Football 101: Spare A Thought For The Person Who Writes The Roster

Yesterday I wrote about how the Premier League creates its fixture list.

It was fascinating.

Months of planning.

Specialist software.

Police requirements.

European competitions.

Supporter consultation.

More than 2,000 professional fixtures being coordinated across England's top four divisions.

By the time I finished writing, I found myself thinking about somebody much closer to home.

Our CRJFA Rosters Secretary.

Because if you think the Premier League fixture process sounds complicated, wait until you see what happens in junior football.

Let's Start With The Numbers

The Premier League schedules 380 matches.

CRJFA has 454 teams.

Across 16 rounds that equates to approximately 227 matches every Saturday.

Over the season that becomes around 3,632 scheduled matches.

Nearly ten times the number of fixtures played in the Premier League.

Yet most people never think about it.

But The Numbers Don't Tell The Whole Story

The Premier League has one competition.

Twenty teams.

One format.

Home and away.

Junior football is something entirely different.

We have 4v4 football.

We have 7v7 football.

We have 9v9 football.

We have boys competitions.

We have girls competitions.

Multiple age groups.

Venues stretching from North Chigwell to Dover.

And every ground has a different configuration.

Some can host multiple small-sided games.

Some can host a mixture of formats.

Some have several pitches.

Others have only one.

The roster is not simply a list of matches.

It is a giant football jigsaw puzzle.

Then We Change The Puzzle

The Premier League knows exactly where its clubs belong.

Junior football doesn't.

We run grading rounds.

Teams move.

Divisions change.

Competitions are adjusted.

Fixtures are rebuilt.

Imagine completing a giant jigsaw puzzle only to discover somebody has changed the picture on the box halfway through.

That's grading.

This year grading was made even more difficult by an early washout and incomplete results being submitted.

Yet decisions still had to be made.

Teams still had to be moved.

Competitions still had to be balanced.

Because at the end of the day the objective isn't a perfect spreadsheet.

The objective is making sure children enjoy their football.

The Part We Never See

Recently our CRJFA Rosters Secretary sent an update to delegates.

Reading it was eye-opening.

This season she has dealt with more than 700 fixture requests.

Seven hundred.

Requests relating to kick-off times.

Locations.

Travel.

Volunteer availability.

Team clashes.

Other sports.

And all the other challenges that come with organising community football.

At the same time she has been averaging between 800 and 1,000 emails every week.

Every week.

I suspect most of us would struggle to keep up with that volume in a full-time job.

Then Come The Emails

Jimmy has a recital.

Penny needs to play two games.

Can we move this fixture?

Can we swap this time?

Can we avoid travelling that week?

Can we start later?

Can we start earlier?

Can we play somewhere else?

Can we make it work around another sport?

The thing is, every request is reasonable.

Every request matters to the family making it.

The challenge is that there are hundreds of them.

And every solution creates another problem somewhere else.

The roster is not designed around one team, one family or one child.

It is designed around 454 teams.

The Great Tasmanian Travel Crisis

Then there is travel.

Or more specifically, Tasmanian football's relationship with travel.

We all know the conversations.

"Do we really have to go to Kingborough?"

"North Chigwell is a long way."

"Dover? That's practically another country."

"Do we really have to cross the bridge?"

The funny part is that many mainland football people would consider these routine trips.

Yet in Tasmania we can sometimes treat a 20-minute drive as if we are preparing for an expedition across the Nullarbor.

Thank goodness Eastern Region runs its own competition, some might say, because then people don't have to travel over the bridge.

Which is slightly amusing when Clarence Zebras happily travel the other way every week to compete in CRJFA.

Of course everyone prefers local games.

The challenge is that somebody has to make 454 teams fit across dozens of venues.

Sometimes that means travelling.

And occasionally that means crossing a bridge.

Sometimes Families Need To Adapt Too

One of the most common requests relates to families with multiple children playing football.

Can games be moved?

Can times be adjusted?

Can fixtures be changed to avoid clashes?

Again, every request is understandable.

But there is also a reality.

Football cannot be scheduled around every family.

I know this because I lived it.

My three boys played football.

They played futsal.

There were clashes.

There were impossible mornings.

There were favours called in.

No grandparents in Tasmania for me to phone.

There were lifts organised.

There were plenty of occasions when making it all work felt like a military operation.

That's what happens when children are active.

The solution wasn't changing the roster.

The solution was adapting.

Most football families have done exactly the same thing.

The Person Behind The Roster

The person building the roster is not trying to ruin your Saturday.

She is not deliberately sending your team to Dover.

She is not sitting there wondering how she can make life difficult for your family.

She is trying to make more than 3,600 matches work across hundreds of teams, dozens of venues, multiple formats, grading rounds, volunteers, clubs and families.

It is an extraordinary balancing act.

One that most people only notice when something doesn't suit them.

A Remarkable Piece Of Work

After writing yesterday's article, I reached one conclusion.

If somebody offered me the choice between creating the Premier League fixture list or the CRJFA roster, I know which job I wouldn't be volunteering for.

So the next time your fixture arrives and you find yourself wondering why your game is at a particular venue or a particular time, spare a thought for the person who built the roster.

Because somewhere between 454 teams, 3,632 matches, grading rounds, changing competitions, field configurations, weather, volunteers, 700 fixture requests and 1,000 emails a week, she somehow managed to make community football happen.

And that is a remarkable achievement in itself.