Football Fun Factory
Football Fun Factory is a UK and Ireland-based children’s football coaching franchise with a mission that goes beyond the pitch: using football as a vehicle for child development.
- Founded: Operating for several years with rapid franchise growth
- Current network: 100+ franchisees across the UK and Ireland
- Mission: Bring fun, inclusive football sessions to children right on their doorstep
Darryl Coakley
Senior Franchise Launch Specialist at Football Fun Factory
Darryl oversees the growth and success of new franchisees across the network. His role involves helping new partners identify the right venues, plan their community footprint, and build sustainable local programmes that thrive.
The challenge
Unlike many franchise models that operate from a single, fixed location, Football Fun Factory’s franchisees deliver sessions across multiple community venues—from sports halls and leisure centres to school pitches.
This unique model brings specific challenges:
- Venue dependency: Franchisees rely on multiple venues being available at the right times.
- Manual mapping: Identifying community hubs and potential catchment areas involved searching postcodes and creating hand-drawn maps.
- Limited data visibility: Evaluating the number of local schools, sports centres, and leisure facilities required time-consuming research.
As Darryl explains:
“Our franchisees are operating from a number of different venues. We needed a way to quickly see what the local community looks like—where the schools and sports centres are—without spending hours building maps by hand.”
The solution
Smappen allowed Football Fun Factory to combine its “bottom-up” approach of scouting local venues with a “top-down” view of community data.
Map local territories in seconds
By postcode or freehand drawing, creating a clear view of each franchisee’s community.
Analyse franchise metrics instantly
Including the number of primary schools, secondary schools, sports centres, and leisure facilities within each territory.
Speed up franchise launches
Saving hours of manual research and enabling more confident, data-driven decisions.
“Smappen has come in and really solved that. A lot of the legwork we were doing manually, Smappen does in an instant.”
This streamlined approach doesn’t just save time—it transforms early conversations with prospective franchisees.
“It’s enhanced the quality of those conversations. We can now push franchisees to build a community that works for them, faster than we ever could before.”
The results
Since implementing Smappen, Football Fun Factory has:
- Cut territory research time dramatically – Manual searches and hand-drawn maps are no longer needed.
- Improved franchisee onboarding – Clear, visual maps help new partners quickly understand their community and potential reach.
- Accelerated network growth – Better data and faster planning have made it easier to launch and support new territories.
The combination of visual clarity and instant data has become essential for building thriving local communities at scale.
Smappen according to Darryl
“Smappen has transformed the way we launch new franchisees. It saves us huge amounts of time, gives us instant insights, and lets us focus on what matters—helping our franchisees build the right community, faster.”
Darryl Coakley
Senior Franchise Launch Specialist at Football Fun Factory
