alex:

I guess I am overlooking something. I don't get the expected Database values when i use my php loop. However, when I directly use the query in phpmyadmin I see the expected result

SELECT  a.period, c.category as newname, a.score, a.coach, a.date 
FROM     Plays a 
LEFT JOIN Plays_Periods p on a.period_id=p.period_id 
LEFT JOIN Plays_Categories c on a.catid = c.catid
WHERE   playerid = '88' AND date >= '2017-02-10' AND date ORDER BY date desc

using the above query in php as $q

$result = mysql_query($q); 
$yourArray = array(); // make a new array to hold all your data
$index = 0;
while($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($result)){ // loop to store the data in an associative array.
     $yourArray[$index] = $row;
     $index++;
}
return $yourArray;

doesn't show me the values for coach. I do have NULL as values in the coach column, could this be the problem???