The Real Cost of Running a Grassroots Club
Most grassroots club managers spend 5+ hours a week on admin. Here's what that actually costs — and what you can do about it.
You didn't get into football to spend your Sunday evenings updating spreadsheets. Yet here you are — it's 10pm, the kids are in bed, and you're chasing subs on WhatsApp for the third time this week.
Running a grassroots football club is a second job. And like most second jobs, nobody's paying you for it.
The numbers nobody talks about
We surveyed grassroots club managers across England. The average time spent on club admin each week: 5.3 hours. That's 201 hours a year — worth over £3,000 of unpaid labour at £15/hr.
The WhatsApp problem
Most grassroots clubs run on WhatsApp. It was built for conversations, not for managing a 25-player squad across three age groups. Fixture changes get buried. Availability is chaos. Important announcements disappear under memes.
What the fix actually looks like
The clubs that have solved this haven't done anything heroic — they've just centralised. One place for squad management, fixture scheduling, communications, and tracking subs. Managers report getting back 3-4 hours per week.
