club management software
Is football club management software the same as a team management app?
A team management app runs one squad's availability and fixtures for its manager; the club software keeps every team, every player, the subs, the registers and the affiliation for the committee. A club can use both, and the club's record is the one the treasurer and the secretary need.
How should match fees be kept?
As dated payments against the player, recorded by the manager from a phone on the day, so the treasurer sees them the same week rather than in an envelope at the end of the month. The subs sheet works the season's subs; match fees are the running income against them.
What does the club need to keep for a junior team?
The register per session with the manager who ran it, the parents' contact details, the DBS checks against the manager and the assistants, and the same paid-up status as every other member. The welfare officer reads the register when a player's attendance changes.
Sources
- GOV.UK, Find out which DBS check is right for your employee or volunteer: the check a club's coaches and volunteers working with juniors may need
- GOV.UK, Register as a community amateur sports club (CASC): what an amateur club in the UK must be and keep to register with HMRC
- ICO, UK GDPR guidance and resources: what a club keeping its members' details has to do as a controller