Will's Last Man Standing

Will runs a Last Man Standing competition with his mates. Everyone pays in, picks one Premier League team to win each week, and can never use the same team twice. Win and you go through. Lose or draw and you're out. The last one left takes the pot.

It's a great game, but running it usually means spreadsheets, screenshots and a lot of WhatsApp messages. Will wanted something that matched the black and gold poster he'd made for it, that everyone could check on their phone, and that kept track of everything for him.

The heart of the app is the live score feed. While matches are in play, it checks for new scores every 15 seconds, pulling from two separate live sources at once and showing whichever has the latest score. At full time, the official result always wins, so a disallowed goal gets corrected. Between matches it quietly checks in the background, keeping running costs to a few pence. Nobody has to type in a result.

Scores change on screen as they happen without anyone refreshing the page, and a label shows exactly how fresh they are, like 'Live · updated 8s ago'. When a goal goes in, that match card flashes gold and a 'GOAL!' alert pops up. Under each match you can see who picked which team, coloured green if they're winning, amber if they're drawing and red if they're losing. A running panel shows who's through, who's still to play and who's out as it stands.

Will gets a private admin login. From there he can add players, track who's paid, log each person's pick and see straight away which teams they've already used, so nobody can pick the same team twice by mistake.

Picks stay hidden from everyone else until the deadline passes, so nobody can copy. The official Premier League pick deadline counts down at the top of the screen. When the weekend's games finish, one tap settles the gameweek: it previews who goes through and who goes out, applies the results and moves on to the next week.

All of the competition's rules are handled automatically. A draw counts as out. No pick by the deadline counts as out. A postponed game counts as a pass. If everyone left goes out in the same week, it's a rollover: nobody is eliminated and the pot carries on.

When it gets down to the last two, the app shows them the option to split the pot or play on for the lot. And when there's one left, they get a champion screen with a trophy and confetti.

To keep everyone checking in, there's a stats page with a survival curve showing how many players are left each week, a chart of the most backed teams, and fun awards like Giant Killer, Bottle Job, Safest Bet and Brave Pick of the Week. A list of 'The Fallen' shows who went out and when.

There's also a banter wall for the group, and a 'Copy for group chat' button that turns the week's picks and scores into a ready-made WhatsApp update.

The design follows Will's poster closely: a floodlit stadium hero, bold condensed lettering, gold accents on near-black, and a hand-written style for the finishing touches. Each club gets its own shield badge in its colours. It was designed for phones first, because that's where people check scores on a Saturday afternoon.