---
title: "FootyCal - simple webcal links for footy | James Donnelly"
description: "You shouldn't have to give full calendar access just to get game times. I made a simple alternative."
canonical_url: "https://jamesdonnelly.au/blog/footycal-launch"
markdown_url: "https://jamesdonnelly.au/blog/footycal-launch.md"
last_updated: "2026-04-06T00:00:00.000Z"
---

# FootyCal - simple webcal links for footy

You shouldn't have to give full calendar access just to get game times. I made a simple alternative.

Published 2026-04-06.

**tldr** I made [footycal.au](https://footycal.au) so you can get your AFL team's fixtures into your calendar without any fuss.

## The benchmark: [f1calendar.com](https://f1calendar.com)

For years it's bugged me that I haven't had St Kilda games in my calendar. I live by my calendar and it pained me to manually enter an event instead of just having an overlay that updates itself.

A while back I had the same problem with F1. As an Australian fan you won't see race time ads, so I need to know when they're on in my timezone. I found the excellent [f1calendar.com](https://f1calendar.com), picked quali and races, and got a simple webcal link. It's worked year after year without any input. Amazing. I'm going to [buy them a coffee](https://www.buymeacoffee.com/f1cal).

## The AFL's only offering

So I went looking again. Surely the AFL offers something like this by now. And they do! They have something called ECAL. Let's go through the process. Annnnd....

_Image: ECAL requesting full calendar permissions._

Instead of a simple webcal link, they use a third party provider that requires an OAuth connection to my Google account. Not only that, they insist on *all* calendar permissions: "See, edit, share and permanently delete all the calendars that you can access using Google Calendar." Incredible.

I refused. Obviously. I've hit this wall before and walked away.

## So I built my own

This time, inspired by F1Calendar and empowered by Claude, I built my own. A quick search showed there were some sites that generated ical files but none with live webcal URLs that update automatically.

A footy league calendar is a bit more complicated than F1. In F1, whatever team you support there's only the one race schedule. There are 18 AFL teams plus finals, which you may or may not want in the calendar. I also saw requests online for venue-based calendars, particularly for MCC members wanting to know what games will be at the 'G.

That said, it's not that complicated. Just a matrix of URLs and filters to generate. So I designed the thing, pointed Claude at it, and a few loops later [footycal.au](https://footycal.au) existed.

A simple wizard walks you through your desired team or venue, whether you want finals, and you get a link. Done.

## Keeping it updated

The AFL doesn't release the full season fixture up front, so the calendar needs to stay current as rounds and finals get locked in. I'll update the data a few times per season as new rounds are confirmed. At $10 for the domain and basically free hosting on Cloudflare this is something I can maintain indefinitely. No scraping, no private APIs, just publicly available schedule information.

## Worth the stubbornness

This has been a first world problem for the better part of a decade. But I'm glad I never gave a marketing platform full calendar access just to see game times. You've got to draw a line on data privacy somewhere and I hope I'm not the only one drawing it above that threshold.

Something like this should be simple, private and powerful. No sign-ups, no permissions, no third parties reading your calendar. Just a webcal link that serves the fixture. Add it once and it just keeps working.

Add your team or venue fixtures at [footycal.au](https://footycal.au).

## Sitemap

See the full [site map](/sitemap.md).