Game Day Planning Guide for NZ Sports Clubs

It's twenty past one on a Saturday afternoon. The away team arrived fifteen minutes ago and nobody was there to greet them. The changing rooms are locked - the keyholder is running late because nobody confirmed he was needed today. There are no corner flags out. The nets aren't up. A parent is standing by the clubrooms asking whether there'll be a sausage sizzle, and the answer is nobody knows because the person who usually does it is away this weekend and didn't tell anyone.

The match kicks off at two-thirty. The rugby will probably be fine. But the experience around the rugby - the thing that determines whether that visiting parent brings their child back next season, whether the new family who moved to the area decides this club is for them, whether the local councillor who popped in goes away thinking this is a well-run organisation - that experience is already broken. And it didn't need to be.

Game day is the product. Everything else your committee does - the meetings, the grant applications, the sponsorship pitches, the hours spent on the competition website - is preparation for the hours when people actually experience your club. If game day is chaotic, none of that background work matters to the person standing on the sideline.

Why game day matters more than you think

Here's the thing that's easy to miss when you're deep in committee work: most people who encounter your club will never read your constitution, visit your website, or attend your AGM. They'll come to a game. That's their impression of the club - the whole thing, compressed into a few hours on a Saturday or a Tuesday evening.

Geoff Wilson makes this point in his book on running grassroots sports clubs (we've reviewed it here). He treats match day as a product to be designed, not an event that simply happens. Every touchpoint - the car park, the welcome, the changing rooms, the pitch, the food, the atmosphere, the post-match social - either builds the club's reputation or diminishes it. And you get to choose which, every single week.

The 15 minutes before kick-off and the 15 minutes after the final whistle matter more than the 80 minutes in the middle. Before the match is when people arrive, form their first impression, and decide whether they feel welcome. After the match is when connections happen - the handshake with the opposition, the conversation at the bar, the moment a parent says to their partner "this is a nice club, isn't it?"

You can't control whether your first five-eighth has a good game. You can control whether the nets are up when the opposition arrives.

The game day checklist

Every match should run off a checklist. Not because your volunteers aren't capable - they are - but because a checklist means the game day experience is consistent whether it's the president doing it or a parent who volunteered for the first time last week. Consistency is what turns a club from "sometimes it's great, sometimes it's a shambles" into "they always run things well."

Here's a template. Adapt it for your sport and your facilities.

Before the match (2 hours before kick-off)

Facilities:

• Open changing rooms and check they're clean - floors mopped, showers working, toilets stocked with paper
• Turn on heating or hot water if needed (winter fixtures - this one gets forgotten constantly)
• Unlock the clubrooms or kitchen
• Check first aid kit is stocked and accessible
• Put out the defibrillator if you have one (and you should - more on this later)

Ground:

• Check the playing surface - is it safe? Waterlogged pitches, frozen surfaces, broken glass, dog mess. If it's not safe, call it early. Don't wait until the referee arrives.
• Set up goals, nets, corner flags, captain's flags, boundary markers, sight screens - whatever your sport requires
• Mark out the pitch if that's your responsibility (some council grounds are marked by the parks team; many aren't)

Signage and welcome:

• Put up any sponsor signage or perimeter boards
• Display the fixture information - teams, kick-off time, match officials
• If you have a programme, have copies available

Equipment:

• Match ball(s) - inflated and checked
• Kit laid out in both changing rooms (home and away)
• Referee's changing room prepared with tea/coffee, biscuits, and match fee envelope
• PA system tested if you have one

One hour before kick-off

Hospitality:

• Get the food sorted. In New Zealand club culture, the sausage sizzle is an institution. If your club runs one on game day, have the BBQ fired up, the onions going, and the bread ready well before the first spectator arrives. For cricket, the afternoon tea is a formal part of the game and a point of genuine pride.
• Drinks ready - whether it's the bar opening, a coffee thermos, or a chilly bin of soft drinks. Something for people to hold while they stand on the sideline.
• Bar open if applicable - stock checked, float in the till, Duty Manager present and certificated.

People:

• Greet the away team when they arrive. This sounds small. It isn't. A warm welcome - "changing rooms are through here, tea and coffee in the clubrooms, bar's open after the match" - sets the tone for everything that follows.
• Greet the match officials. Offer them a cup of tea. Show them their changing room. Have the match fee ready. Referees talk to each other, and a club that looks after its officials gets looked after in return.
• Brief your volunteers. Who's on the gate? Who's running the BBQ? Who's doing the raffle? Who's got the first aid kit?

During the match

Sideline and spectator experience:

• Respect the referee. This means the club actively manages sideline behaviour - parents, coaches, spectators. Sideline abuse is one of the biggest threats to the volunteer referee workforce in New Zealand. Your club's culture is defined by what you tolerate on the sideline. If someone is screaming at the ref, a committee member needs to have a quiet word. Every time.
• Keep the food and drinks going throughout. Hot drinks at halftime are not optional in July.
• If you're running a raffle, sell tickets during the first half and draw at halftime. People leave after the final whistle - draw it too late and you lose your audience.

Administration:

• Record attendance if you can. Even a rough count. This data matters for grant applications, for demonstrating facility usage to the council, and for understanding your own club's health. A club that knows its average Saturday attendance is 85 people (including 30 under-16s) has a story to tell. A club that says "quite a lot of people come" doesn't.
• Take photos. One or two match action shots, a team photo, a shot of the crowd. These are your social media content, your sponsorship evidence, and your season's memories. Assign someone - even a teenager with a phone.

After the match

The post-match social:

This is where NZ club culture lives, and it's worth investing in properly. Whether it's the clubrooms bar, the pavilion, or the pub down the road, the post-match gathering is where players from both sides talk, where parents meet each other, where new members decide whether this club feels like home.

• Keep the bar open for at least an hour after the final whistle (or longer for cricket - the tea interval and the post-match drinks are both social occasions)
• Encourage players to stay. Some clubs have a simple rule: you don't leave until you've had one drink with the opposition. It costs nothing and it builds the kind of sporting culture that makes people want to be part of your club.
• Awards - player of the day, presented by the sponsor if you have one, or by the opposition captain. A small ritual that gives the afternoon a sense of occasion.

Pack down:

• Take down nets, flags, boundary markers
• Lock changing rooms after everyone's left - check for left-behind kit
• Clean the kitchen and BBQ area
• Lock up the clubrooms
• Report any damage or maintenance issues - don't leave it for Monday when nobody remembers the details

The volunteer question

Every item on that checklist needs a person responsible for it. Not "someone will do it" - a named person, confirmed before game day.

For most clubs, the game day volunteer roster needs four to six people beyond the players and coaches:

1. Ground setup - one or two people, arriving two hours early
2. BBQ/food - one or two people, arriving 90 minutes early
3. Welcome and game day coordination - one person, the point of contact for visiting teams and officials
4. Bar (if applicable) - one person with a current Duty Manager certificate
5. Pack down - two people staying after the match

That's it. Five or six volunteers. But here's where it goes wrong: if those five or six people are the same five or six people every week, they'll burn out by May. A rota that spreads the load across twenty volunteers, each doing one match in four, is far more sustainable than relying on the same faithful few every Saturday.

Be honest about the time commitment when you ask for volunteers. "We need someone from 12pm to 4:30pm on Saturdays, roughly once a month" is a clear ask that people can say yes to. "Can you help out on game days?" is vague, and vague asks either get ignored or lead to resentment when the reality is bigger than the volunteer expected.

Midweek evening fixtures

Tuesday and Wednesday evening games under floodlights are a different animal from Saturday afternoons. The light is going. The temperature is dropping. People are coming straight from work. And you've got maybe 90 minutes of usable light if your floods aren't up to standard.

The checklist is the same, but the timings compress. Setup needs to happen before dark, which in winter means someone needs to be at the ground by 4pm for a 7pm kick-off. Hot drinks matter even more - it's cold and dark and a cup of tea or coffee is the difference between spectators staying and spectators leaving at halftime.

Floodlighting is the single biggest constraint for midweek fixtures. If your lights don't meet the competition's lux requirements, you can't host evening matches - which means more away fixtures, less bar revenue, and less time for your members to experience the club on home turf. A floodlight upgrade is one of the best investments a club can make, and gaming trust grants often fund them. It should be on your facility plan.

Cricket: the all-day affair

If you're a cricket club, game day is a different proposition entirely. A Saturday club fixture can run from 11am to 6pm - sometimes later. That's seven hours of hospitality, not two. The afternoon tea interval is a formal part of the game and a genuine point of pride. Some clubs win matches they shouldn't because the opposition is still thinking about the homemade lemon slice at the other end.

The cricket tea deserves its own brief section because it's genuinely important to the culture:

• Sandwiches (egg, ham, cheese - nothing fancy, just fresh)
• Baking - homemade if possible, shop-bought if not, nobody's judging (they are, but politely)
• Fruit, biscuits, and - in some clubs - sausage rolls or pies in early season
• The urn. Always the urn.

The logistics of feeding 22 players plus umpires plus spectators at 3:30pm on a Saturday require planning. A rota of tea volunteers, a budget for supplies, and a kitchen that's been cleaned and stocked before the match starts. Some clubs ask each player's family to contribute to one tea per season. Others have a dedicated afternoon tea coordinator. Whatever system you use, the point is that it's a system - not something that gets figured out at 3:15pm when someone realises there's no bread.

Sideline behaviour and the referee crisis

We mentioned this above, but it deserves emphasis. Abuse of match officials at grassroots level is a serious problem across New Zealand sport. Rugby, football, netball, hockey - every code is dealing with a shortage of referees and umpires, and sideline behaviour is the number one reason people stop officiating.

This isn't just about compliance with your NSO's codes of conduct. It's about culture. A club where parents scream at the referee on a Saturday morning is a club that will struggle to recruit volunteers, attract new families, and retain young players. The experience on the sideline is part of the game day product. If it's hostile, people leave - quietly, without telling you why.

Your club's committee should have a named person responsible for sideline behaviour at home fixtures. Their job isn't to be a bouncer. It's to set the tone - greet parents, remind people of the club's code of conduct, and have a quiet conversation if someone crosses the line. Most of the time, a gentle "let's keep it positive, eh?" is all it takes. Occasionally, someone needs to be asked to leave. That's harder. But a club that won't do it is a club that's prioritising the comfort of one adult over the experience of every child on the field.

The defibrillator

Every sports club in New Zealand should have an automated external defibrillator (AED). Full stop. Cardiac arrests happen in sport - they're rare, but when they happen, the difference between having a defibrillator on site and not having one is measured in lives.

The Heart Foundation NZ provides guidance on AEDs for community organisations. Some regional sports trusts and gaming trusts fund AED purchases for clubs. If your club doesn't have one, look into funding options this week. If you do have one, make sure it's checked regularly, that multiple people know where it is, and that at least two or three volunteers have done a basic familiarisation session.

On game day, the defibrillator should be visible and accessible - not locked in a cupboard that only the president has the key to.

Making it consistent

The biggest difference between a well-run game day and a chaotic one isn't money or facilities. It's consistency. The clubs that run good game days do the same things every week, in the same order, with clear responsibilities assigned in advance.

That means three things:

A written checklist that lives in a shared location - not in someone's head. Print it. Laminate it. Stick it on the back of the changing room door. Every game day volunteer should know what needs doing and in what order.

A rota that's published before the season starts. Not "we'll sort it out week by week" - a named person for each role at each home fixture, published in March (or September for cricket), with enough notice for people to swap if they need to.

A debrief at the end of each month. Five minutes at the committee meeting: what went well on game days? What went wrong? What do we need to change? This isn't a performance review - it's a feedback loop that means the same problem doesn't happen three weeks in a row.

Further reading

Geoff Wilson's chapter on the game day experience is one of the best parts of his book. He treats every touchpoint as a design decision - car park to clubrooms, first whistle to last orders. We've reviewed the book here and it's worth reading for any committee member who wants to think about game day as something you plan, not something that just happens.

How TidyHQ helps with game day

The administrative side of game day - volunteer rosters, attendance tracking, communication with visiting teams - is exactly the kind of recurring operational work that eats committee time when it's done manually. TidyHQ's event management lets you set up each home fixture as a recurring event with volunteer roles attached. Members can sign up for specific game day duties through the platform, which means you're not spending Wednesday evenings sending WhatsApp messages trying to fill the BBQ rota.

For attendance tracking, TidyHQ's check-in tools work on a phone or tablet at the gate. You get real numbers - how many spectators, how many under-16s, how many visiting supporters - without a clipboard and a pen that's run out of ink. That data feeds directly into your grant applications, your sponsorship reports, and your conversations with the council about facility usage. It turns "we think about 80 people come on Saturdays" into "our average home attendance this season was 87, with 34 junior spectators per fixture." Numbers like that open doors.

FAQs

How early should we start setting up for a home fixture?

Two hours before kick-off for a standard Saturday match. That gives you time to open up, check the ground, set up goals and nets, get the BBQ going, and be ready to greet the away team when they arrive - which should be at least 45 minutes before kick-off. For midweek evening fixtures, you may need to start earlier to beat the fading light. For cricket, the setup begins in the morning for an afternoon start. The principle is the same: everything should be ready before the first visitor arrives, not cobbled together while they watch.

What if we don't have clubrooms or a pavilion?

Many clubs - particularly those on council reserves without permanent facilities - don't have clubrooms. That's fine. A folding table with a thermos of tea, a plate of biscuits, and a friendly face is still a welcome. A gazebo in the winter is a luxury but worth the investment if you can afford one. The point isn't the building - it's the effort to make people feel welcomed. Some of the best club cultures we've seen operate from a shipping container and a car boot. The worst operate from a $2 million facility where nobody talks to the opposition.

How do we handle safeguarding on game days with junior fixtures?

Every volunteer who has regular unsupervised contact with children or vulnerable adults should be vetted. Your club's child protection officer - you should have one, and they should be named and visible - is responsible for ensuring this. On game day specifically, make sure your child protection officer's contact details are displayed somewhere visible, that at least one qualified first aider is present, and that your club's code of conduct is clearly communicated to parents and spectators. Sport New Zealand's safeguarding resources provide comprehensive guidance for grassroots clubs. It's not bureaucracy for its own sake - it's the minimum standard of care your young players deserve.

References

• Sport New Zealand - Safeguarding
• Heart Foundation NZ - AEDs for Communities
• Regional Sports Trusts - Local club development and volunteer support
• Charities Services - Governance guidance for incorporated societies and charitable clubs
• Incorporated Societies Act 2022 - Governance obligations for NZ clubs
• Geoff Wilson Consultancy