canchero

Why this project

I know the problem from the inside.

I have been standing at the edge of pitches since the late eighties. What builds up over that time sits scattered for most collectors: a notebook from back then, a spreadsheet from later, a pile of tickets in a box. Change phones and half of it is gone.

The existing apps solve half of it. Either they want the data on their servers, or they don't know the small grounds, or they demand an account before you are even allowed to see what the thing does. canchero goes the other way round: your own archive first, then — if you want — the rest.

Those numbers are my own collection. They are the reason I know which feature still matters at the two-hundredth entry — and which one only looks good in a screenshot.

What canchero does

Four areas, nothing more needed.

• Today. What is being played nearby today, and a check-in that recognises the match at the ground by itself instead of asking.
• Archive. Every match attended, with result, competition, who you went with and a note. If you already keep a spreadsheet, the bulk import brings it across in one go — the point at which most people switching otherwise give up.
• Grounds. Our own checked database of grounds instead of second-hand map data, extended continuously. If a ground is missing it can be suggested from inside the app; every suggestion is reviewed by hand.
• Statistics. The analysis you collect for in the first place: countries, competitions, years, runs — and your own history across decades.

Ratings run from one to eight, and they are kept apart: the match is one thing, the ground another. The ground ratings of all users add up to the Hopper Index — a verdict from people who have actually been there.

What is deliberately different

An account is offered, never required.

canchero starts without a sign-in and stays fully usable if you never create one. The offer appears once at first launch and once more after your fifth match — as a card you can dismiss, not as a barrier. Create an account and you get sync between devices; the data then sits in the Zurich region.

Photos stay on the device for now. That is an honest limitation rather than a principle: cloud image storage costs money every month, and as long as the project doesn't pay for itself I would rather not promise it than switch it off again later.

The social side stays deliberately small too. You can follow others one-way, rankings only apply within your own circle, and there are at most four notifications a day. No feed built to harvest attention.

On club badges: canchero shows its own drawings and public-domain crests. Where neither exists, a shirt in the club's colours stands in rather than someone else's logo. Less convenient, but no question of rights.

A look inside

What the test looks like.

Six screens from the current test build — demo data, not a real archive.

Where canchero stands

The technology in one line: Flutter for both platforms, data held locally in a database on the device, account and sync through Firebase in the Zurich region.

On the name: until October 2026 the project was called hinchario. Old links to this page still work.