Moving Beyond Spreadsheets and Notebooks

In the early days of a football academy, tournament and fixture management happens in a coach's head, on a notepad, or in a spreadsheet that only one person understands. The under-9 coach knows which players are available because they spoke to the parents at training. The results are written on the back of a team sheet and transferred to a Facebook post on Sunday evening. The league table lives in an Excel file on someone's laptop.

This approach works when you have one or two teams. It collapses when you have six, eight, or twelve. At that point, the amount of fixture information, squad data, match results, and parent communication exceeds what any individual can manage reliably. You need systems, and those systems need to be accessible to every coach and administrator in your academy.

Squad Selection Workflows

From Availability to Team Sheet

Squad selection for a fixture involves several sequential steps, each of which benefits from a structured system. First, availability is collected from parents through the portal. Then the coach reviews the available players against the fixture requirements: format (5v5, 7v7, 9v9, 11v11), opposition level, and any development objectives for the session. The coach selects the squad, assigns positions or roles, and communicates the selection to parents.

A well-designed workflow captures all of this in a single flow. The coach opens the fixture, sees who is available, drags players into the squad, assigns their shirt numbers or positions, and publishes the team sheet. Parents of selected players receive a notification with the meeting time, venue, and kit requirements. Parents of non-selected players receive a notification explaining that they have not been selected for this fixture, with a positive message about upcoming opportunities.

This structured approach has several advantages over informal selection methods. It creates a record of who was selected for every fixture, which is invaluable for ensuring equal opportunities over the season. It removes the awkwardness of coaches having to individually message parents whose children have not been selected. And it ensures every family receives consistent, timely information.

Rotation and Equal Opportunity Tracking

For younger age groups, the FA's guidance is clear: development takes priority over results, and every player should receive meaningful game time. Your system should track minutes played and matches started per player over the season, flagging any player who is consistently receiving less game time than their peers. This data helps coaches self-regulate and provides evidence if a parent raises concerns about their child's opportunities.

If you cannot demonstrate that every player in your foundation and youth development phases has received broadly equal game time over the season, you are not delivering on the FA DNA development commitment, regardless of your results.

Opposition Database and Match Preparation

Building an Opposition Record

Over time, your academy will face the same opponents repeatedly in local leagues, cups, and tournaments. Maintaining a simple opposition database saves coaches time in match preparation and helps new coaches get up to speed quickly. For each opponent, record:

Club name and venue: Including any quirks about the facility (no changing rooms, limited parking, difficult access)
Previous results: Scores and brief notes from past encounters
Style of play: A sentence or two about their typical approach (high press, long ball, strong in wide areas)
Key players: Any standout individuals that your team should be aware of
Contact details: The opposing team's coach or manager for communication about kickoff times, cancellations, and pitch changes

This is not about gaining a competitive edge over nine-year-olds. It is about professional preparation, consistent record-keeping, and helping your coaches deliver better sessions in the week before a fixture. When a coach can say 'we are playing Riverside this Saturday, and last time they pressed us high and we struggled to play out from the back, so let's work on that in training', that is good coaching.

Match Results and Performance Recording

What to Record

At minimum, record the score, the scorers, and any disciplinary incidents for every match. Beyond that, a brief post-match summary from the coach adds enormous value over the season. The summary does not need to be lengthy. Three to five sentences covering the main talking points is sufficient: what went well, what needs work, and any individual performances worth noting.

For development-focused academies, consider recording additional data points such as possession percentage estimates, goals conceded from set pieces versus open play, and how many players contributed to goals (assists and build-up play). This data, accumulated over a season, reveals patterns that inform coaching priorities.

League Table Management

If your teams compete in leagues, maintaining accurate league tables is important for both internal and external audiences. Parents and players want to see the table, and accuracy reflects well on your academy's professionalism. Your system should update league tables automatically when results are entered, calculating points, goal difference, and position without manual intervention.

For internally organised festivals and mini-leagues within your academy, the same system applies. Running an internal league during a half-term camp, for example, is much easier when results are entered once and the table updates in real time on a screen that everyone can see.

Post-Match Content and Photo Galleries

Match-Day Photography

Photographs from matches and tournaments are one of the most engaging types of content your academy can produce. Parents share them, players are proud to see themselves in action, and on social media they generate more engagement than any other content type. However, match-day photography requires careful management around safeguarding and consent.

Before publishing any photographs, verify that every identifiable child in the image has a current photographic consent form on file. This is a non-negotiable safeguarding requirement. If you cannot confirm consent for a child in the photograph, the image cannot be published. Your portal should link published photos to the consent records of the children depicted, creating an auditable trail.

Organising and Sharing Galleries

Organise photos by event, date, and age group. A 'Photos' section of your parent portal where families can browse galleries from recent fixtures and tournaments is more effective than posting batches of images on social media. The portal allows you to control access (only families with consent can view galleries that include their children), maintain quality standards, and avoid the cluttered presentation of social media platforms.

Encourage designated parent volunteers to take photos at fixtures. This distributes the workload and ensures coverage even when the coaching staff are focused on the game. Provide your volunteers with simple guidelines: action shots from a respectful distance, no close-ups of distressed children, no images of children in changing areas, and all photos submitted to the academy for consent checking before any publication.

Key Takeaways

Implement a structured squad selection workflow that creates a record of every selection decision
Track minutes played and matches started per player to ensure equal opportunity at younger age groups
Maintain an opposition database with venue details, previous results, and style notes for match preparation
Record match results with brief coach summaries that inform future coaching priorities
Automate league table calculations from entered results to ensure accuracy and save time
Verify photographic consent before publishing any match-day images, with an auditable trail
Organise photos by event in the parent portal rather than relying solely on social media