IrishTimes feature

Cheap texts give managers a sporting chance

SPORT-TEXT.COM: A LIFE-LONG GAA player and committee member has devised an aid for hassled team managers who are trying to keep in contact with large squads.

Last year, as the recession took hold, Richard Butler realised that the cost of making endless calls and sending texts was putting team mangers and their clubs under pressure.

His solution is a mobile-phone-based text system which is not reliant on a computer. “There are some other systems out there but they are reliant on the internet and there are many, many parts of the country where the internet connection is poor: without broadband and such systems simply won’t work.

“When I was involved in the managerial side, I saw communication as a big problem. If a match was cancelled you had to notify all the players and if you weren’t near a computer, you couldn’t use a web-based system. Using your mobile could cost a huge amount after a while.”

Butler started researching his idea, which he calls Sport-Text, at the start of 2008 and spoke to administrators in other GAA, soccer and rugby clubs. “I found that there were lots of people using their own phones to make arrangements for teams and there was frustration at the costs.”

For Butler’s service, texts to less than 50 people cost €1. There is also an annual registration fee of €50. “To sign up, all we need is a list of numbers for players. The manager is given a password and whenever he wants to send out a message he just contacts us, one call, and we send it out”.

The company won a place on the Enterprise Ireland-backed Genesis programme and started signing up teams in May. Butler won’t say how many teams have signed up – “we are still in the roll-out phase” – but says they include the Cork County board and a number of schools. “The feedback has been very positive, particularly with regard to its simplicity.”