Starting a league
A club name and an email address. No card, and no password.
Go to clayside.app/setup, type your club’s name and your email address, and your league is running a few seconds later at its own web address: yourclub.clayside.app. You are signed in as the owner on that device straight away. That address is yours from then on, so it is the one to post in the group.
Confirm your email first
A confirmation arrives within a minute of signing up. Tap the link in it, or type the six digits it gives you. It takes a few seconds, and it does two things: it proves the address is yours, so you can sign in from any other phone or laptop, and it is the only thing that keeps your league when the trial ends.
Confirming does not end the trial and does not start a payment. Nothing changes except that the bar at the top stops asking.
Nothing arrived? Check spam first. Then read the address on the bar at the top of the league, which shows what you typed: a typo there is invisible until you see it written down. If it is wrong, email hello@clayside.app and we will change it.
The trial, and what happens at the end of it
A new league gets everything Championship can do: every box, every player, promotion and relegation, the ladder, all of it. The trial runs for 14 days from the day you create the league. Nothing moves that date, and reminders go out three days before it, the day before, and on the day.
What happens on that day comes down to one thing, and it is whether you confirmed your email.
- Confirmed. The league carries on as One Box, free, for as long as you want it. Nothing is deleted. Every season, player and score stays exactly where it is, and boxes past the first go read-only rather than away.
- Not confirmed. You have those same 14 days to confirm the address. After that the league goes read-only for 7 days and is then deleted, database and all. Confirming at any point in those 21 days brings it back with everything still in it.
Picking a paid plan, during the trial or after it, stops the clock mattering at all. See Plans and limits.
Put it on your phone
Do this before you sign in. It is what stops iPhone Safari quietly signing you back out.
- Open the site link in Safari. It has to be Safari, because Chrome on iOS cannot install it. And if you tapped the link in WhatsApp, you are in its built-in browser: tap the share or ⋮ menu and choose Open in Safari first.
- Tap the Share button, the square with an arrow coming out of the top.
- Scroll down the list and tap Add to Home Screen.
- Tap Add. The icon appears with your other apps.
- Open it from that icon from now on, and sign in from inside it. The installed app keeps hold of your sign-in far better than a browser tab does.
- Open the site link in Chrome. If you tapped it in WhatsApp, tap the ⋮ menu and choose Open in Chrome first, because the built-in browser cannot install apps.
- Either tap the Add to home screen button in the site’s own toolbar, or use Chrome’s ⋮ menu → Add to Home screen / Install app.
- Confirm. The icon appears in your app drawer.
- Open the link in Chrome or Edge.
- Click the install icon in the address bar, a small screen with a downward arrow at the right-hand end. Or use the ⋮ menu → Cast, save and share → Install page as app.
- It opens in its own window and pins to your taskbar or dock.
On Safari for Mac: File → Add to Dock. A plain bookmark works fine on a computer too, since the week-long expiry is an iPhone problem.
Signed in already and not installed? A banner offers to walk you through this. Tap How on it.
Who does what
Everything else on this page makes more sense once these three are straight.
- League owner. Creates the league, creates each season (box count, format, points), rosters or delegates boxes, invites box admins and players, controls settings, and is the only one who can restore a cleared score or archive a season. There is always at least one, and there can be more than one.
- Box admin. Runs one or more specific boxes: edits that box’s player list, shares its player link, and can enter or approve scores in it at any time. They do not need the season to still be open the way a player does.
- Player. Claims their own name in a box (see Signing in) and from then on can submit their own match scores and confirm or reject scores an opponent has entered for them. Nothing else.
None of this needs a password, ever. Owners and box admins sign in with an emailed link; players sign in by tapping their name from a link posted in their box’s group.
Signing in
Different for each role, and none of it needs a password.
Owners and box admins
Tap sign in and enter your email. If that address has been made an owner or box admin, a one-time link arrives within seconds, valid for 15 minutes. No account exists until someone invites you this way; there is no self-serve sign-up for these roles.
On a brand new league whose email has never been confirmed, signing in with the address you gave at signup sends the confirmation instead. The same six digits do both jobs: they confirm the address and sign you in.
Been invited but never got the email? Check spam, and check it is the exact address you were invited with. The league owner can see and resend from the People screen.
Players
Your box admin posts one link per box in the group, and it is the same link all season. Tap it, tap your own name from the list, and you are in on that device. If you get signed out later, tap the same link again; it still works.
Opened the link inside WhatsApp’s own browser? You will see a warning, because sign-ins made there often do not stick. Use the ⋮ menu to open it in Safari or Chrome first, then claim your name there.
Moving to a second device
Signed in already and need the same account on another phone or a laptop? Use Use on another device in the tools row. It copies a one-hour, one-time link. Open it on the new device within the hour and it signs that device in as you, with no re-claiming needed.
Sessions otherwise last about six months before you would need to sign in again the normal way.
Running the league (owners)
Everything here lives behind the League console button, owner only.
Seasons
New season asks for a name, a start and an end date, how many boxes, a match format, and the points for a win, a loss with a set, a loss with none, and an unplayed match (see Points & format). Both dates are required. The end date is the day players stop being able to enter scores.
A season runs up to 14 weeks, and can start up to three months from today. Three months is the length we recommend: a box league works to a deadline, and that is what players turn out for. Past about fourteen weeks the last month is three people chasing each other and the table stops meaning much. Run a longer year as two or three seasons, which is what Roll over is for.
It starts as a draft, which means nobody but you can see or touch it. Roster the boxes, yourself or by handing boxes to admins, and the season’s own page carries a Take it live button that says what is left to do. It will not let you go live with no box that has two players in it, because there is no match to play. Taking a season live archives any other live season, which is usually what you want, and you can put it back to a draft afterwards if you went early.
An archived season stays viewable forever, and Reopen brings it back if you archived too early.
Roll over builds next season from this one’s final standings, using the promoted and relegated per box numbers in Settings: the top few go up, the bottom few go down, everyone else stays. Box 1 only sends players down and the bottom box only sends them up. It is on every paid plan, and not on One Box.
It arrives as a plan, not a decision. Drag players between boxes or tap a name to move it, add anyone who has joined, and sit out anyone who is away. Before you commit it tells you what it noticed: matches still unplayed, someone going down who never played a match, and if two players finished level on points at the promotion cut, which tie-break separated them. Once you have moved somebody it stops re-proposing over your work, so changing the up and down numbers is an explicit Re-propose. The new season is created as a draft for you to check, then take live.
People
Invite owners, box admins (assigned to specific box numbers), or generate a player link for a box. Owner and box-admin invites can go by email, in which case their address becomes their permanent sign-in from then on, or as a plain link if you would rather hand it over yourself. A link-only admin invite has no self-recovery if they lose it, since there is no email attached.
From here you can also see who has claimed which player slot, sign out someone’s devices without removing them, revoke anyone outright, and rotate a box’s player link if it has leaked or the season has moved on. Existing signed-in players are unaffected by a rotation; only the link itself changes.
A player link is only offered once its season is live. On a draft it would sign people in to a sheet they cannot use.
Members, History & Snapshot
Members is your master player list across every season. Rename someone, or merge two entries if the same person was added twice under slightly different spellings; their whole history moves with the merge.
History shows every score ever entered in a box, including corrections and anything cleared. Cleared scores are never really gone, and only the owner can Restore one.
Snapshot, in the tools row, downloads the entire league as one file. See Your data.
Enter a score
The bit that happens most often.
- Tap the cell where the two players cross on the sheet, or a row in Results to correct one already entered.
- Type the set scores, from the left-hand player’s side. The initials above each column say which is which. How many sets you are asked for depends on this season’s format (see Points & format).
- Extra boxes appear when needed. Enter a set as 7-6 and an optional tiebreak-loser’s-points box appears. Split one set each in a two-set format and a championship tiebreak becomes required, because otherwise nobody has won.
- Check the panel at the bottom. It spells out who won and what each player gets before you save.
- Save score.
If it queries your score
An unusual score, 8-6 say, tints amber with a note. It does not stop you, so save it anyway if that is genuinely what happened. The only things that actually block saving are a set tied at the same score, or a two-set format left at one set all with no championship tiebreak entered. In both cases there is truly no winner yet.
If the match didn’t finish
Under the score boxes there is a Match didn’t finish? line. It covers the two things that actually happen:
- Walkover: nobody played. There is no score to type. The winner gets the win, and the player who did not turn up scores the same as an unplayed match, which is nothing.
- Retired: it started and stopped, usually an injury. Enter the sets as they stood when it stopped, including the one it stopped in, then say who took it. The winner gets the win. The other player keeps the bonus if they had won a set, because they did win it.
Both show in Results and on the sheet as w/o and ret.
If a player enters it
A box admin’s entry is final immediately. A player’s own entry goes in as pending until their opponent confirms it, or it confirms itself automatically after a few days if nobody objects (the league owner sets how many, and the default is 3). Either player can also correct an already-confirmed score themselves; the old score stands until the opponent confirms the change.
Read the tables
Several views of the same box.
The Sheet
Every pairing in the box at a glance. Each row reads from that player’s side, so their wins are green and their defeats are red or amber. Every match shows up twice, once in each player’s row, but it is one fixture underneath. A diagonal-striped cell is awaiting confirmation, and the blocked-out diagonal is where a player would meet themselves.
- Green, won the match
- Amber, lost but won a set
- Red, lost without winning a set
On a phone the grid scrolls sideways and the names stay pinned to the left edge.
Standings
Bonus set counts matches lost after winning a set. Ties are settled by head to head first, then set difference, then game difference. Pending scores do not count until confirmed. Games and Sets columns are hidden on a phone; tap a player’s name for the detail, or turn a laptop on it. Copy as image renders the table as a picture, ready to paste straight into a group chat.
Still to play
Sorted by who owes the most matches. Tap a player to see exactly who they still have to play, then tap one of their opponents and it opens the score form for that match directly. Usually the fastest way in: someone posts a result in the group, tap their name, tap their opponent, type the score.
Results
Newest-first log of every confirmed and pending score. Pending rows carry a Confirm and Reject pair right there for whoever is entitled to act on them, meaning the opponent or a box admin.
Points & format
Both are set per season by the owner. What is below is the usual default.
| Result | Points |
|---|---|
| Won the match | 3 |
| Lost the match but won a set | 2 |
| Lost without winning a set | 1 |
| Did not play the match | 0 |
The exact numbers for the season you are viewing are always spelled out in the Standings footer, since an owner can change them when creating a season.
Match formats on offer
Pick the sport first and the format list narrows to that sport’s.
Tennis and padel
- Two sets + championship tiebreak (the usual default): split 1-1 and a 10-point tiebreak, won by two, settles it instead of a third set.
- Best of 3 full sets: split 1-1 and you actually play a third set.
- Best of 3, match tiebreak decider: plays the same as the first option (2 sets plus a 10-point breaker), and is offered under its own name for leagues that prefer that label.
- Single set or pro set to 8: one set, or one set to 8 games, settles it outright.
- Fast4: sets to 4 games with a tiebreak at 4-4, then a championship tiebreak. Built for a midweek evening.
- Two sets + tiebreak to 7: the usual default with a shorter decider.
Squash, badminton and pickleball
- Squash: best of 3 or best of 5, games to 11, won by two.
- Badminton: best of 3, games to 21, won by two, and 30 ends it whatever the margin.
- Pickleball: best of 3, games to 11, won by two.
On these the tables say Games and Points where a tennis league says Sets and Games. It is the same table; it uses the sport’s own words.
A recorded tiebreak set shows in proper notation, for example 7-6(5).
Doubles
Each box is singles or doubles, and one season can hold both: boxes 1 to 4 singles, boxes 5 and 6 doubles, if that is how your club runs. You choose when you set the box up, and it is fixed once the box exists, because every score in it was played that way.
In a doubles box a pair is one entry. They take one row in the table, play one match against each other pair, and share the points. Type both names when you set the box up. Any of the four players can enter a score, and either member of the other pair confirms it, though not the partner of whoever typed it.
Somebody can be in a singles box and a doubles box at the same time. That is normal and nothing warns you about it. Being in two boxes of the same kind still gets a warning, because that is usually a name typed into the wrong one.
Playing everyone twice
Each box can play everyone once or twice. On twice, every pairing meets two times: the cell on your row is one of them and the cell on their row is the return, and the Still to play list counts both.
You can switch a box to twice part-way through a season, which is what to do when a box finishes early with a month left. Going back to once only works while no meeting would be lost, so if both matches in a pairing have been played you have to clear one first.
The club ladder
A rating for every player that runs all year, beside the boxes. Premier and up.
The ladder is its own tab at the top of the page. It does not belong to a season: it carries on from one to the next, and archiving a season leaves it exactly as it is.
How a match gets on it
The same way a box match does. Arrange it between yourselves, then one of you records the score and the other confirms it. If nobody confirms it, it confirms itself after three days, the same as a box score.
A recorded score counts straight away. It moves both ratings the moment it goes in, and the row is shaded purple with the settled rating beside it until the other player agrees. That way the ladder is never three days behind the tennis, and nobody has to take an unconfirmed score on trust.
The league owner can record a match for any two players, confirmed on arrival, and can clear any score. Clearing one works the ratings out again from scratch, so a wrong score fixed today does not leave a mark on the ratings from last month.
Ratings, and who you can play
Everyone starts on 1200. Your first 3 matches are your placing matches: they move your rating further than later ones, so the ladder finds your level quickly, and you can play anyone at all while they last.
After that the ladder rates matches within 5 places of you, up or down. The owner can set that number to whatever suits the club. You can play whoever you like, of course; the range is about which matches the ladder counts.
Beating somebody above you is worth more than beating somebody below you, and losing to somebody below you costs more. A walkover moves half of what a played match would. A retirement is a real match and moves all of it.
Resting
After 90 days without a match a rating eases down by 15 points a month, and it never goes below the 1200 everybody started on. Both numbers are the owner’s to change, and resting can be switched off. Play one match and it stops.
It shows on the ladder as a resting chip, and on a player’s own page as a dotted stretch in their rating line, so a rating that has drifted down always says why.
Who is on it
Everybody the club puts in a box joins the ladder automatically. They sit under Yet to play until their first match, where they are not ranked and nothing chases them. The owner can take somebody off, and taking them off sticks: they are not added back the next time a season is built.
You can also type a name straight into the ladder, when you set it up or later under Ladder settings. That person joins the club as well as the ladder, so a club can run a ladder and no boxes at all. A name somebody already has puts that member on the ladder rather than making a second one.
One ladder per club, singles, and it can be any of the sports the app scores. The sport and the scoring are fixed once the ladder exists, because every rating on it was earned under them.
Plans and limits
Four plans a club can be on, and the difference between them is how many boxes it runs. What each one costs is on the pricing page.
| One Box | Division | Premier | Championship | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Boxes in a season | 1 | 3 | 10 | 16 |
| Players in a box | 12 | 16 | 16 | 16 |
| Box admins | 0 | 1 | 5 | 16 |
| League owners | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 |
| Promotion and relegation | no | yes | yes | yes |
| Career stats across seasons | no | yes | yes | yes |
| The club ladder | no | no | yes | yes |
| Everything else on this page | yes | yes | yes | yes |
Every sport, both singles and doubles, and every format, on every plan including the free one. What you buy is capacity, not features.
Ten league owners on every plan, free included. An owner can do anything you can. Name a second one before you need to: the commonest way a club loses access to its league is the person who set it up moving on, and it costs nothing to prevent.
One Box has no box admins, and that is not a missing feature. It runs a single box that you are already in, so there is nobody to appoint. A box admin runs one box's roster and scores without being able to touch the rest of the league, which only starts to mean something once there is a rest of the league.
One Box is free and stays free. It is not a countdown to anything: a club running a single box can use it for years without paying us a penny. A trial runs on Championship for its 14 days.
What a locked box is
A box your plan does not cover goes read-only. It is greyed but complete: every player, every score and every table is still there, still on the screen, and still in your snapshot. It just stops taking new scores. Nothing is ever deleted for not paying.
That is what you see if a season was built during the trial with four boxes and the league has since become One Box. Box 1 carries on, boxes 2 to 4 are frozen exactly as they were, and picking a paid plan unfreezes them the moment the Direct Debit is set up.
A ladder built during the trial works the same way: it stays on screen, complete and readable, and stops taking new matches until the club is on a plan that runs one.
A season with more boxes than your plan allows is not refused when you create it. It is created at the number you are allowed, and the rest stay locked.
Changing plan
Owner only, and from inside the league: the button on the bar at the top, or on a locked box. Both open the same screen, and it offers the next plan up from the one you are on.
Need more than sixteen boxes? That is a conversation with a person rather than a button. Email hello@clayside.app.
Paying and stopping
Direct Debit, monthly or yearly. No card details anywhere.
Premier is a Direct Debit, taken through GoCardless. Pick monthly or yearly, authorise the mandate with your bank on GoCardless’s own page, and come back to the league with the boxes unlocked. We never see your bank details.
Nothing is taken when you click. Starting the checkout and then closing the tab leaves nothing behind at all. The first payment goes out once the mandate is confirmed with your bank, which usually takes a few working days.
If a payment fails, we get in touch before anything changes. Your bank retries, and a league is not dropped over one bounced collection.
Cancelling
Cancel Premier is in the tools row at the bottom of the league, owner only. It stops the Direct Debit and drops the league back to One Box on the spot. Nothing is deleted: boxes past the first go read-only, everything is waiting if you come back, and you can set it up again whenever you like.
If the mandate ends at your bank’s end instead, the same thing happens. The league drops to One Box and keeps everything.
Your data
Where it is, how to get all of it out, and what read-only means.
Snapshot
Download snapshot, in the tools row, gives you the entire league as one file: every season, box, player, fixture and result, including corrections and cleared scores. Owner only. It works on every plan, it works while the league is read-only, and it is not a summary. Take one now and then, and take one before anything you might regret.
Read-only
Sometimes the whole league stops taking changes rather than one box. There are two reasons, and the bar at the top says which one it is.
- A trial that ran out without a confirmed email. Confirm it and the league reopens as One Box straight away. Do not leave it: after a week of read-only it is deleted.
- A hold we have put on the club. Get in touch and we will tell you why.
In both cases everything is still readable and the snapshot still downloads.
Where it lives
Your club has a database of its own, pinned to the EU, holding nothing but your league. It is not a row in a shared table alongside other clubs, so there is no query that reaches from one club to another. Deleting your league deletes that database.
What we collect and how long we keep it is in the privacy policy. The terms cover the rest.
Trying the live demo
If you landed here from the demo site, this is the section for you.
The demo is a public, shared sandbox league: real functionality, fake data, no setup. A banner across the top offers Try as owner, Try as box admin and Try as player. Tap any of them and you are signed in as that pre-made person immediately, with no email and nothing to type. Switch role replaces those buttons once you are signed in, so you can hop between perspectives.
- It is genuinely writable. Add players, enter scores, approve them, poke around every admin screen described on this page.
- It is shared: everyone trying the demo right now is looking at and editing the same league, like a whiteboard.
- It resets itself every day, so nothing you do there is meant to last. Do not use it for anything real.
Convinced? A league of your own takes a club name and an email address, and it is free for a fortnight with no card. See Starting a league.