Division Groups

Some tournaments run the same levels across several age groups: U10 Gold, U10 Silver, U11 Gold, U11 Silver, and so on down to U16. Each of those is a real competition — its own fixtures, its own table — so each one has to be a division. That can leave you with twenty-one divisions in a single flat list.

Division groups add one container layer above your divisions. Visitors pick the age group first, then the level inside it. In your own panel, the board gains a filter so you can work on one age group at a time.

This is an advanced, optional layer. Most tournaments run a handful of divisions and have no use for it. Nothing about groups appears anywhere — not in your panel, not on your website — until you create some and switch the layer on.

Is it worth it for you?#

It's worth it when the same level names repeat across several groups. If your divisions are U10 Gold, U10 Silver, U11 Gold, U11 Silver…, the "U10" and "U11" part is doing the job of a group, and pulling it out means your visitors stop reading it twenty-one times.

It is not worth it if you have six divisions with six different names. One extra click to reach a list you could already see is a cost with no benefit.

Setting them up#

Division groups live on their own board, reached from the Division Groups button in the header of the Divisions page. There's no sidebar item — the layer stays out of the way until you go looking for it.

Create them one at a time#

Click New division group, type a name (e.g. U10), and press Add. Repeat for each one.

Or generate the whole grid at once#

Seven age groups by three levels is twenty-one divisions, and typing those by hand is an afternoon. In the New division group dialog, click Or generate several at once:

1. Division Groups — one name per line (U10, U11, U12…)
2. Levels — one per line (Gold, Silver, Bronze). Leave it empty to create one division per group.
3. Naming — the pattern for the divisions themselves. {group} {level} produces U10 Gold; {level} · {group} produces Gold · U10.
4. Format — optionally apply a saved format to every division it creates, so each one arrives with its phases and groups already built.

The preview tells you exactly how many divisions will be created before you press Generate.

Re-running it is safe. If you add U17 in March, type the full list again — anything that already exists is skipped, never duplicated and never overwritten. Your existing fixtures and results are untouched.

It refuses rather than half-finishes. If the run would take you past your plan's division limit, nothing is created at all and the message tells you the cap. You're never left working out which half of your tournament exists.

Filing divisions into groups#

The board shows a column per group, plus an Ungrouped tray at the top for divisions not filed yet.

• Drag a division from one column to another to file it.
• Drop it higher or lower inside a column to set the order visitors see.
• Drag it back to Ungrouped to unfile it.

Changes save the moment you drop — there's no save button.

You can also set a division's group from the division's own edit form, in the Division Group field. That field only appears once at least one group exists.

Renaming, reordering and removing groups#

Each column header carries the group's name (click to rename it), arrows to move the whole column left or right, and a remove button.

Removing a group never deletes divisions. Its divisions are released back into Ungrouped, exactly as they were, with their fixtures, results and teams intact. You're asked to confirm, and the confirmation says so.

Switching the layer on#

Creating groups and publishing them are two different decisions, so the board carries a Use division groups switch. It starts off.

• Off — everywhere shows one flat list of divisions, exactly as before. Your groups and everything filed into them are kept.
• On — visitors pick the group first, then the level inside it.

The line under the switch always tells you what the current setting actually means for your tournament.

It takes two groups before anything shows. One group holding everything is a drill-down to a single card, so with the switch on and only one group created, the layer still doesn't appear. Create a second and it appears on its own.

Turning the switch off is not the same as deleting your groups — it hides them. Switch it back on and everything is exactly where you left it. That's why the switch exists: without it, the only way to stop showing groups would be to delete them, which would throw away the filing along with the display.

What your visitors see#

With the layer on and more than one group:

• The home page shows a card per group instead of a card per division.
• Each group has its own page, listing its levels.
• The header menu collapses to one item per group, with its levels in the submenu.
• The division switcher splits in two on the matches, standings and participants pages — pick the group, then the level.

The group selector deliberately doesn't navigate anywhere on its own. A group has no fixtures, no table and no squad list of its own, so there's no "U10 matches" page to go to; choosing a group narrows the second selector, and the division selector is what takes you somewhere.

Divisions you left ungrouped still appear, below the group cards. If every division is ungrouped, the site falls back to the flat layout.

What to call them#

Not everyone says "division group". A youth festival runs age groups, a schools competition runs categories, a regional league runs sections or series.

Both boards carry a What you call them control in their header:

• On the Divisions board it names your divisions — Division, Age Group, Category, Group, Pool or Tier.
• On the Division Groups board it names the containers — Division Group, Age Group, Category, Section or Series.

Pick a word and it changes everywhere at once: page titles, filters, columns, the import template's column headings, the registration form, the emails your clubs receive, and your public website.

They're fixed lists rather than free text because the word has to be translated into every language your panel and website run in — a word you typed would stay English for a Spanish visitor.

You can set them independently, and usually should: a tournament whose divisions are Tiers naturally calls their container an Age Group.

Importing teams into grouped divisions#

Once groups exist, two of your divisions can legitimately share a name — Gold in U10 and Gold in U11. Your import sheet has to say which one it means.

Qualify the name in the division column. All of these work:

• U10 Gold
• U10/Gold
• U10 - Gold

A bare Gold still works whenever it's unambiguous — if only one division in the whole tournament is called Gold, that's the one you get.

If a bare name is ambiguous, the row is imported with no division and reported to you at the end of the import, by name. It is never guessed into one of the candidates: a visible gap you can fix in a minute is better than a team quietly filed in the wrong age group and discovered in week three.

The import template you download already qualifies its sample value whenever your tournament has duplicate division names, so the file teaches you the spelling that works.

Season clones#

When you start next season from this one, your division groups come across, with their divisions filed exactly as they were. An organiser running seven age groups this year is running them next year too.

What doesn't come across is the same as everywhere else: teams, matches, results and schedules.

Things division groups deliberately don't do#

• No group-level standings. Three levels stacked into one table would mean nothing — Gold and Bronze aren't playing each other.
• No cross-level play. A Gold team and a Silver team are in different competitions.
• No group-level venue restrictions. Venues are assigned per division, which already answers the question.

Next steps#

1. Create your groups, or generate the whole grid, from the Division Groups board
2. File your divisions into them by dragging
3. Set What you call them on both boards
4. Turn Use division groups on
5. Build each division's structure on the Structure page — each division is still its own independent competition