A sports club website needs to do four jobs: tell a new member how to join and what it costs, give parents the junior and safeguarding information they look for before they ring, keep fixtures and results somewhere people can find them, and show sponsors they are getting something visible. Most clubs manage that in eight to twelve pages. The harder part is making sure the site survives the volunteer who built it moving on.
What does a sports club website actually need?
Clubs waste money trying to build something that looks like a professional team's site. You do not need that. You need the handful of pages that answer the questions people actually arrive with.
Almost every visitor is one of four people: someone thinking about joining, a parent checking you out for their child, an opposition secretary or visiting player looking for directions and a start time, or a local business wondering whether sponsorship is worth it. Write for those four and you are most of the way there.
- Membership and fees. Categories, prices, what each one includes, and how to pay. If subs are decided at the AGM, say when the figures were last set.
- How to try before joining. Taster sessions, open mornings, guest green fees, pay and play. The single most common reason people do not get in touch is that they do not know whether they are allowed to just turn up.
- Juniors. Age groups, training nights, coaching, and who the welfare contact is.
- Teams and sections. Which leagues you play in, how many sides, what standard, who runs each one.
- Fixtures and results. Even if they live on a league system, there should be a page on your site that points at them.
- Finding you. Full address, postcode, parking, which gate, and what a visiting team should do when they arrive.
- Facility hire. Clubhouse, function room, nets, courts, society days. For many clubs this is the only page that brings in money from outside the membership.
- Sponsorship. What is available and roughly what it costs.
- Committee contacts. Roles with an email per role, not personal addresses.
- Policies. Safeguarding, photography, code of conduct, constitution, and the latest accounts if your members expect to see them.
That is ten or eleven pages. Add news if you want one, and a gallery, and you are at the size most clubs settle on.
Juniors and safeguarding information
If you run junior sections, this is the part of the site parents actually read. They are not judging your design. They are looking for signs that the club is organised and that an adult is clearly responsible.
Put the welfare or safeguarding officer's name and a club email address on the junior page itself, not buried three clicks away in a policy document. Link to your safeguarding policy and your photography policy as downloads. State your position on DBS checks for coaches and volunteers in plain terms. If your governing body issues a club accreditation, say which one you hold and when it was last renewed.
A photography policy matters more than clubs expect, because it governs what you can put on the site. Decide the rule once: whether junior photos appear at all, whether names go with faces, and how a parent withdraws permission. Then make sure whoever uploads the gallery knows the rule. A website provider cannot make that decision for you, and should not pretend to.
One practical point. Keep a single page where every policy lives, with a date next to each document. When your governing body asks, you send one link.
Fixtures, results and the systems you already use
Most clubs already have a league or governing body system holding the match data, and duplicating it by hand is how websites go stale. Decide early whether your site shows fixtures or simply sends people to the system that holds them.
Cricket club website
Cricket is usually the easiest, because the league system already holds fixtures, results, tables and averages, and most clubs use it for selection anyway. A cricket club website then has one job around fixtures: a page that explains which teams play where, with a clear link through to the live fixture list. Spend your effort instead on nets, winter training, colts registration and the bar and function room.
Tennis club website
Tennis clubs live or die on court booking and coaching. If you already use a booking platform supplied through your governing body, keep it and point at it clearly from the site. If you do not, and you hire courts to non-members, online bookings start to matter. On our packages that is an option at £20 a month plus VAT on the smaller tiers, and included on the largest one, so it is worth deciding whether you genuinely need it before you pay for it.
Golf club website
Golf tends to need the most pages: visitor green fees, societies, the course itself hole by hole, competitions, the professional's shop, catering and the diary. Green fees and society packages are the pages that bring in outside money, so give each one its own page with the prices and a clear enquiry route. Course status in winter is the other thing people check constantly, and that is a job for whoever is on the ground in the morning, not for a web designer.
Sponsors want to see something, not a thank you
A sponsor page that lists company names in grey text is not worth selling. Give each sponsor a logo, a line about what they do and a link to their own site. Group them by level so the tiers mean something, and put a short page on the site explaining what each level costs and what the sponsor gets: boards, shirts, a match sponsorship, the match day programme, a mention in your news posts.
That page does two things. It saves your treasurer repeating the same conversation, and it gives a local firm something concrete to put to their own accountant. If you are selling boards at a few hundred pounds a year, the page needs to make the offer obvious in thirty seconds.
One honest caveat: a sponsor link on your site is a nice extra, but do not oversell it as marketing. Sell the boards, the shirts and the community connection. The web listing is a bonus.
Being found by people who are not already members
People search for "tennis club near me", "cricket club junior training" and the name of your village plus the sport. To turn up for those, your site needs the town name in the page titles and headings, your full address and postcode in the footer, and a Google Business Profile that matches it. We have written separately about getting found on Google when you only work locally, and a club is the same problem as a local business.
The other thing that helps is writing in the words people use. Say "beginners welcome, no kit needed, first three sessions free" rather than "we are a friendly and inclusive club". If writing that sounds like a chore, our guide on writing the words for your own website is worth ten minutes before you start.
Handing it over when the volunteer changes
This is the real problem with club websites. Someone's son in law built it in 2017. The domain is on his personal card, the hosting is in his email, and nobody can get into any of it. The club then rebuilds from scratch and loses the address people have had in their diary for years.
Fix it with a handful of rules, whether you build it yourself or rent it from someone.
- The domain is registered to the club, with the registrant contact being a club email, not a personal one. Our piece on choosing a domain name covers what matters here.
- Create a club email account such as secretary@ or info@ and use it for every login, every account, every renewal notice. The password goes to the committee, not to a person.
- Keep a one page record in the club's files: where the domain is, who hosts the site, who to ring, what it costs, when it renews.
- Pay from the club account, by direct debit or card in the club's name. Nothing on a volunteer's personal card, ever.
- More than one person can edit. If only the fixtures secretary can update the site, the site stops when he goes on holiday.
This is also the strongest argument for renting rather than relying on a volunteer with a bit of technical ability. When you rent, the hosting, the SSL certificate, the email and the maintenance sit with the provider. A new secretary picks up where the last one left off, because there is nothing technical to hand over, only a login. If you would rather own the thing outright, renting versus owning a website sets out both sides honestly.
What a club site costs, and when you should not bother
Start with the honest version. If you are a small club with twenty five members, a Facebook group that everyone already uses, and no sponsors or facility hire, you may not need a website at all. A Google Business Profile with your address, photos and opening times costs nothing and covers the basics. Spend the money on nets or a mower.
If you take subs, run juniors, hire out facilities or sell sponsorship, a proper site earns its keep. On our pay monthly websites, a club typically lands on Essential at £79 a month plus VAT for up to ten pages, with a news blog, a gallery, FAQs, reviews, hosting, SSL, club email and the Nova editor included. Starter is £49 a month plus VAT for up to five pages, with the blog as a £10 option. Extra pages are £10 a month each, or five for £40. You pay the first three months up front to start, there is no setup fee and no contract, and you can cancel any month with a month's notice.
A club can also buy the site outright instead: Essential with up to ten pages is £1,788 as a one off, with hosting, support and the editor at £250 a year afterwards. Buying outright is a separate payment and costs the same later as it does at the start, so a club can rent first and buy when the funds are there.
If you want to see what your own page count comes to, price up your website and change the numbers until it looks like your club. If you are thinking about a members area with logins and gated content, read what drives the cost of a membership website first, because that is a different and more expensive thing than a club site with a joining page.
Frequently asked questions
Do we need a members only login area?
Usually not. Most of what clubs want to put behind a login (fixtures, policies, newsletters, AGM papers) is not sensitive, and hiding it just means fewer people read it. A login area is worth it when you host something genuinely private, such as personal contact lists. Otherwise a public page and an email list does the job for less.
Can we sell club kit on the site?
You can, but think about who posts the parcels. A small shop section is fine for ties, caps and club merchandise where a volunteer hands them over at the clubhouse. If you want real online ordering, our Shop Starter is £99 a month plus VAT for up to 25 products with 10 pages. Many clubs find a supplier's own kit shop simpler.
Who updates the site once it is live?
Whoever you choose. The Nova editor lets a committee member change words, prices, dates and photos without any technical knowledge, and content changes are unlimited and free. If you would rather send changes to us, email them over. The practical answer is to make sure at least two people on the committee can do it.
What happens to our old web address?
If the club controls the domain, it moves with you and nothing is lost. If it is registered to a former volunteer, you need their cooperation to transfer it, which is why getting it into a club email account matters before anyone falls out or moves away. Sort that out before you commission anything new.
Can the site be refreshed as the club changes?
Yes. A free redesign every year is included on our packages, which suits clubs that rebrand, merge sections or add a new facility. One design revision is included when the site is first built, and after that changes to words, photos and prices are unlimited and free.
Where this leaves your club
Get the joining page right, make the junior and safeguarding information easy to find, point clearly at whatever system holds your fixtures, give sponsors something visible, and keep the domain and logins in the club's name. Everything else is decoration.
RentAWeb builds and runs small business and club websites in the UK for a monthly fee, with hosting, SSL, email, the Nova editor and a yearly redesign included, no contract and a month's notice to cancel. All prices exclude VAT, and everything is done by phone, email and video from Grantham.
