Practical guides and ideas for grassroots football coaches โ youth and senior โ running fairer teams, getting players (and parents) involved, and tracking what matters.
RSSTeamer shuts down on Monday 5 October 2026 with no export tool. If you run a football team on it, here is what you lose, what to copy out before the date, and how to set the same team up in Squadd for free before your next match.
A month into the season the first unpaid subs appear, and someone has to send the awkward message. Here is how grassroots teams actually collect money, what the card platforms cost, and how to make the chasing automatic so you never do it by hand again.
Is equal playing time an FA rule? In England the honest answer is that it depends on your league. Here is what the FA's guidance actually says, where the 50% figure comes from, how to check your league handbook, and how to run it and prove it on a Saturday.
From the 2026/27 season every youth format in England is played a year later: 3v3 at U7, 5v5 to U9, 7v7 to U11, 9v9 to U13 and 11v11 from U14. The full table with ball sizes, pitch sizes and match lengths, why the FA changed it, and what it means for your team this season.
A practical new season checklist for UK grassroots football coaches: certificates and registrations, the squad list, getting parents or players into the app, fixtures, subs, kit and a match-day routine, in the order that actually matters.
An honest 2026 comparison of the football team management apps UK grassroots coaches actually use: Spond, Heja, Pitchero, PLAI, TeamStats, TeamSnap, Mingle Sport and Squadd, with what each is good at and where it falls short.
Spond is a brilliant free organiser for any sport. Squadd is built only for football, and goes deep on match day โ fair-play minutes, lineups, live scores and player cards. An honest comparison for grassroots coaches.
Two minutes, twelve kids, a circle of faces looking up at you โ and not a clue what to say. Here's how to give a half-time team talk built on what actually happened in the first half.
You've played this lot three times and can't remember a thing about it. Grassroots has no scouting department โ but if you've been recording your own matches, you've already got everything you need. Here's how to turn your own match record into a pre-match dossier.
By the time you're home, Saturday's match is a fog of half-remembered moments. Here's how to give your players and parents an honest read of what actually happened โ without bluffing.
Chasing eleven adults for availability, collecting subs in a chip-shop queue of bank transfers, and finding out at 9am you've got eight players. A better system for senior and Sunday league team admin.
Fixture grids that collapse when a team drops out, kick-off maths at midnight, and a printed schedule that's wrong by 9:15am. Here's how festival scheduling actually gets easy โ byes, pitches, posters and all.
The FAW's Small-Sided and Junior Football Regulations expect every player in the match-day squad to get at least 50% of the playing time, every match day, at every age group. Here is the 2026/27 wording, the new formats and ball sizes, and how to actually do it on a wet Saturday without a clipboard.
A plain-English checklist of the records FA Charter Standard clubs are expected to keep โ and the simplest digital setup to keep your team compliant without doing it on paper.
A simple, no-spreadsheet method for sharing minutes fairly across your youth football squad, plus the conversation script that ends "Why didn't my child start?" emails.
Coaches' POTM is awkward. Parents' POTM solves a different problem โ it gets the parents who never volunteer to actually watch, talk about, and feel ownership of the team.
The WhatsApp availability chase eats your week and still leaves you guessing on Saturday morning. Here's the simple system that gets parents to respond โ and how to set it up in 10 minutes.
Why grassroots football clubs are dropping paper registers, what to track instead, and the simple system that lets you spot the kid who's drifting away from training before they quit.