ClubManager Blog

Why I Built ClubManager

Squash court bookings box leagues ladders

The ‘paper age’:
I've always been passionate about participating in sport, in particular squash and other racquet sports. I have played in (and for) a number of clubs in different locations. I even founded a squash club within a company which centered around monthly box leagues. In terms of building an active club this was a huge success. However the running of it was very admin intensive taking 2-3 hours of spreadsheet and email work each month.

The ‘paperless age’:
That was 15 years ago. What really surprised me is that processes within clubs never really moved on from this. A slow embracing of technology seemed due to a number of factors, but undoubtedly the poor choice of software for clubs was a key one. Many were using paper-based systems, and some still are. As my IT career progressed I developed a burning desire to change things. I invested thousands of hours towards building a feature rich system to manage club facilities and internal activities. For a long time this meant setting my alarm for 5am daily to do a few hours work before my "real job", and taking every opportunity I could get to add in new features. In December 2010 the first iteration of ClubManager launched with the squash section of a major racquet club in Dublin, Ireland. Thankfully it was a huge success. Participation soared and membership more than doubled within 18 months. I haven''t looked back since.

The ClubManager Global Community:
At present there is a fast growing list of clubs using the system globally. The company has scaled also as we''ve onboarded some smart, enthusiastic and specialist people. We work closely with clubs from all over the world to ensure that our software continues to solve their problems, streamline their processes and help to generate revenue for them. I''m delighted to have played a big part in delivering a highly configurable system that is suitable for almost any club. I think as a product it achieves the feeling of a bespoke solution for every club but it accommodates this in a maintainable and scalable way. Success so far has been the culmination of a lot of hard work and is the realization of a dream. However I am still as excited as ever about using technology to innovate and push the boundaries of what can be achieved in clubs.