Warwick Juniors FC coach explains how Matchday's payment system has made a difference

As a club, Warwick Juniors have been going for 20 years now and we have 40 teams for boys and girls from U8s right up to U15s, as well as a Saturday morning academy for kids aged 4-7.

We’re a community club and we try to do the best for the parents and the kids, so when we found that more and more people didn’t want to use cash to pay match fees and we didn’t have a way of setting up direct debits, we decided to trial the Matchday app and payments via PayPal.

And it’s been superb. It’s allowed us to get away from the cash payments which people didn’t want and it’s taken away the element of each team’s manager worrying about chasing up for money and not having to go around to see the parents before a game.

It became a reason why people didn’t want to do the managing or coaching, because the admin side could often take over when you just want to get the kids out there playing.

Now, the app has taken away all of that completely and it allows the managers to get on with coaching their team before the game – it feels like we’ve got our matchday back!

All of the parents have bought into it, they like it because it’s so straightforward and no-one needs to bother going to get cash out on the morning of a game. It’s all done after the game, I send out the reminder and then get back confirmation of who’s paid which saves me and the other managers so much time in admin.

There’s also been a small financial boost, as when we were using a cash system, it often used to happen when missed payments became lost.

Sometimes, people might only have a £20 note with no change, or then forget to send money the following week and before you know it, you’re down. Now, it just shows up and you can press a reminder again.

So it’s definitely been a worthwhile exercise for us as a club, and we’re looking forward to using it again going into the new season.