Run your weekly night

Whoever turns up, drawn into even sides that change every week. Not a competition: no ladder, no champion, nobody left standing at the side. Ten minutes of your Tuesday evening, and everybody knows what team they are in before they get out of the car.

Say when you play, once

On your squad, tick Runs a night every week and say which day, what time, where, and how many weeks ahead to keep made. Six is the usual: enough that everybody can answer for the next few, few enough that a mistake is a handful to tidy rather than a year of them.

The nights then make themselves. A daily tick tops them up and leaves alone any that are already there, so you never come back to this screen unless something changes. Stop running your Wednesday and untick it, and they stop appearing.

One rule, not fifty sessions

The weekly night lives on the squad rather than as fifty separate entries, because the sessions are the occasions and this is the rule that makes them. Move the start time and every night after tonight moves with it.

Ask who is coming

Your squad has one availability link that everybody uses, week after week. They tap their own name and answer — no login, no app, nothing to set up, and it works for the seventy year old with the oldest phone in the club.

Send it once and pin it in the group chat. The nights coming up are all on that one page, so somebody who knows they are away next fortnight can say so now.

Draw the sides

On the night's page: "14 said they are coming. That makes 4 teams of 3 or 4 on 2 pitches, 6 games." Press Draw again as many times as you like — nothing is written down until you say so.

The sides are dealt out by strength and shuffled among players of about the same, then checked against recent weeks so the same people are not always together. The totals shown are there to prove the sides are even, not to rank anybody. It tells you plainly when there are not enough for two sides, and when a side is getting crowded and another pitch would help.

The draw screen for a weekly night, showing even sides — A proposal until you press. Draw again for a different shuffle.

Make the games

One press lays the games out across the pitches and the clock: three twenty minute slots on up to three pitches, or whatever your night is. Teams are a name and a list of players on the fixture rather than six new squads that exist for ever, so next week is a clean sheet.

Tell everybody what team they are in

Each player gets their own night: their three games, the time, the pitch, who they are with and who they are against. One message each rather than one to the squad, because "Team C, 6:30 on Field 2" is only useful to the four people it is about. Anybody with notifications turned on gets a nudge too.

And on the night itself

Everybody can see their own games at the top of every page on the site, so the person who deleted the email still knows where to stand.

Play. Record it if you want to

Scores are optional and nobody has to keep them. If you do, use the referee's screen or fill them in afterwards: the fixtures are ordinary fixtures. Results feed the ratings quietly, which is what keeps next week's draw even — the point of the whole thing is that everybody gets a game worth playing, not that the best side wins.