Football crossword

How to play the football crossword

1. Choose one of six themes: Premier League clubs 2026/27, football words, positions and roles, World Cup history, famous grounds, or retired legends.
2. Tap or click a white square and type. The whole answer is shaded and the square you are on is yellow. The cursor moves along the word as you go and jumps to the next clue at the end; Backspace clears a letter and steps back. On a phone the normal keyboard opens.
3. Tap the same square again (or press Space, or use the arrow keys) to switch between across and down. The current clue is shown in the bar above the grid, with arrows for the previous and next clue, and it is highlighted in the list. Enter also moves to the next clue.
4. Press Check to mark wrong letters in red, Reveal letter or Reveal word if you are stuck, or Reveal all to see the full solution. Revealed letters are shown in blue with a small corner mark.
5. Press Print for a paper copy: the clues and an empty grid on page 1, the filled grid and answers on page 2.

How the grid is built

Each theme has 16 to 19 clues. For every new crossword the generator shuffles them, starts with one of the longest answers across the middle, and then tries to cross each further answer through a letter already on the grid. It follows the normal crossword rules: a new word may only touch the grid where it crosses another word, and it may not sit right next to another word in a way that creates letters with no clue. When a word cannot fit, the search backs up and tries a different position for the words before it, or leaves that word out. It stops at 12 words that fit inside 15 by 15 squares.

Because every answer after the first has to cross an earlier one, the grid is always one connected piece. Squares are then numbered in reading order, left to right and top to bottom, exactly as in a newspaper puzzle. The puzzle code (for example legends-50731) stores the theme and the seed, so the same code always rebuilds the same crossword.

Worked example

Say the generator starts with BECKENBAUER (11 letters, clue “Der Kaiser”) across. MALDINI can cross through the shared A, and CRUYFF through the shared R. Each new answer must cross at least one letter already in place, so the grid grows outwards like a tree, with every word connected to the first.

Tips for solvers

• Start with the short answers. Four- and five-letter answers such as RUSH, BEST or IBROX give you letters for the long ones.
• Use the count. (6,4) or (3,8) tells you it is two words, which narrows down grounds such as ELLAND ROAD or OLD TRAFFORD fast.
• Check sparingly. Checking after every word makes it too easy; once per half-filled grid is a good balance.

Ideas for teachers and quiz hosts

The football words and positions themes make good literacy starters, because the clues are short definitions of real vocabulary. Print one per pupil with the answers unticked, and keep the code so you can reprint the answer page for marking. For a pub quiz, hand out a World Cup history crossword as a table round during the interval and mark it from page 2. Youth coaches can use the positions theme before a session on formations.

How we tested it

We wrote automated Node tests that generate 25 crosswords for each of the six themes (150 in all). For every one the test checks that each answer's letters match the grid, so crossing letters always agree; that every run of two or more letters in the grid is one of the clued answers, with no accidental extra words; that clue numbers run 1, 2, 3 and so on in reading order and each answer starts on its own number; that a flood fill from one square reaches every letter, so the layout is connected; that the grid fits within 15 by 15; and that the same code rebuilds the same grid. Every layout in the test placed 12 answers. We also check that each theme has at least 15 clues with no repeated answers and that counts such as (4,3) and (3-5) are worked out correctly. A second test file covers solving on 36 of the grids: typing moves to the next square of the answer and stops at its end, Backspace steps back, a second tap switches between across and down only where two answers cross, the arrow keys jump over black squares, the clue order runs through all across clues and then all down clues, and the checker reports exactly one wrong letter when one is wrong. All tests pass. Clue facts are historical and fixed. We checked the ones most likely to trip us up on Wikipedia in October 2026, including Henry's 228 goals for Arsenal, Lineker never being booked and Spain winning the 2026 World Cup (which is why their clue says 2010 and 2026).