A table for Thursday football

My Thursday five-a-side group had been keeping track of results in WhatsApp and a spreadsheet. The teams changed from week to week, so the table followed individual players across the season. I built the KCFC league tracker so one person could enter the result after a game and everyone could see the updated standings.

Then a friend asked if they could use the table for their own group. I’d built the tracker around our players, our scoring rules and the way we split teams. That request made me look at which parts were specific to us and which could work for any regular kickabout.

Build for the organiser. Share with everyone.

I looked at other league tools and decided to focus on what happens straight after a match. The organiser needs a quick way to enter the score. Everyone else wants to see where they stand. A link or an image in the group chat is enough to give them that answer.

That led to two distinct experiences. Organisers sign in to set up their group, choose their season’s scoring rules and log who played on each side. Players open the group’s table without an account. After saving a result, the organiser can share a link or send a table image to WhatsApp so the update lands where the conversation is already happening.

F5s organiser reviewing the two line-ups and score, alongside the generated league table image ready for sharing.

Reviewing a match result and sharing the updated standings. The screens use fictional league data.

Make room for different house rules

Taking this beyond KCFC meant letting each group set its own side names, colours and scoring rules. I locked those rules at the start of each season so the same scoring applies from the first match to the last. I also consolidated the standings calculations and checked them against a completed KCFC season. That gave me a real table to test against while adapting the product for other groups.

Live, with a question to answer

F5s is live as a free web product in pilot. The pilot is designed to find out whether organisers keep entering results and sharing their table week after week. I’m also looking for whether organisers discover F5s on their own. A friend’s request was enough reason to build it. What happens after the first few matches will help me decide how far to take it.

F5s: From a Five-a-Side Tracker to a Live Product