Six weeks to play four matches. A diary.

I run a box league. Groups of five, everyone plays the other four in their box, six weeks to do it, top two go up and bottom two go down. Simple. I've run them at three clubs. It's the same at every one of them, so this time I kept a diary.

Week one. Boxes go up on the board and in the group chat. Thirty players, six boxes, sixty matches to play. Lots of thumbs-up emojis. Somebody says "can't wait!!". Matches played: none.

Week two. One match played. Box four, two retired teachers who live on the same road. They played on Tuesday morning and sent me the score before they'd left the court. I could have hugged them. Matches played: one.

Week three. I put a reminder in the group chat. Polite. "Halfway point coming up, don't leave it all to the end!" Nine people read it. Two people replied asking which box they were in. It's on the board. It's been on the board for three weeks. Matches played: three.

Week four. A man in box two tells me he's "been trying to get hold of" his opponent. I ask how. He says he sent a message. One message. On a Sunday. Matches played: five.

Week five. Somebody asks for an extension "because of half term". Half term is one week. The league is six. I say no. They say the other leagues they've played in gave extensions. I say this isn't the other leagues. Matches played: eight.

Week six, Monday to Wednesday. Nothing.

Week six, Thursday to Sunday. Every court booked. Matches being played at 7am. Scores arriving in the group chat at midnight with no names, just "6-3 6-4 I won". Won against who? A woman in box one plays three matches in one day and asks me if that's allowed. It is. I just wish she hadn't had to. Matches played by Sunday night: forty-one out of sixty.

Forty-one. Six weeks, and two thirds of it happened in the last four days.

And then the bit I really love. Nineteen unplayed matches, and everybody's got a reason, and every reason means it was the other person's fault, and I'm meant to decide who gets the walkover. I'm a tennis coach. I'm not a judge.

I've tried everything. Two-week windows (people play nothing for a week and a half instead). Four-week windows (three and a half). Deadlines halfway through (ignored). Points for playing early (nobody reads the rules).

I don't know what the answer is. I just know that next Monday the new boxes go up, everyone will put a thumbs-up on them, and I'll see most of them again in five weeks' time, at 7am, on a Saturday.