I recently discovered www.meetup.com, which is an innovative way to help people with similar interests to meet up with each other.
People can either join an existing meetup group or start their own. These groups could be about anything – photography, web development, etc. but obviously what I’m interested in is the sport angle for it.
We know from the research that many people are interested in playing sport with others, but not in the formal, competitive sports club environment. This provides them with a perfect way to do just that. And the other huge benefit of this site over others is that it already has a good-sized user base. I looked around London and found all kinds of groups near me.
I would suggest this could be used by sports development officers, alongside other search tools whenever they find someone who wants to play a sport which they can’t find a group for locally. And if nothing exists its a great way for someone to quickly and easily find interest in a new group. It could even be used by existing sports clubs to market themselves and get new members.