Someone who has just moved to Drumcondra and wants to play five-a-side again, a parent whose seven year old wants to try rugby, a woman coming back to hockey after ten years away: all three search the sport and the area, “tennis club Dublin 6”, “junior soccer Swords”, “athletics club for kids Tallaght”, and all three are trying to answer a nervous question. Can we just turn up, and will we be welcome. Websites for sports clubs in Dublin that answer that on the first screen get the new member. The ones that open with a committee photograph and a news item from 2019 do not.
Joining should take two minutes
A new members page does the work. Who you take: ages, levels, complete beginners or not. When the trial or taster sessions are and what to bring. The membership categories (adult, student, junior, family, social) with what each costs and what it includes. How to pay, whether through the club management system you already use or by card on the site. A named person for each section with a role beside the name, so the parent texts the right coach and not the chairperson.
If there is a waiting list for the under 8s, say so. People would rather hear it than turn up with a child and be turned away. And if the club has stopped taking adult beginners, say that too. Honesty on the join page saves the secretary thirty messages a month.
The ground, the gate and the away team
Saturday morning, the away team’s manager is on the M50 with twelve kids in a convoy behind him, and the club’s address is a townland. The pitch gets its own Eircode, a line about which gate and where to park, and whether there are changing rooms and floodlights. The Google Maps pin sits on the right entrance, not the clubhouse bar or the chairman’s house. We check that when we set up the listing, and the reasons it drifts are covered in how to get your business on Google Maps.
A season has a shape
Schoolboys and schoolgirls soccer runs from September to May, with summer leagues after. Rugby runs September to April with minis on Sunday mornings. Tennis and cricket own the summer. Athletics splits into winter cross country and summer track. Registration opens in August and again in January, the summer camp fills in June, and the AGM and the dinner dance come round every year.
The site should say what season it is. The secretary swaps “registration open” for “waiting list” from the edit page in a minute, puts the camp dates up in May, and links fixtures and tables to the league’s own site rather than retyping them every Monday.
Courts, halls and the bar
Tennis members want to book a court from their phone on a Tuesday night. A hall gets let to a yoga teacher on Wednesdays and a child’s party on Saturday. The clubhouse bar hosts christenings and the fortieths of people who have not played in years. Each of those is a booking, and each can be taken on the site with a deposit where it makes sense, which is set out in how to take online bookings. The sponsors’ boards on the fence get a page too, with logos and links, because that is part of what they paid for.
Facebook does the chatter
Results, photos and the player of the month belong on Facebook and Instagram, and the club should keep posting them. But a club with only a Facebook page is invisible to anyone not already in the group, and Google does not show a Facebook post to the parent searching “junior rugby near me”. The site carries the fixed facts; the socials carry the life. GAA clubs have the same split, and the same volunteer problem.
What the club sends us
The sections and their training times. Membership categories and fees. The pitch or courts with Eircodes and a photo of the entrance. Named contacts and the Children’s Officer. Sponsor logos. The club crest and a dozen photos, following your own policy on photographs of children. Who will hold the edit links. An hour of the secretary’s time, in total.
Plan and price
Essentials is enough for most clubs: €499 to set up and €50 a month, VAT added, no contract. A club with courts or a hall to book, or subs to collect by card, should look at Complete at €1,499 and €100 a month. What each includes is on the pricing page.