Fixture Maker & Tournament Schedule Maker
Enter your teams, pitches and playing hours, and this football fixture maker builds a complete tournament schedule — round robin groups, knockout rounds, pitch allocation and kick-off times — with no double-booked teams, pitches or referees.
Generate your fixture list now
Paste your teams, set your pitches and playing hours, and the schedule appears below instantly — no account, no email. Every match gets a pitch and a kick-off time, no team is double-booked, and the minimum rest gap is respected. Export to CSV/Excel, subscribe in a calendar app, or print it as a wallchart.
8 teams
| Kick-off | Pitch | Group | Round | Match |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 09:00 | Pitch 1 | — | 1 | Ashford Rovers v Hartley Juniors |
| 09:00 | Pitch 2 | — | 1 | Brookfield United v Greenhill Wanderers |
| 09:25 | Pitch 1 | — | 1 | Carlton Athletic v Fenwick Colts |
| 09:25 | Pitch 2 | — | 1 | Denby Town v Eastvale FC |
| 09:50 | Pitch 1 | — | 2 | Greenhill Wanderers v Ashford Rovers |
| 09:50 | Pitch 2 | — | 4 | Brookfield United v Hartley Juniors |
| 10:15 | Pitch 1 | — | 2 | Denby Town v Carlton Athletic |
| 10:15 | Pitch 2 | — | 7 | Eastvale FC v Fenwick Colts |
| 10:40 | Pitch 1 | — | 5 | Greenhill Wanderers v Hartley Juniors |
| 10:40 | Pitch 2 | — | 7 | Ashford Rovers v Brookfield United |
| 11:05 | Pitch 1 | — | 4 | Denby Town v Fenwick Colts |
| 11:05 | Pitch 2 | — | 5 | Eastvale FC v Carlton Athletic |
| 11:55 | Pitch 1 | — | 2 | Fenwick Colts v Hartley Juniors |
| 11:55 | Pitch 2 | — | 2 | Eastvale FC v Brookfield United |
| 12:20 | Pitch 1 | — | 4 | Carlton Athletic v Greenhill Wanderers |
| 12:20 | Pitch 2 | — | 5 | Ashford Rovers v Denby Town |
| 12:45 | Pitch 1 | — | 5 | Fenwick Colts v Brookfield United |
| 12:45 | Pitch 2 | — | 6 | Hartley Juniors v Eastvale FC |
| 13:10 | Pitch 1 | — | 6 | Carlton Athletic v Ashford Rovers |
| 13:10 | Pitch 2 | — | 7 | Denby Town v Greenhill Wanderers |
| 14:00 | Pitch 1 | — | 3 | Ashford Rovers v Fenwick Colts |
| 14:00 | Pitch 2 | — | 3 | Greenhill Wanderers v Eastvale FC |
| 14:25 | Pitch 1 | — | 3 | Hartley Juniors v Denby Town |
| 14:25 | Pitch 2 | — | 3 | Brookfield United v Carlton Athletic |
| 14:50 | Pitch 1 | — | 4 | Eastvale FC v Ashford Rovers |
| 14:50 | Pitch 2 | — | 6 | Greenhill Wanderers v Fenwick Colts |
| 15:15 | Pitch 1 | — | 6 | Brookfield United v Denby Town |
| 15:15 | Pitch 2 | — | 7 | Carlton Athletic v Hartley Juniors |
What an automatic fixture generator does
A fixture generator turns three inputs — your teams, your pitches and your playing window — into a finished match schedule. The hard part is not pairing the teams; it is placing those pairings into real time slots without breaking any of the constraints a tournament day imposes:
- No team plays two matches at the same time, or back-to-back without rest.
- No pitch hosts two matches in the same slot.
- No referee is assigned to overlapping fixtures.
- Age categories sharing a venue never collide on the same pitch.
- The last match finishes inside your booked hours.
Match counts by format
Before you pick a format, check it fits your day. These are the exact match counts a generator will produce:
| Format | Matches | Example (8 teams) | Team range |
|---|---|---|---|
| Single round robin | n × (n − 1) ÷ 2 | 28 matches | 3–10 |
| Double round robin | n × (n − 1) | 56 matches | 3–8 |
| Groups + knockout | group games + n − 1 | 12 + 7 = 19 matches | 8–64 |
| Single elimination | n − 1 | 7 matches | 4–128 |
| Double elimination | ≈ 2n − 2 | 14 matches | 8–32 |
A one-day cup on 3 pitches with 20-minute matches fits roughly 60–70 fixtures. If your format produces more than that, split into groups rather than extending the day.
How to generate your fixtures
- Add teams — type them in or paste a list; CSV and Excel import are supported for larger entries.
- Define pitches and hours — how many pitches, first kick-off, last finish, match length and the gap between slots.
- Choose a format — round robin, groups plus knockout, or straight elimination.
- Set constraints — minimum rest per team, blackout windows, referee availability.
- Generate — the scheduler returns a full fixture list with pitch and kick-off time on every match.
- Adjust and publish — drag any match to a new slot, then publish a public fixture and results page for teams and parents.
Fixture generator vs a spreadsheet
A spreadsheet is fine for a single group of four. It becomes difficult once you have several groups sharing pitches, because each change to one match cascades into the rest of the grid — moving a kick-off can create a rest-time breach two rounds later that is easy to miss by eye. A generator re-validates every constraint after each change, which is the practical difference on tournament morning when a pitch becomes unplayable and the day has to be rebuilt quickly.
Related tools
- Round robin generator — every team plays every team, 3 to 32 teams.
- Bracket maker — knockout brackets for 4 to 128 teams.
- Tournament draw creator — seeded pots and a fair, transparent draw.
- Budget template — cost the event before you schedule it.
Pricing
Scheduling is part of CupHelp's tournament platform, which also covers registration, payments, referees and live results. Plans start at €1 per team. See the full pricing page for current tiers and what each includes.
Frequently asked questions
How does an automatic fixture generator work?
You enter your teams, the pitches available and the hours you can play. The generator pairs teams according to the format you pick, then places each match into a pitch and time slot so that no team, pitch or referee is double-booked and every team gets its minimum rest between games.
Can it generate fixtures for 3 teams?
Yes. With 3 teams a single round robin produces 3 matches (A–B, A–C, B–C). Because one team sits out each round, most 3-team events play a double round robin of 6 matches so every side gets the same number of games.
How many matches will my tournament have?
In a round robin, matches = n × (n − 1) ÷ 2. Eight teams in one group is 28 matches; split into two groups of four it drops to 12 group matches plus knockouts. The generator shows the match count and total running time before you commit.
Can I export the fixture list?
Yes — every generated schedule exports to PDF as a printable wallchart, to Excel (.xlsx), and to iCal so each team can subscribe to its own match calendar.
Does it handle multiple age categories at the same time?
Yes. Each category is scheduled as its own competition, and the generator shares the pitch pool between them so categories never collide on the same pitch and time.
Can I edit fixtures after generating them?
Yes. Matches can be dragged to a different pitch or kick-off time, and the schedule is re-checked for clashes as you move them.
About the author
Peter co-founded CupHelp after years of organising youth football tournaments, and writes these guides from hands-on experience running cups and building the software clubs use to run them.
How we write these guides
Every guide on CupHelp is written by someone who organises football tournaments and builds the tooling for them, and reviewed by the team before publication. We revisit guides when pricing, formats or product behaviour change.
- Written from first-hand experience running tournaments, not outsourced to a generalist content writer.
- Match counts, formats and scheduling maths are checked against how the CupHelp scheduler actually behaves.
- Pricing shown here is kept in step with our pricing page.
- Spotted something wrong or out of date? Tell us and we'll correct it.
Reviewed by the CupHelp team before publication. Published 2026-04-12, last updated 2026-05-09. Read our editorial & corrections policy.