How to make a football club website — free, step-by-step

Why your club needs its own site (not just Facebook)

Plenty of clubs run entirely on a Facebook page and a fistful of WhatsApp groups, and tell themselves that's a website. It isn't — and the gap shows up at exactly the wrong moments. Here's the problem with leaning on social alone:

• Nobody can find you. A parent Googling “[your town] under-9s football” will not surface your Facebook page. They'll find the club one town over that does have a site.
• It isn't a record. Your safeguarding policy, your fixture list, last season's photos — all of it slides down the feed and vanishes. The FA, a new sponsor, or a curious parent has nowhere to look it up.
• It isn't yours. One algorithm change or account suspension and your club's entire online presence is gone. You don't own the platform, the audience, or the data.

Social media and WhatsApp are still useful — they're brilliant for live, this-week shouts. They're just not a substitute for a permanent home on the web. The right split is to use each channel for what it's good at: read our social media for clubs guide for what to post where, and the club comms playbook for keeping WhatsApp, email and the website pulling in the same direction. Your website is the anchor; everything else points back to it.

What every club website needs

Don't overthink the structure. After the homepage, a grassroots or non-league club site needs eight things — and most clubs still have only these eight years later:

1. Home — who you are, where you play, and a clear “how do I join” in the first screenful.
2. Teams & squads — one page per age group or team, with the coach's name, training time and venue. This is the highest-traffic part of most club sites.
3. Fixtures & results — even a hand-updated “this Saturday” block beats nothing. Many clubs also link out to their league's portal for the full table.
4. News & match reports — the ongoing heartbeat of the club. Grab our match report template so writing them takes five minutes.
5. Photos — matchdays, presentation nights, kit launches. Drives more clicks than anything else on the site.
6. Shop — kit, scarves, mugs. Far easier than chasing cash, and it doubles as free branding.
7. Sponsors — a logo wall and a thank-you. Sponsors love being able to point their customers at it.
8. Contact & safeguarding — a named person to reach, and (if you run youth teams) your Welfare Officer, policies and reporting routes. Safeguarding is non-negotiable for youth football.

That's the whole list. If a feature isn't on it, you almost certainly don't need it on day one. For a deeper look at what belongs on a club site — and what to leave off — see the pillar football club website guide.

The step-by-step build (free)

Here's the order that works. Done in one sitting, this is an afternoon — not a project. You won't need to write a line of code.

1. Choose a builder. Pick something made for football clubs rather than a blank-canvas site builder, so the team pages, fixtures and safeguarding sections come ready-shaped. GrassrootsFC is a free football club website builder built specifically for UK grassroots and youth clubs — sign up, verify your email, and you've got a live site on a free subdomain like yourclub.grassrootsfc.co.uk in minutes, no card required.
2. Add your badge & colours. Upload the club crest and set your two main colours. This is the single biggest “it looks like ours” moment — do it first so everything else inherits the look.
3. Build your team pages. Create one page per squad. Give each a short paragraph — age group, training time, training venue, the coach's name, and a sentence on the spirit of the team. Aim for around 150 real words per page; it helps families and it helps Google. Where you add players, use profiles with parental consent built in rather than posting children's full names and photos unprotected.
4. Add fixtures & events. Drop your next few fixtures into the calendar, plus any club events — presentation night, the summer tournament, the AGM. Keep it light; you can refresh the “this weekend” block each Thursday in two minutes.
5. Post your first news item. A welcome post or a match report gets the site looking alive from day one. An empty news feed says “abandoned”; one post says “running club”.
6. Set up the shop & sponsors page. Add a couple of items to the shop (card payments run through Stripe) even if it's just a scarf and a mug, and put your sponsors' logos on the sponsors page with a line of thanks. Both take ten minutes and both pay for themselves.
7. Publish your safeguarding page. If you have youth teams this is essential, not optional. List your Welfare Officer, link your policies, and spell out how to raise a concern. Use our safeguarding policy template if you're starting from scratch.
8. Decide on a custom domain. A free subdomain is genuinely fine to launch with. When you're ready for yourclub.co.uk, register it through any registrar (roughly £9 a year) and point it at the site. On GrassrootsFC a custom domain is included on Pro and available as an add-on on the Free and Club plans.
9. Go live & share it. Hit publish, then push the link everywhere — the team WhatsApp groups, your Facebook page, the league's contact list, the club's email signature. Ask your league and your local park's page to link to you; a couple of local links do more for being found than any amount of tinkering.

Free vs paid — what you actually pay for

A free tier is enough for most clubs in their first one to three seasons. It covers the eight essentials above — website, team pages, fixtures, news, photos, shop, sponsors and safeguarding — on a free subdomain. You'd move to a paid plan when one of these becomes true:

• You want your own domain. yourclub.co.uk looks more credible to families and sponsors — included on Pro, an add-on otherwise.
• You need to email members regularly. Newsletters, group segments and member emails matter once you're talking to more than a handful of parents each month.
• You're outgrowing storage or want a polished look. Paid plans lift storage (Pro gives you 30 GB) and let you smarten up the design for sponsors.

On GrassrootsFC that's Free at £0, Club at £8/mo, and Pro at £15/mo — and the whole site, free tier included, installs as an app on a phone's home screen (a PWA), so parents get the website without an app store. There's a Direct Debit subs tool (Collections) coming soon and rolling out to all plans including Free, but don't build your plans around it yet. For the full breakdown of where free runs out, see the football club website pillar guide.

Common mistakes to avoid

• Waiting until it's “perfect”. A live site with eight tidy pages beats a beautiful one that never ships. Launch, then improve.
• Paying for a custom build. A bespoke WordPress site runs into four figures and breaks the day the volunteer who built it moves on. Use a platform.
• Putting children's details up unprotected. Never post full names plus photos of juniors without consent. Use player profiles with parental consent built in — see our guide to junior football photography permissions.
• Hiding the “join” path. The single most common visitor wants to know how to get their child into your team. Make that obvious on the homepage.
• Letting it go stale. An out-of-date fixture list or a 2024 news post on top reads worse than no site. Five minutes a week keeps it honest.
• One person holding all the keys. Make sure at least two committee members can log in and edit. Clubs lose their site when the only admin walks away.

FAQ

Do I really need a website if we already have Facebook?

Yes. Facebook is great for live announcements but it's not searchable, it's not a permanent record, and it isn't yours. A website is where new families find you and where your policies and history live. Run both — the site is the anchor, social is the megaphone.

How much does it cost to make a football club website?

It can cost nothing. A free tier covers the eight essentials on a subdomain. You only pay when you want your own domain, regular member emails, more storage or a more polished design. On GrassrootsFC that's Free £0, Club £8/mo or Pro £15/mo.

How long does it take to build?

An afternoon. Sign-up to a live site is a few minutes; adding your badge, team pages, a fixture or two and a first news post is the rest of the sitting. You don't need any coding or design skills.

Can I use my own domain like ourclub.co.uk?

Yes. Register a .co.uk through any registrar for around £9 a year and point it at your site. On GrassrootsFC a custom domain is included on Pro and available as an add-on on the Free and Club plans. Starting on the free subdomain and upgrading later is perfectly fine.

What about taking payments and registrations?

An online shop with card payments via Stripe is built in, so kit and merchandise sales work from day one. A Direct Debit subscriptions tool for membership fees (Collections) is in development and rolling out to all plans, including Free — useful to know it's coming, but plan around the shop and manual subs for now.

Is it safe for youth and junior football?

It's designed for it. Player profiles include parental consent, you get a dedicated safeguarding page, and privacy is the default rather than an upsell. Pair that with the safeguarding policy template and you're covered for the basics — check specifics with your county FA.