What to spend the team kitty on
· 6 min read
A season of fines leaves you with somewhere between two hundred and a thousand pounds and a squad with strong opinions. Here is how to spend it without falling out.
The short answer
A team kitty is most commonly spent on the end of season night out, with larger pots going toward a tour, training kit or an awards night. The two rules that prevent arguments are deciding the destination before collecting any money, and spending it on something the whole squad shares rather than on individuals.
Under £200
- A proper end of season meal at a curry house, with the kitty covering the food and everyone paying for their own drinks.
- A set of match balls, which is the least glamorous and most appreciated purchase on this list.
- Twelve months of pitch hire for one extra training session a month.
- A trophy and a set of engraved medals for the awards night.
- A team photo, printed properly and framed for the clubhouse.
- A full first aid kit, replacing the one with three plasters and a bandage from 2019.
£200 to £500
- The classic: the Christmas do or end of season night out, food and the first round covered.
- A set of training tops with the club badge, which is the single most visible thing a kitty can buy.
- A day at the races, which suits a squad that has spent all season gambling fines anyway.
- Go karting, the one activity that reliably pulls in the players who skip the pub.
- Tickets to a professional game for the whole squad, coach included.
- A new set of nets and corner flags, if your pitch has been an embarrassment all year.
- An end of season awards night with a hired room, which turns the fines table into the entertainment.
£500 and up
- A weekend tour. Two nights somewhere cheap, one fixture, and the kitty covering the travel.
- A full new kit, which is the purchase that outlasts everything else on this list.
- Subsidising next season's subs for the whole squad, which quietly keeps your worst payers playing.
- A proper awards dinner with food, a room and a trophy for every category you can invent.
- A paid coaching course for one or two players who want to take badges.
- A defibrillator for the clubhouse, which several grassroots clubs have now bought from fines money.
- Splitting it with a local charity or a club junior section, and saying publicly that you did.
The two rules
Decide the destination before you collect a penny. A pot with a stated purpose gets paid into willingly, because everybody can picture what they are buying. A pot with no purpose becomes the thing the squad argues about in April, and it is always the people who paid least who have the strongest views.
Spend it on something shared. The moment a kitty buys something for one person, every contribution before it looks like a subsidy. Even a thoroughly deserved leaving present is better funded by a separate whip round than out of the fines pot.
What not to do with it
- Do not leave it in one person's personal account over a close season. Nobody suspects anything until they do.
- Do not roll it over twice. A kitty that never gets spent stops being money and starts being a grievance.
- Do not refund it. Working out who is owed what will take longer than the season did.
- Do not let the top of the fine table decide the spend. They have earned the opposite of a say.
Show the total all season
The spend is much easier to agree when everyone has watched the number go up. That is why Fine Club puts the pot on the front screen with the goal you set against it, so the squad can see exactly how close the night out is from about September onward. Free on iOS and Android.
Common questions
What do teams usually spend their fines money on?
The end of season night out is by far the most common, followed by training kit, a tour and an awards night. Clubs that raise more than five hundred pounds often put it toward a full kit or subsidised subs for the following season.
Who decides how the team kitty is spent?
Ideally the whole squad, with the destination agreed before any money is collected. Deciding at the end of the season is what causes arguments, because by then everyone has a different picture of what they were paying into.
Where should a team kitty be kept?
In a named club account if you have one, or with one trusted person who posts the balance regularly. What matters most is that the total is visible to the squad rather than known only to whoever is holding it.
Can you give team fines money to charity?
Yes, and plenty of clubs split the pot, keeping most for the night out and donating a share. Announcing it publicly tends to improve how willingly people pay in for the rest of the season.
Run your fines in the app, not a notes app
Fine Club keeps your rulebook, the pot and the leaderboard in one place, so nobody has to chase a pound by hand. Free on iOS and Android.