The cricket club treasurer’s guide to collecting match fees.

Why match fees go unpaid

Almost nobody refuses to pay a match fee. Fees go unpaid for boring, fixable reasons:

• Paying takes effort. Finding the sort code, opening a banking app and typing a reference is three steps too many after a day in the field.
• Nobody’s sure what they owe. Was it £10 or £12 for an away game? Did the friendly count?
• Cash disappears into a captain’s pocket, then a kitchen drawer, then nowhere.
• The records disagree. The spreadsheet, the bank statement and the captain’s memory all say different things.
• Nobody wants to ask. Chasing a teammate feels awkward, so it waits until it’s a big number.

Fix the effort and the records, and most of the chasing goes with them.

Cash, transfer or card: how they compare

There’s no single right answer. What works is offering players the easiest possible option, accepting cash from those who prefer it, and getting every payment onto one ledger. At Brookweald, about a third of 2026 match fees were still paid in cash at the ground, and that’s fine as long as it’s recorded.

A note on card fees

Card payments cost the club a processing fee. Compare it with the money lost to unpaid fees and the hours spent matching transfers, then check two things with any payment tool: does the money go into the club’s own account, and does the app take a percentage on top of the card processor’s fee? The subs and match fees guide works through the numbers.

A weekly routine that ends the chasing

The best treasurers don’t chase. They run a routine where chasing is rarely needed.

1. Charge against the team sheet

The eleven on the published team sheet are the eleven who owe. Set rates once at the start of the season (standard, home, away, junior, and zero for friendlies if the club agrees) and apply them automatically.

2. Request on the day

The best moment to ask is in the dressing room after the game, when phones are out and the match is fresh. A request on Wednesday competes with work, family and the next fixture.

3. Make paying one tap

Send each player a link that opens straight into Apple Pay or Google Pay: no login, no sort code, no reference to get wrong. For juniors, send it to a parent.

4. Mark cash on the spot

The captain marks cash paid before leaving the ground, on the same record as card payments, so the totals match without a Sunday-night reconciliation.

5. Review one board a week

Every Monday, look at one list: who owes what, across every team. One open fee gets a single friendly reminder. Three or more gets a bundled statement.

Clearing arrears before September

Even with a good routine some players fall behind. Clear it in season, while they’re still playing, not in October.

• Bundle it. Not seven reminders for seven matches: one statement with everything a player owes (match fees, subs instalments, a kit order) and one link that settles the lot.
• Set a club rule. Agree at the AGM that players over a set amount owed aren’t selected until they settle. Most clubs already say unpaid members can’t play, because the club’s insurance only covers members. Captains enforce it quietly at selection.
• Ask when players are already looking. At Brookweald, players opened the app after every game to check their MVP points, so the fee request was sitting right there.
• Know when to write it off. Agree a threshold with the committee, record the decision, and move on.

Keeping the books straight

• One ledger for every payment method, with the gross amount and any card fee shown separately.
• A record of who settled what and when, including waived fees and why they were waived.
• Monthly reconciliation against the bank, not one heroic session in October.
• An export at season end for the accounts and the AGM.

If your club is a Community Amateur Sports Club, check HMRC’s CASC guidance: subs and match fees are payments for membership and play, not donations.

How MVP Cricket handles it

MVP Cricket was built by a club treasurer to stop the chase. Captains request fees from the published team sheet at the right rate for each player. Players pay by Apple Pay, Google Pay or card from a link, with no login and no app needed. The money goes straight into the club’s own Stripe account and MVP Cricket never takes a percentage. Cash is marked on the spot, and the treasurer gets one owing board for the whole club, with one-tap reminders and bundled statements that share to WhatsApp.

Match fees are on the Club plan, £9.99 a month or £99 a year. Brookweald collected more than £7,000 on it in one season: read how. For the rest of the committee’s jobs, see how to run a village cricket club.

Questions treasurers ask

The Brookweald cash share is the club’s 2026 total from its MVP Cricket records; no individual payments are shown. MVP Cricket is the author’s product.