The OpenPlay Story

Everyone loves a story and ours is a lesson for any aspiring sports team managers.

OpenPlay was the birth child of Founder Sam. After being forcefully appointed as Head Coach of the Battersea Lions U15 Boys Football Team (due to a lack of volunteers), he had the arduous task of finding football pitches near Wandsworth in South London.

The Battersea Lions compete in the prestigious Tanbridge League Division D and he needed to find a local 11-a-side grass football pitch for weekend matches and a floodlit training pitch for midweek.

After greeting his players for the first time on a chilly afternoon in a barren corner of Wandsworth Common, South West London, it became apparent that finding a place to train and play football was no easy task.

Matches had historically taken place in Raynes Park, several miles away, but all the players lived in the Clapham and Wandsworth area, most with little access to transport. So this situation was hopeless.

However finding an alternative venue proved to be a nightmare. The information on the majority of sports facility websites was often ambiguous, hidden and in general out of date. Comparing prices was laborious to say the least and he spent hours on the phone discussing the various prices, facilities and booking options. No one seemed willing to pick up the phone and half the time any numbers he rang proved fruitless. Furthermore when he did finally book a pitch, the venue managed to double book and dutifully cancelled the booking with less than 24 hours before kick-off.

So OpenPlay was created to help prevent others from having to go through this painstaking process. It allows users to easily find all the relevant details about UK sports facilities and ultimately book them online, with minimum fuss.

As for the Battersea Lions U15, well under the helm of their inept Manager, their record wasn't pretty:

Tanbridge U15 D Final League Table 2010-2011

You'll see that the Battersea Lions were firmly rooted at the bottom of the table. The worst loss was a spirited 19-3 home drumming vs the 'Ex Hurricane Blues' (having already been annihilated 14-0 away). The best result of the season was a famous 3-1 loss...

However, the above doesn't include the 17-1 thumping received in the League Cup vs Croydon Athletic...

Overall record

Played 23, Won 0 Drawn 0 Lost 23. Goals for 18, Goals against...168.

Suffice to say we've told Sam to stick to his day job of making it easier to find and book sports facilities and leave the football management to someone else...

Benefits of OpenPlay

Below are some of the advantages of OpenPlay:

Save Time & Energy

Take the hassle out of finding your nearest tennis court, squash court or 11-a-side football pitch. With OpenPlay you can quickly find the information you want saving numerous phone calls and time spent trawling search engines.

Book in a Few Clicks

We've created a powerful booking experience to enable you to book our registered facilities in a few clicks. We've tried to remove unnecessary parts of the process to make your life as easy as possible.

Player Finder

We've integrated the booking process with our unique player finder to help alleviate the headache of not having enough players. It also works the other way round, find games needing players in your area.

Rate & Read Reviews

OpenPlay allows users to say what they really think about all the UK's sports facilities, good and bad. Constructive feedback serves to inform others and help the facilities improve.