Setting up new club on Play-Cricket is a seven-step process that takes most new clubs between a few days and three weeks to complete, depending on how quickly ECB approves the registration. This Play-Cricket admin guide first time setup is written for secretaries and volunteers doing Play-Cricket new club registration for the first time and looking for a plain-English checklist rather than the ECB's own documentation. If you are setting up new club on Play-Cricket for the first time, work through each step in order and do not skip step 5 (the API key request), which is the one most new clubs miss.
What to gather before setting up on Play-Cricket
Before you touch the Play-Cricket registration form, gather the following for your Play-Cricket new club registration. Having them ready avoids a back-and-forth with ECB support and speeds up approval.
- The full name and address of your club ground
- The name and email address of the club secretary (this person will be the primary admin)
- The name and email address of a second site admin as backup
- Your league's name and season start date
- Your club's founding year and any previous league affiliations
The Play-Cricket new club registration form takes 30 to 60 minutes to complete. ECB approval typically takes 3 to 10 working days outside the peak March to April window.
Step 1: register the club on Play-Cricket
Go to the Play-Cricket website and look for the new club registration form. This is not the same as a club admin login, and for clubs doing Play-Cricket new club registration for the first time, this distinction causes the most confusion. There is a separate registration route for new clubs and it is not easy to find from the homepage.
The form asks for ground address, club history, league affiliation, and the contact details of the primary admin. Be precise with the ground address: this is what umpires and opposition clubs use for directions. Setting up new club on Play-Cricket correctly starts with getting this address right, because it cannot be changed by the admin without contacting ECB support.
For clubs starting a cricket club Play-Cricket for the first time, the most common mistake on the form is leaving the league affiliation blank. If your league has not confirmed your division, enter the nearest equivalent and update it once the handbook is published.
Once submitted, you receive an acknowledgement email. If ECB has not replied within 10 working days, check your spam folder and then email ECB Play-Cricket Support.
Step 2: set up your admin accounts on Play-Cricket
When ECB approves the club site, the primary admin receives an activation link. Follow it to set your password and create your Play-Cricket login. This Play-Cricket admin guide first time setup is the point where most new secretaries get confused because the activation email can look like a phishing attempt.
Immediately after activating, add a second site admin. Go to User Management, invite the second person by email, and set them as a site admin. The ECB expects each named admin to have their own account. Do not share login details between committee members.
The difference between a site admin and a team admin matters here. A site admin controls everything: all teams, all users, league registration, and club-level settings. A team admin only manages one specific team. Setting up new club on Play-Cricket with at least two site admins means the club is not left without access if one person is unavailable. When setting up new club on Play-Cricket for the first time, it is worth the extra five minutes to add the second admin immediately.
Step 3: add your teams and the season
Once the admin accounts are active, add each team your club runs. For most new clubs this is one senior team, but many clubs also add a second XI, a Sunday side, and junior sides. Setting up new club on Play-Cricket with all teams at this stage avoids having to re-enter season data later.
For each team you will need to specify the following:
- Team name as it appears in the league handbook
- Home ground (set during club registration, but you can assign a different default per team)
- Age group (senior, under-19, under-17, and so on)
- Home or away preference where relevant
- The league and division the team competes in
Add the season details for each team. The season start and end dates should match your league's published calendar. If your league has not published its calendar yet, add approximate dates and update them once the handbook arrives.
Step 4: register your players on Play-Cricket
Every player who will appear in results needs a Play-Cricket profile. The simplest route is to ask players to register themselves directly at play-cricket.com, then the admin links them to the correct team.
For clubs with many players, particularly junior sections, use the bulk upload spreadsheet template available in the Play-Cricket admin panel under the Players section. Setting up new club on Play-Cricket with all players registered before the first match means results can be recorded immediately without a last-minute registration rush.
Do not skip player registration. Without it, results cannot be recorded against individual players, which affects averages, milestone tracking, and any tool that pulls data from Play-Cricket.
Step 5: request your Play-Cricket API key
Setting up new club on Play-Cricket correctly means requesting your API key at this stage, not later. Clubs that skip this step find out about it when they try to connect a website widget or a social media tool and discover they have no way to authenticate.
Email ECB Play-Cricket Support and say that your club is newly registered and would like to request its ECB-issued Play-Cricket API key. Include your club name and the primary admin email address in the request. If this is the first time you are doing Play-Cricket admin guide first time setup for your club, include a note to that effect so the support team can prioritise your request. When you are setting up new club on Play-Cricket, this email should go out in week one, not after the season has started.
Turnaround is typically a few working days, but can be significantly longer during March and April when many clubs are setting up for a new season. Request the key as early as possible. The key does not expire and can be rotated at any time.
Step 6: connect third-party tools to Play-Cricket safely
Once you have your API key, you may want to connect Play-Cricket to other tools, such as a club website, a calendar feed, or a social media content tool like Boundary Social. Setting up new club on Play-Cricket with your API key active is the prerequisite for all of these connections. If you are setting up new club on Play-Cricket and wondering what comes next after the admin panel is configured, the API key is the bridge to everything external.
The critical rule is this: your API key must stay private to your club. Any tool you connect should store it encrypted and never expose it in client-side code or logs. If a tool asks you to share your key with them in plain text, that is a warning sign.
Boundary Social connects to Play-Cricket using your club's own ECB-issued API key. We store keys encrypted, never share them between clubs, and you can rotate the key at any time by requesting a new one from ECB Play-Cricket Support.
Step 7: the pre-season checklist
Before your first fixture is due to appear on Play-Cricket, work through this checklist. It catches the issues that cause problems on match day for clubs that are setting up new club on Play-Cricket for the first time.
- Both site admins can log in and navigate the admin panel without sharing credentials
- All teams have a season attached with correct start and end dates
- All players are registered and linked to the correct team
- The ground address is correct on both Play-Cricket and Google Maps
- The API key has been requested and you have a record of it stored safely
- Your league's fixture list has been uploaded or is scheduled for upload
- The club's Play-Cricket page is set to visible so opposition clubs and umpires can find it
Running through this list before the season starts means that when a captain asks why is our fixture not showing you can answer quickly rather than troubleshoot on the day.
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