Why I Built Clubo

Like many people involved in grassroots football, what started as just turning up and playing every Saturday gradually became a lot more.

Over the last five years especially, I've found myself doing pretty much everything. Playing. Managing. Chasing match fees. Organising socials. Sorting club finances. Marking out pitches. Filling water bottles. Looking for volunteers. Sending availability requests. And chasing the same people again when they didn't reply.

All while holding down a full-time job in Technology and Payments, something I've done for over 15 years.

I don't say that looking for sympathy. The reality is that thousands of volunteers up and down the country are doing exactly the same thing every week. The problem is that running a club often feels like a second job.

The football part is easy.

The admin is what wears you down.

Over the last few years I started thinking there must be a better way. Not because I wanted to start a business, but because I wanted my evenings back and I wanted to spend less time chasing people.

So I started building something for my own club.

Not for everyone else. Not for the market. Just for me.

I looked at the things that took up the most time and caused the most frustration, then tried to solve them.

If you've ever managed a grassroots team you'll know the feeling. Send an availability request. Get a few responses. Wait. Chase a few people. Wait. Chase them again. Then spend Friday night trying to work out if you've actually got a squad.

I wanted event management to be simple.

Now I can create fixtures, training sessions and socials in minutes. I can build squads, split players into teams and organise everything quickly without endless messaging back and forth.

Even things like creating a matchday post became repetitive, so Clubo can generate those too, pulling club badges directly from the database.

Little things perhaps.

But little things add up when you're doing them every week.

For me, the thing I hated most was chasing money. Nobody enjoys asking teammates for match fees. Nobody enjoys working out who owes what. And nobody wants to spend Sunday evening sending reminders.

So Clubo automatically assigns match fees, fines and other charges. Players can even choose a preferred payment date and switch on automatic payments so they stay up to date without having to think about it.

We also introduced automatic fines for things like late withdrawals and late responses. Not because we wanted to punish people. But because we wanted to encourage better communication and make things fairer for everyone.

The result? Less chasing and a much better culture around availability and payments.

For years, I felt like I was the person doing everything. Then one day I asked myself a simple question: "What if helping the club was actually rewarding?"

That's where Clubo Points came from.

Players earn points for helping with the things that keep a club running. Running the line, painting the pitch, lift sharing, sweeping changing rooms, filling water bottles. All the little jobs that nobody notices until they don't get done.

Those points help players move through different status levels, all the way to "Legend" status, and clubs can even allow players to convert points into credit against their match fees.

The funny thing is that people actually started volunteering.

Not because they had to. Because they wanted to.

One thing I learned very quickly is that an app is only useful if people actually use it. So I tried to make Clubo something players would want to engage with rather than something they felt forced to use.

Because if players are opening the app, they're seeing upcoming fixtures.

• They're responding to invites.
• They're checking what they owe.
• They're staying connected to the club.

And that means less chasing for everyone.

The best thing about Clubo is that every feature exists because I've needed it myself. Nothing has been built because a consultant suggested it. Nothing has been added because it sounded good in a sales pitch.

Every part of it comes from real frustrations, real problems and real experiences from over two decades involved with the same football club.

I've been using it, tweaking it and improving it as we've gone.

Now, after seeing the difference it's made to our club, I thought maybe it could help others too.

If you're a volunteer spending hours every week managing admin instead of enjoying your football, Clubo was built for people like us.

10 minutes setting it up. Saves a whole season of chasing.

Clubo is operated by Clubo Software Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company no. 17401263. The quickest way to reach us is hello@club-o.app, or the contact option in your account menu — both land in the same inbox.