It is based on a similar system which at the time of writing (2015) has been running in Essex and East Anglia for the last twelve years. The system consists of three exchanges, one for senior men, one for youth and mini/midi teams and one for ladies and girls. The mens and youth exchanges have always attracted a large number of fixture requests although the Ladies version has never achieved the critical mass of users needed for it to really take off. It does however get some use and so we keep it on the system and we have included all three exchanges on the Somerset version.
We include a short and somewhat tongue in cheek statement form the author of the original version. In 2002 I made the fatal mistake of pointing out that the lack of a fixtures secretary was having an adverse effect on the playing success of Harlow Rugby Club. No sooner was my back turned than I found myself elected; I suspect most of you became fixtures secretaries in the same way. The next thing I discovered was that once your name got around you got bombarded with emails from other clubs sending to perhaps 50 or more clubs to set up one game. In any less polite community than rugby it would have been called SPAM. I was convinced that there must be a better way. A few weeks later I was watching an Eastern Counties Cup game with Ivor Smith, these days the secretary of Essex. We both agreed that a web based exchange may be a solution and I offered to write a program to provide one. Ivor offered to promote it through his Essex site and provided a lot of useful advice and encouragement. This was how the exchange was born. Dave Sharp