The Other Starting XI: Eleven Unpaid Jobs That Keep Ayrshire Football Running
I've played long enough in Ayrshire to know the truth about Saturday: the eleven who walk out of the dressing room are the smallest part of the operation. The other team — the committee room XI — has been at it since Tuesday, and most of them will still be there at six on Saturday night, sweeping out a tea hut while we're already in the pub.
So here's my teamsheet for the people nobody claps. A player's view of the jobs, what they actually involve, and how clubs are scraping together bodies to fill them in 2026.
1. The Treasurer
Every club has one, and they're usually the calmest person in the building and the most worried. Chasing subs, paying the referees, reconciling the bar takings, filing to the taxman, and explaining to the manager, politely, that no, we can't buy new training tops in November. Recruitment is brutal — it's the role most often described as "a nightmare to fill" — because it needs somebody comfortable with spreadsheets and unbothered by awkward conversations. If your treasurer walked away, the club doesn't fold in a week. It folds in about a month, when the referee's invoice goes unpaid.
2. The Fixture Secretary
This is the one that touches everything. Booking the pitch, confirming the ref, telling the opposition where to park, moving fixtures when a cup run or a waterlogged park forces a reshuffle, and answering forty messages from players asking what time the bus is. In 2026 most of it happens on a phone, which means the role never really stops. Our club found its current fixture secretary through a parent who'd been doing something similar at youth level. That's usually how it goes — the job finds you.
3. The Groundsman (Or Woman)
Fork, roller, line marker, and a view on drainage that could fill a book. A lot of Ayrshire clubs share a council park, so our groundsman is part groundsman, part diplomat, part weather watcher. Lose them and you lose the small things first — the lines painted properly, the nets up, the corner flags found — and then the bigger ones.
4. The Kit Washer
Underrated. Genuinely. Twenty-three strips, plus warm-up tops, plus the physio's towels, washed and dried and back in the bag by Thursday. The current holder of this job at most clubs is somebody's mum or a retired player who wanted to stay involved. Doing it in a domestic machine, in winter, is a commitment. Doing it badly means a dressing room that smells like a bad decision.
5. The Grant Writer
This is the modern role, and it's become the difference between a club that improves and one that stands still. Floodlight upgrades, pitch drainage, new goals, community coaching sessions — none of it happens without somebody who can write a funding bid and produce the paperwork afterwards. Clubs increasingly look to members with any professional background in finance, education or the public sector. If you can write a clear two-page application, you are genuinely valuable to a semi-pro club in 2026.
6. The Tea Hut Crew
Saturday's economy runs through a hatch. Bacon rolls, soup, tea, and the raffle. It's also the club's front desk — where the committee hears about everything from a leaking changing room to a complaint about the car park. Nobody says it out loud, but the tea hut is where the club's reputation lives.
7. The Social Media Voice
Two posts a week minimum: team news, kick-off time, the result, and the inevitable postponement. It sounds trivial until a fixture gets switched to a 4G park an hour away and half the travelling support doesn't find out. In 2026 this role often falls to a player's partner or a student who fancies a bit of content work. Give them the login and a bit of trust and it transforms a club's presence.
8. The First Aider
Qualified, insured, and there every week without fail. Clubs cover the cost of the course, and it's one of the most straightforward volunteering routes in — a first aid certificate is useful everywhere, and clubs will bite your hand off. If they walked away, the game literally can't go ahead.
9. The Safeguarding Officer
Unseen, unglamorous, essential. Policies, checks, records, and being the person a parent can ring. It's a role that has become far more formal in recent years, and rightly so, but it needs somebody patient who'll keep the file up to date rather than do it in a panic the week before an inspection.
10. The Sponsorship and Hospitality Person
Boards round the pitch, match ball sponsors, the local garage that pays for the warm-up tops. This job is pure shoe leather and local relationships — the butcher, the builder, the pub. In a small Ayrshire town it works because people know people. It also means Saturday isn't a day off, because that's when the sponsors turn up and want showing round.
11. The Transport Organiser
Minibus booked, driver confirmed, fuel money sorted, and a text to everyone with the departure time in bold. Sounds small. Ask any team that's turned up to an away game two players short because nobody chased the stragglers.
How Clubs Are Finding People in 2026
The honest answer is: with difficulty, and by asking. Clubs no longer wait for a letter offering help. They ask parents at youth games, they ask lapsed players, they ask people who've just retired and want a reason to be out on a Saturday. The best recruitment line I've heard is simply, "you don't need to know football, you just need two hours."
How to Get Involved Without Overcommitting
You don't have to join a committee to help. Offer to run the social media for one month. Do the raffle once. Cover the tea hut for an away fixture. Buy a first aid course and offer your Saturdays. Ask a club what they're short of and you'll get a very long, slightly desperate list — then pick the one that fits your life. Nobody's expecting a lifetime appointment. They're expecting a bit of help, and they'll remember it.
Because here's the thing we players know and rarely say: if the committee room XI stopped turning up, we'd notice within a fortnight. There'd be no fixture, no ref, no kit, no tea, and no game. The least we can do is say their names out loud.
