In Praise of Footy Addicts! A website to help your 5-a-side organising

Organising a game is tough. There are so many pre-requisites needed before even starting to think about a venue.

At the beginning, finding the numbers is the key part. Starting out 5-a-side life can be fruitless job. 100% you need to rustle up 10 players minimum, if you want a game that is, which is a tough target if you’re at the beginning of your footballing adventure. This is where the Godsend known as “Footy Addicts” can help.

https://footyaddicts.com/

The whole premise of the website, is a communal online meeting area where you can sign up as an individual and find yourself a game locally to join in.

Later on, you can start planning your own games, setup your own team and even become an “organiser” and get your game paid for free!

We used it, and still do to be fair, as a stepping stone, a useful app if your desperate for a game but haven’t quite got the numbers at work.

We find a game on the date and location we want, then send the link out to all our players who are interested. Usually we only need a minimum of 5. They then sign in, join the said game, pay their subs and that’s it! Simples.

Come the day of the match, it’s not an issue that we already have a team of 5 ready to play. If the game does turn out to be unbalanced, then there’s no problem in switching up the teams. Enjoyment is the main goal here, if we get to play as a team then that’s a bonus.

Check out the gallery below, it shows screenshots of the site. Below is also a quick guide to what you need to do to quickly setup a game. Which will roughly correspond to the pictures.

1. Sign Up!

2. After signing up, you can adjust various settings, like your profile pic, I’ve gone for Daniele de Rossi as my avatar, mirroring my on pitch play……haha, I do make myself laugh sometimes.

3. It’s up to you, but you can whack on your email address and other details if you want to communicate with others are start to expand.

4. Other things you can setup at the beginning are payment method. At the end of the day, “subs” are part of the 5-a-side culture. We all need to share the cost of hiring out the venue, equipment like balls, bibs etc.

5. Once your profile is ready to go, then search for a game. The first thing you would want to do is search via location. Whether it’s near your home or workplace, just type in a rough location. The engine will then reel off a list of venues near you. You can then research what types of surface they have so you know what boots to bring etc

6. A list of games will come up, listing the dates/times/location and a price for joining in.

7. Clicking on a game will bring up a page which tells you who has joined in already. Hopefully at this point, you’ll find a 5-a-side game which doesn’t have more than 5 joiners.

8. Ping this game link to your 4 other cohorts, and get them to join up. To join a game you have to make payment.

9. Now, you are all booked in for a game. The other 5 places will eventually get filled up by other people and you can have a game against them.

10. Refunds will be made accordingly if the game is cancelled. Bad weather, pandemics etc.

11. Also, you may not get a refund if you pull out. Which is great, as it puts the onus on YOU, to turn up and not ruin it for everyone else. It gives people a stake in the game

12. Once you start getting a regular 10-12 people down for weekly footy, you can still use the site for organising your own closed games which helps take some of the admin out of organising. You can then use the site, to fill out your games if you have “a Frodo playing Sudoku with his mum” excuser lame out before the game.

FootyAddicts deserve a lot of praise. Not only is it a great idea, it really helps you out if you are an individual on their own looking for a kickaround. You may have moved to a new job, new city etc, so finding somewhere and someone to play the beautiful game has never been easier.

……….In Praise of FootyAddicts!