I’ve worked with grassroots teams for years, so I know the gap between wanting useful video analysis and having the time, budget or tech skills to produce it. Building a simple video-tagging workflow doesn’t need specialist kit or months of learning — it needs a clear plan, a manageable tagging system, and tools that match the scale of your club. Below I walk you through a practical workflow I use with local football and rugby teams that turns match footage into scout-ready highlight reels.
Why this matters at grassroots level
Clubs at the community level often miss out on the performance and recruitment benefits of video because they overcomplicate the process. A straightforward, repeatable workflow does three things for you: it saves coach time, it creates actionable clips for training and recruitment, and it improves player feedback. I want something that a volunteer can run after a Saturday game, not a project that needs a full-time analyst.
Overview of the workflow
The workflow I use has five stages:
Below I break each step down with practical tips and tool recommendations.
Recording: what you actually need
Don’t chase cinema-quality camera work. For grassroots, stability and coverage matter more than resolution. I recommend positioning the camera on a tripod at halfway line at a height of 2–3 metres so you can see the whole pitch. A single fixed camera will cover the majority of team analysis needs.
Good camera choices:
Keep audio optional — it’s useful for capturing referee calls or coach shouts but not necessary for tagging tactical events.
Ingest and backup
After the match, copy footage to two places: your working laptop and an external drive or cloud backup. I’ve seen footage corrupted because it lived on the camera card alone — don’t let that be you.
Folder structure I use:
Simple metadata in a text file (date, competition, score, lineup) is useful for later searches.
Choosing a tagging tool
You need software that lets you mark timestamps and export clips. Here are tools I’ve used at grassroots with pros and cons:
| Tool | Pros | Cons |
|---|---|---|
| Hudl Assist / Hudl | Robust, cloud sharing, common with scouts | Costly for small clubs |
| LongoMatch | Free, custom tag sets, desktop-based | UI can feel dated |
| Kinovea | Great for slow-motion and frame analysis | Less strong for creating highlight reels |
| Coach’s Eye / Dartfish Express | Mobile first and intuitive | Limited advanced tagging |
| OBS + VLC (manual) | Free, flexible | Labour intensive, manual clipping |
For most grassroots clubs I recommend LongoMatch for desktop users or a smartphone app like Coach’s Eye if you prefer mobile. Both allow you to create a custom tag set and export clips easily.
Designing a simple tag set
Tags should be: limited, clear, consistent. I work with a two-layer system — Events and Attributes.
Example: “Carry + Under Pressure + High” — you can filter for high-quality carries when under pressure.
Keep your tag list to under 20 items. More than that becomes unusable in a live match situation.
Tagging process (practical)
I recommend doing tagging in two passes:
When tagging, add a short text note for any clip that needs context — e.g., “played out from back, pressure from left” — that helps when compiling reels for coaches or scouts.
Curating scout-ready reels
Scouts and coaches don’t want a raw dump. They want focused reels: attacking patterns, defensive actions, set-piece delivery, or an individual player’s best moments. Here’s a simple reel structure I use for player reels (60–90 seconds):
Keep clips short (3–8 seconds). Use jump cuts so each action is immediately visible. If you have time, add slow-motion for technical actions, but don’t overdo it — scouts want to see decision-making speed as well as technique.
Export settings and sharing
Export in MP4 (H.264) for compatibility. For online shares:
For sharing, use a combination of methods:
Time-saving tips and workflow hacks
How I present clips to scouts or opposition analysts
When I deliver to a scout or opposition analyst, I provide three things:
Having a timestamped index is incredibly valuable. It lets the recipient jump to the action they care about without watching the whole match.
Common pitfalls and how to avoid them
If you want, I can share the exact tag set I use as a downloadable template for LongoMatch or walk you through a screen-share session to set up your first project. Samsophsaints Co (https://www.samsophsaints.co.uk) covers practical, coach-friendly workflows like this because good analysis should be accessible to every club, not just the pros.