Secret Santa for a sports team

A five-a-side team that has played together on Tuesday nights for nine years knows exactly who dives and who never passes, and often has no idea what anyone does for a living. The end of the season is the one time everyone sits in the same room without a ball, and a Secret Santa gives that evening a bit of structure. It works because teammates already know each other, even if mostly under pressure.

Fix the budget and the date before you announce it

Between 15 and 30 covers most teams without anyone having to skip a round. Pick the date at the same time: the end-of-season dinner, the Christmas drink or the last training night. If you announce the draw without a date, it quietly becomes next season's plan.

Send one message to the whole team explaining how it works. Some of the younger players have never done it, and the older ones have done it badly. Say the budget, the date and whether there is a theme.

A short sign-up helps more than you would expect. Ask people to opt in and add two or three things they like outside the sport: the coffee they drink, the series they are watching, the crisps they bring to the away games. Whoever draws them will be grateful for it.

Gifts that go past the shirt

A sports team has one advantage over an office draw: everyone shares one obvious interest. The mistake is stopping there and buying eleven pairs of socks.

• Good merino running socks or a pair of compression sleeves
• An insulated bottle in the club colours
• A massage ball or a foam roller for the player who limps on Wednesdays
• A towel with the player's number on it
• A power bank for the tournaments where the phone dies by lunch
• A box of decent protein bars or the snacks they always bring
• A key ring or a car sticker with the club crest, for the ones who would put it on the car

Then look past the sport. If your goalkeeper grinds his own coffee, buy him beans. If your striker always has a paperback in her bag between games, that is the gift. The socks are what you give when you did not read the sign-up form.

Draw the names online and skip the hat

Drawing from a hat sounds simple until the captain pulls his own name, or the winger who missed training never gets one. Drawing online matches everyone in one go, puts the name and the budget in each player's inbox, and lets people link a small wishlist so the giver has something to go on. For a squad of twenty, where half the team is never in the same place at the same time, it is the only way that works.

A coach who drops a hint about the draw at every training in the weeks before the exchange, without ever revealing a name, tends to see attendance go up.

Handing over the gifts

Attach the exchange to something already in the calendar, like the end-of-season dinner. A separate evening for it is one evening too many for most people. Order food, put the parcels on one table and let people sit down.

Have each player guess who bought their gift before the giver stands up. Or ask everyone to name their favourite moment of the season before they open theirs; with a team, that alone takes an hour. Give one person the job of taking photos, since nobody remembers to.

The exchange takes an evening, and the jokes about who got the foam roller run until March. You can organise a Secret Santa for the team in a few minutes, and the matching and the wishlists take care of themselves while you sort out the food.