About Botfather

Built for the love of football, and for anyone tired of organising chaos every week.

Why Botfather Exists

Botfather is built by Jamie Sutherland as a passion project after years of dealing with the same weekly football admin headache: chasing replies, juggling reserves, and trying to work out who is actually showing up.

Where It Started

The idea goes back to the early 2000s. The original concept was called DeathStar, but the timing was wrong. Group chats on phones were not really a thing yet, and email-based coordination was clunky.

Even when app stores exploded and new tools appeared, most groups still drifted back to group chats. Once WhatsApp opened up access for integrations and became the go-to chat platform (here in the UK anyway), it finally became possible to build something useful directly where everyone already talks. That became Botfather.

What Good Looks Like

The goal is simple: keep game organisation lightweight, keep it in WhatsApp, and make life easier for whoever ends up being the default organiser.

If Botfather saves your group from one more 73-message "who's in?" thread, then the mission is working.

Thanks to the Original Testers

A huge thank you to the original testers from the East Calder and South Queensferry groups. You ran the hastily put together version that was coded over a few spare nights during Christmas 2023.

You put up with the early bugs, rough edges, and constant tweaks, and helped shape the core functionality that keeps Botfather simple and gets the job done. All while not mocking it too much for all it's faults.