Who are we and what is Pitchbooking?

If you’re here, the chances are you like to get out and play sport in your local area.

You want a good place to play that’s easy to access. We’re right there with you. It’s not such a big ask, but we’ve been grinding our teeth for years at the inconvenience of booking good sports facilities. Here’s who we are and the solution we’ve come up with.

Our Story

We (Chris, Fearghal and Shea) are schoolmates from Lurgan (Northern Ireland), typically obsessed with football, among other things, and loving to kick a ball around wherever we could find space.

There’s only so long you can mix it with the traffic in your neighbourhood, so we started taking our skills out on the local 5-a-side circuits. Since then, we’ve trawled our way through just about every league and facility going in our home town.

It’s a been a tale of defeat and victory (but mainly defeat). We’re still waiting for the scouts to get in touch. On the positive side, that’s left us with plenty of time to engage with, and think about, local sport and the processes around it. Friendly or competitive, we love to play, and we think it could be much easier for people in the community to access good facilities and get active.

So, what’s the problem?

You know how it goes.

You search for a local facility, ring up and get the answerphone. A few messages later and someone finally calls back: “Sorry pal… We only take bookings at the start of the month. Yeah… Janet sorts out the bookings, but she’ll only take cheques.”

Great.

You’re not about to give up. Another pitch, and this time you get through to a receptionist who signs you up for that evening. Success…

And so there you are, warming up your rabona on the sideline, when another group strolls on ahead of you. “Yeah… sorry, nothing we can do. Tracy’s girls always play on Tuesday nights. Mike on reception is new and didn’t know. Nothing to be done.”

And so it goes on…

Our goal

Above all, we want to increase sports participation in local communities; to achieve this, we’re trying to make the process of booking facilities as easy as possible for players and owners.

We’ve trudged through more answerphone messages, sign-up sheets, payment problems and double bookings than we can count. It seems absurd. You can book a holiday on your phone in minutes, but it takes an hour of phoning and/or form-filling just to arrange a place to play.

An active community is happier and healthier, but, to get out and play, people need high-quality facilities that are easy to use. When more people play, local facilities are better funded and able to develop; we want to help create this upwards spiral.

Drawing on our experience and contacts, we’ve come up with an on-line platform that simplifies the process of booking a pitch on both sides.

The Pitchbooking solution

For players

Head to pitchbooking.com, search through a wide range of sports facilities to find the right option for you, pick a time, pay… and that’s it; you’re ready to go.

All facilities have profiles with pictures and relevant information. The process is the same for all pitches. No double bookings, no phone calls, no outdated payment methods. Book any time of day or night. Just click and play.

For owners

Pitchbooking can relieve the considerable administrative burden of managing bookings and make facilities more accessible and profitable. Working with Oxford City Council, we have a proven record of efficiently increasing usage. For more detailed information on our solution, please look here.