Organising a hockey team

Hockey teams depend on a goalkeeper turning up, a pitch booked for a fixed slot and a squad big enough for rolling substitutes. Here is what that involves, and how Squadable handles it.

What organising hockey involves

Squads, keepers and substitutes

A hockey side has eleven players on the pitch, one of them a goalkeeper. Substitutes can come on and off during the game, so a matchday squad is usually bigger than eleven. The goalkeeper is often the hardest place to fill, so it is worth knowing early whether your keeper is available.

Matches, training and costs

Club hockey is mostly league matches at the weekend and training on a booked artificial pitch during the week, with many clubs fielding several teams. Match fees and subs usually cover pitch hire and umpires, and the club has to collect them from every player, every week.

Side

11, including a goalkeeper

Live match

Four quarters

Session types

Match and Training

How Squadable handles hockey

Availability and the waiting list

• Create a club and add sessions as a Match, against an opponent with a score, or as Training.
• Players opt in or out from the app, the web or straight from the invite notification. Set a maximum number of players, and anyone after that joins the waiting list and is promoted automatically when a place opens.
• Mark players as injured with an expected return date. They are left out of auto team selection until they are fit.
• Parents add junior players as dependants and manage their availability from their own account.

Positions on a hockey pitch

Players choose preferred positions from goalkeeper, left back, centre back, sweeper, right back, left half, centre half, right half, left wing, centre forward and right wing. In simple mode the pitch view groups them as GK, DEF, MID and ATT. In professional mode you drag players onto a position on a hockey pitch graphic.

Pitch hire and match fees

Set a price per player and players pay by card, Apple Pay or Google Pay when they opt in. You receive the full price and players pay a service fee on top. Enter the pitch cost to see each player's share and how much has been collected. See how match fees work.

Balanced teams for training

For training games, auto team selection splits the players who are in into balanced teams using skill level, stamina and position preferences. You can move players between teams yourself and share the line-up as an image.

Live matches and statistics

• Run a live match over four quarters, with a clock for each quarter.
• Record goals with assists, green, yellow and red cards, substitutions and injuries. Members get a push notification for each goal.
• Club statistics include top scorers, top assists, and green, yellow and red cards.

Set up your team

Squadable is free for organisers and works on the web, iPhone and Android. For a quick split at training, the team picker needs no account.

Create a free account Try the team picker

Hockey questions