How to add fixtures to your calendar and keep them updated
Everything about subscribing to a fixture calendar: the difference between importing and subscribing, how to add a webcal link in Google Calendar, Apple Calendar and Outlook, and how to fix the two things that usually go wrong: duplicate events and a calendar that stops updating.
What is the difference between importing and subscribing to a calendar?
Importing copies the fixtures into your calendar once. Subscribing points your calendar app at a URL that it re-reads on a schedule. The events look identical the day you add them, and they diverge from then on.
This matters in football specifically because fixtures move. A televised game shifts kickoff by two hours, a cup round gets a date once the draw is made, a postponed match is replayed months later. An imported file still shows the original time, because nothing told it otherwise. A subscribed feed corrects itself the next time your calendar refreshes.
MatchCalender only produces subscription links. There is no one-time export, because a stale fixture is worse than no fixture: it sends you to the pub at the wrong hour with no warning that anything changed.
What is a webcal link?
A webcal link is an ordinary URL to an iCal (.ics) feed, written with webcal:// instead of https:// at the front. The file behind it is identical. The only thing the prefix changes is what your device does when you click it: webcal:// tells the operating system to hand the URL to the default calendar app and subscribe, rather than handing it to the browser and downloading it.
That is why clicking a webcal link on a phone opens the calendar app directly. If your calendar app asks you to paste a URL instead, use the https:// form of the same link. Both point at the same feed and either will work.
How do I add fixtures to Google Calendar?
Google Calendar calls this "From URL". It is on the desktop web version only: the Android and iOS Google Calendar apps cannot add a subscription, but they display one added on the web, so do it once on a computer and it appears on your phone.
- Open Google Calendar in a browser at calendar.google.com.
- In the left sidebar, click the + next to "Other calendars".
- Choose "From URL".
- Paste the calendar link. Use the https:// form here, not webcal://.
- Click "Add calendar", then close settings. The fixtures appear within a minute or two.
How do I subscribe in Apple Calendar?
On an iPhone or iPad, tapping a webcal link is usually enough: Calendar opens and offers to subscribe. To add one by hand, go to Settings, then Apps, then Calendar, then Accounts, then Add Account, then Other, then Add Subscribed Calendar, and paste the link.
On a Mac, open Calendar and choose File, then New Calendar Subscription, and paste the link. Apple then asks how often to auto-refresh. Set it to every day or more often; the default on some versions is never, which quietly turns your subscription back into a one-time import.
How do I subscribe in Outlook?
In Outlook on the web, open the Calendar, click "Add calendar" in the left sidebar, choose "Subscribe from web", paste the link, give the calendar a name, and click Import. The wording says import, but subscribing from a web address does create a live subscription that Outlook re-reads.
The subscription then syncs down to the Outlook desktop and mobile apps on the same account. Adding it directly in the desktop app is possible but less reliable, so prefer the web version.
Why do I have duplicate fixtures, and how do I fix them?
Duplicates almost always mean the same fixtures were added twice by two different methods: typically an .ics file imported earlier, plus a subscription added later. The imported copies are ordinary events living in your main calendar, so nothing can remove them automatically.
The fix is to delete the imported ones, not the subscription. A subscribed feed always arrives as its own separate calendar with its own name and colour, which is how you tell them apart: anything in your default personal calendar is an import, anything in a calendar named after the feed is the subscription.
If the imports are scattered through your main calendar and there are too many to delete by hand, the fastest route is to search your calendar for the team name and remove the matches that are not in the subscribed calendar. Then keep only the subscription, so this cannot happen again.
Why did my fixture calendar stop updating?
Usually it has not stopped. It just refreshes less often than people expect. Google Calendar decides its own refresh interval for external feeds and does not publish it; in practice it can be up to around 24 hours, and there is no button to force it. A kickoff change made this morning may genuinely not appear until tomorrow.
Apple Calendar is the common real failure, because the refresh interval is a setting you choose when subscribing and it can be set to never. On a Mac, right-click the calendar, choose Get Info, and check that auto-refresh is set to a real interval rather than none.
If a specific match is wrong rather than the whole feed being stale, that is a data problem on our end rather than a sync problem on yours: report it and we will look at the source.
How do rescheduled matches and playoff rounds get added?
Both arrive through the same feed you already subscribed to, with no action from you. When a kickoff moves, the event's time is updated in place, so it stays a single event in your calendar rather than becoming a second one. When a cup draw or a playoff round is announced, the new fixtures are appended to the feed and show up at the next refresh.
This is the entire reason the service exists. Competitions with unknown future rounds, such as the FA Cup, the EFL Cup, the IIHF World Championship or the World Cup knockout stage, cannot be exported correctly in advance by anyone, because the fixtures do not exist yet when you subscribe.
Are kickoff times shown in my own timezone?
Yes, and you do not need to configure anything. On this site, times are rendered in whatever timezone your browser reports, so a Premier League fixture reads as local time in Stockholm and in New York without either visitor changing a setting.
The calendar feed reaches the same result by a different route: events are published as UTC timestamps, and your calendar app converts them to the device's current timezone. That means a synced fixture shows the correct local time on every device you own, and it stays correct if you travel across timezones or when daylight saving shifts.
Does it cost anything, and do I need an account?
No to both. Every calendar link is free, there is no paid tier, and there is nothing to sign up for: you pick a team or league, get a link, and subscribe. We store the sport, team and league behind a link so the feed can be generated, and nothing that identifies you.