For grassroots club secretaries & coaches
Run your team from the WhatsApp group you already have.
Dugout turns a fixture into a poll, a poll into a squad, and a squad into a message — in about a minute. Nothing for parents to install.
Free while it’s in beta · Start with one team · Dublin first
Sunday 27 Sept · Away
Kick-off
10:00am
Available
11 of 14
No reply
1
🔵 U9 Blue — match availability Sun, 27 Sept — Ashfield vs Riverside (away) KO: 10:00am (meet: 9:40am) Venue: Riverside Park Confirm availability here: https://dugout.ie/ashfield/k7f2m9
Done before you leave the car park
A fixture becomes a poll in the group in about a minute. The message writes itself — team, opponent, kick-off, venue, deadline.
Nothing for parents to install
They tap the link in the group, pick their child, and they're done. No app, no account, no password to forget.
Hand it to the next volunteer
One screen per job, in the order the week actually happens. Nobody needs training, and nobody needs talking through it in August.
How a week works
Saturday evening to the final whistle.
Five steps. You do four of them, and the first one happens without you.
- 1
The fixture arrives on its own
Dugout reads the DDSL fixture list on Saturday evening and creates the match for you. No retyping from the league email, no relay of WhatsApp messages between the secretary and four coaches.
- 2
You confirm the kick-off time
One tap, once the other club has said. Until then the poll goes out honestly marked TBC rather than guessing a time twenty-five families would believe.
- 3
The poll goes to the group
Straight into the WhatsApp group you already use. Parents tap the link, pick their child, and the answers land back in Dugout — no app, no login.
- 4
You split the squad
Two fives, side by side, from whoever said yes. The split stays coach-only until you send the reconfirm — nobody is told they're playing before you've decided.
- 5
The result goes in at the ground
How each of the four matches went, logged after the final whistle — plus a private note on the opposition that only the coaches ever see.
If you’re the club secretary
The part that matters to you is step one. Fixtures come off the DDSL without anyone retyping them, so the Sunday-evening relay to your coaches stops. Everything after that is built for the coach at the far end of that relay — which is where I started, because that’s the job I have. And you don’t have to commit the club to find out — start with one team and ask that coach in a fortnight.
The message your group gets
Written by Dugout. Sent by you.
Copy it, or open WhatsApp with it already written. Home matches leave the map link off; away matches carry it, so nobody drives to the wrong pitch.
Every message on this page is produced by the same code that sends to parents — it cannot drift from what they actually receive.
🔵 U9 Blue — match availability Sun, 27 Sept — Ashfield vs Riverside (away) KO: 10:00am (meet: 9:40am) Venue: Riverside Park Confirm availability here: https://dugout.ie/ashfield/k7f2m9 Deadline: lunchtime Friday Maps: https://maps.app.goo.gl/wNaYUqztrber8V8z7
Every message on this page is produced by the same code that sends to parents.
Not just match day
Most weeks, there’s no match.
Clubs train two or three times for every fixture they play, so training gets the same treatment — the same poll, the same link for parents, the same attendance screen. It finishes with a report back to the group.
⚽ Training Report — Thu, 24 Sept 📍 Rockbrook | 6:30pm 📊 Total: 9/12 🔵 U9 BLUE (5/7) ✅ Adam, Cian, Daire, Fionn, Hugo ❌ Eoin ⬜ Jack 🔴 U9 RED (4/5) ✅ Luca, Oisin, Rian, Senan ❌ Noah
When it goes wrong
Pitch closed. Time moved. Both at 8am.
The pitch is gone
Pick a reason — pitch closed, weather, low numbers — and the message writes itself, ready to send. It’s logged against the fixture, and you can undo it if the pitch dries out.
🔵 U9 Blue — Session Cancelled The match vs Riverside on Sun, 27 Sept has been cancelled due to Pitch Closed. Apologies for any inconvenience.
Something moved after the poll went out
A WhatsApp poll can’t be amended. Delete it and re-ask, and you’ve lost every answer you had. Change a detail in Dugout and it writes an update naming exactly what moved — and keeps the replies you already collected, marking which came in before the change.
⚠️ Update — Time & Venue change for Sunday's match 🔵 U9 Blue — updated match details Sun, 27 Sept — Ashfield vs Riverside (away) KO: 11:00am (meet: 10:40am) Venue: Riverside Park (Pitch 3) Please confirm your updated availability: https://dugout.ie/ashfield/k7f2m9 Please respond ASAP Maps: https://maps.app.goo.gl/wNaYUqztrber8V8z7
Try it with one team.
A few minutes to set up. Your first poll can go out this evening.
What else it does
The bits that save the most time.
Paste it, don't type it
Paste the other coach's message and the fixture fills itself in. Screenshot a WhatsApp poll and the answers land on your roster.
Chase the ones who haven't answered
Filter to the non-responders and send a nudge naming only them — instead of asking the whole group again.
Who actually turns up
Reliability and response rates per player, over the season — the thing no WhatsApp group can tell you.
Reminders so a poll never sits unsent.
So a poll never sits unsent.
Home screen — installs like an app, for you, not for parents.
Installs like an app, for you.
On purpose
What Dugout doesn’t do.
Every other tool asks your club to move somewhere new. That’s the part that never sticks — so we didn’t build it.
No in-app chat
Your group works. Dugout feeds it rather than competing with it — and nobody has to check two places.
No app for parents to download
Half a squad will never install it. A link everyone can already open is worth more than an app a third of the group has.
No club website to maintain
Dugout is for the people running the team, not for the public. There's no second thing to keep up to date.
No drills library
You know how to coach. The hours you're losing are the admin ones, so that's the only thing Dugout touches.
Questions
The ones secretaries ask.
What do parents have to install?
Nothing. They tap a link in the WhatsApp group, pick their child from a list, and that's the whole job. No account, no download.
Does it replace our WhatsApp group?
No — it feeds it. Dugout writes the messages and reads the answers; the group stays exactly where it is.
What does it cost?
Nothing while it's in beta. Grassroots clubs are the point — anything we charge later has to be worth less than the hours it saves.
Which leagues and venues?
DDSL fixtures sync today, and the venue directory covers Dublin clubs — with a verified map pin for away grounds, added as coaches confirm them.
Where does our data live?
MongoDB Atlas stores it and Vercel hosts the app, both as processors under GDPR — with some processing in the US under standard contractual clauses. Nothing is sold, and nothing is advertised against. It’s built by someone whose day job is payments infrastructure, so the unglamorous parts — access control, audit trails, keeping only what’s needed — weren’t an afterthought. Read the privacy policy.
Who is it for?
Secretaries and coaches of grassroots youth clubs — the volunteers doing fixture admin on a phone, between a day job and a training session.
Built by a U9 coach in Dublin who got tired of doing this by hand.
Richard Murphy · U9 coach, Dublin
Bring Dugout to your club.
Start with one team — you don’t have to move the whole club to find out whether it helps. Setup takes a few minutes: add your squad, and you can send your first poll the same evening.
Straight answer: Dugout is an early beta and we’re taking it on one club at a time, Dublin first. If that’s not you yet, tell us anyway and we’ll come back when it is.