There's a manual method any admin can do today, and an API-key method that handles reschedules automatically. This post walks through both.
Why do clubs need a Play-Cricket fixtures CSV at all?
Reason 1. The club website. Your Play-Cricket page works, but it doesn't match your brand. Most clubs want fixtures on their own site, in their own colours.
Reason 2. Calendar subscriptions. Players and parents want fixtures in Google Calendar or Apple Calendar.
Reason 3. Match-day graphics. Fixture graphics are 80% the same fields every week. A CSV feeds the templating tool.
Method 1: manual export from the Play-Cricket admin view
Who this is for: any site admin who needs a one-off snapshot at season start. No API key required.
- Log in to Play-Cricket as a site administrator. Go to
your-club.play-cricket.com/admin. - Navigate to Fixtures. From the admin sidebar, pick Fixtures.
- Filter by team and season. Pick the team and the current season.
- Switch to Print view. Use the Print or List option.
- Select all and copy. Cmd-A / Ctrl-A then Cmd-C / Ctrl-C.
- Paste into Google Sheets or Excel.
- Tidy the columns. Recommended columns: date, start_time, opposition, venue, format, home_or_away, competition.
- Save as CSV. File → Download → CSV in Google Sheets.
What goes wrong with the manual route
- Reschedules. The most common reason fixtures move is rain, usually with three days' notice. Your CSV is now stale.
- Late-added cup fixtures. Cup draws happen mid-season. Your CSV has a gap.
- Multiple teams. If your club has six teams, that's six exports.
- Junior fixtures. Junior schedules are notoriously fluid. Manual CSVs almost never survive a junior season intact.
Method 2: automatic export via your club's Play-Cricket API key
Who this is for: clubs that want fixtures kept current automatically (on the website, in calendars, in graphics tools) without manual intervention every time the league shuffles.
What you need first
- Your club's ECB-issued Play-Cricket API key. Request from ECB Play-Cricket Support. In our experience, turnaround is typically a few working days, with longer waits during March and April when many clubs are requesting access at the same time.
- A tool that knows how to call the Play-Cricket API. Either a custom script or a vendor like Boundary Social.
- A place to put the CSV. A club website folder, Google Drive, wherever your downstream tools will pick it up.
What the tool must do to be compliant
- Use your club's own key, never a shared "platform key"
- Store the key encrypted at rest and in transit
- Never expose the key in client-side JavaScript or in logs
- Let your secretary rotate the key without re-onboarding the whole club
Manual vs API: which one should your club actually use?
| Factor | Manual CSV | API-key CSV |
|---|---|---|
| Setup time | 10 to 15 min per team | 1 hour once, then automatic |
| Ongoing effort | Re-export after every change | None |
| Handles reschedules | No | Yes |
| Handles late cup fixtures | No | Yes |
| Multi-team scaling | Painful | Linear |
| Requires ECB API key | No | Yes |
| Recommended for | One-off start-of-season | Whole-season operation |
In our experience, clubs typically start with the manual export and switch to the API method once the league starts rescheduling fixtures mid-season.
What to do with the CSV once you've got it
Win 1. Club website fixtures table. Drop the CSV into a SportsEvent-schema HTML table on your club site.
Win 2. Live calendar feed. Turn the CSV into an iCal feed. Full walk-through: Play-Cricket to Google Calendar sync.
Win 3. Fixture graphic templates. Feed the CSV into a templating tool. Either your own Canva workflow, or Boundary Social's match-day graphics.
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