Billy

01 Wednesday Jul 2026

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Sunday 5th April 2026 ko 11.00

Northern League Division Two

BILLINGHAM TOWN 0

BILLINGHAM SYNTHONIA 2 (Healy 18 Irvine 90+2)

Att 758

Entry £6

Programme £2

GroundhopUk’s first organisation of the Northern Hop was nothing if not ambitious, Easter Sunday is often the most difficult day to get clubs to play on, but while I’m not party to conversations in League circles, we got 3 committed host clubs and when you’re turning up for your 8th game of the weekend that is a godsend!

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Fuel My Fire

30 Tuesday Jun 2026

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Saturday 4th April 2026 ko 18:30

Northern League Division Two

TOW LAW TOWN 1 (Bates 27)

RYTON & CRAWCROOK ALBION 1 (Anderson 31)

Att 509

Entry £5

Programme £2

When any fan of football in the North East mentions Tow Law it’s elevation is always mentioned. It is 997 feet above sea level, and the football ground in Ironworks Road is extremely exposed so the epithet tends to be that it is always cold at Tow Law. On that basis I did fee that my visit there in September 2014 may have been under false pretences. It was lovely and warm, I didn’t even wear a coat! That was unlikely to be the case this time round…

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Star

28 Sunday Jun 2026

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Saturday 4th April 2026 ko 14:30

Northern League Division One

NEWCASTLE BLUE STAR 2 (Reid 41p 61)

CARLISLE CITY 1 (Bannon 7)

Att 592

Entry £8

Programme £2

The coach pulled up outside the KD Stadium and will all due respect to all the other clubs on the Northern Hop it all felt at a higher level, to the extent that GroundhopUK was simply adding 200 or so on the gate. Being a Saturday there were plenty of alternatives for the groundhoppers’ pound, and clearly a few took the opt out. For Chris Berezai and I, other than our reponsibility to the event, had a more oblique reason to find Newcastle Blue Star interesting.

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Branes

26 Friday Jun 2026

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Saturday 5th April 2026 ko 11:00

Northern League Division Two

AFC NEWBIGGIN 1 (Turnbull 90+9)

Livingstone sent off 90+7 (dangerous play)

ALNWICK TOWN 1 (Shell 44)

Ogidan sent off 62 (violent conduct)

Att 466 (Ground record)

Entry £5

Programme £1.50

Saturday on the Northern Hop sawe us head, well north. Certainly from an English perspective the second you cross into Northumberland, you are certainly in the north. I did have a slight advantage heading through the Tyne Tunnel, I’d visited Newbiggin-by-the-Sea on holiday 20 years earlier.

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Connor

25 Thursday Jun 2026

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Friday 3rd April 2026 ko 18:00

Northern League Division One

EASINGTON COLLIERY 2 (Elliott 42 Anderson 90+4)

HORDEN COMMUNITY WELFARE 1 (Campbell 66)

Att 770

Entry £7

Programme £2

If the other two games that day were all about host clubs new to the Northern League, then the day’s finale was all about a club extremely well entrenched in the league. I’d been speaking to the league’s Mike Amos- who commented to expect a gigantic local derby, with a crowd to match. He wasn’t wrong….

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Buses

24 Wednesday Jun 2026

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Friday 3rd April 2026 ko 15:00

Northern League Division Two

FC HARTLEPOOL 1 (Gavin 78p)

Cook penalty saved 77

SEAHAM RED STAR 0

Cowan sent off 78 (second booking)

Att 633 (ground record)

Entry £5

Programme £2

I did wonder what we’d find at FC Hartlepool. While I was aware that the Northern League had scheduled all the games on the hop as local derbies, I did wonder whether we’d lose groundhoppers to alternate games. The way we at GroundhopUK look at it is to see each time slot over a weekend in terms of how many alternate games are there? Obviously that will be a lot, when kick off is anywhere near 3pm, so I was happy to struggle to park when we reached the Grayfields Enclosure.

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La Grange

23 Tuesday Jun 2026

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Friday 3rd April 2026 ko 11:00

Northern League Division Two

GRANGETOWN BOYS CLUB 0

Martin missed pen 90+5

REDCAR TOWN 1 (Stares 38)

Att 531

Entry £5

Programme £3

I felt that the juggernaut that is the Northern Hop was beginning to stretch it’s legs as was headed to Middlesbrough. We passeed the Riverside Stadium, itself gearing up for a home game versus Millwall. Grangetown is reasonably close by, at the foot of a flyover- and the boys club here pride themselve on being the largest grassroots club in Middlesbrough.

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Responsibility

22 Monday Jun 2026

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Thursday 2nd April 2026 ko 19:30

Northern League Division One

WEST AUCKLAND TOWN 4 (Robinson 23 63 Steel 56 O’Gorman 87)

THORNABY 0

Att 508

Entry £7

Programme £2

I think just about everyone enjoyed the previous 2 Easters with Phil Hiscox in the South West Peninsula League, but in that time we at GroundhopUK had been approached by the Northern League. If anyone didn’t know the concept of the organised groundhop was invented by Mike Amos and the Northern League in 1992, and the league ran a series of successful events finishing in 1996, when the league ran out of clubs to visit.

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The Inferiority Complex

21 Sunday Jun 2026

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Saturday 28th March 2026 ko 14:00

Westmorland League Division One

SEDBERGH & DENT UNITED 4 (Fearn 27 64 88p Mason 84)

KENDAL UNITED RESERVES 2 (Gilbert 30 Fearnhead 76)

Att 26 at Howgill Lane

Free Entry

With Robyn and I involved in a massive Easter groundhopping extravaganza in the North East, we fancied making the week before something peaceful. I may enjoy the hops, particularly the social side but there was a lot to be said for taking a picnic somewhere scenic.

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Waterwells

20 Saturday Jun 2026

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Tuesday 24th March 2026 ko 19:30

Gloucestershire County League

QUEDGELEY WANDERERS 3 (Osbudhien 12 21 Miles 72)

STOKE GIFFORD SGS UNITED 0

Att 23

Free Entry

Programme £1

I’m close to having the opinion that the measure of a big numbers groundhopper is how easy it is to find a floodlit tick midweek. I suspect I’m on the cusp of that, given my opportunities these days seem to add up to Step 7 leagues and newly built grounds. The Gloucester County League does act as close as you can get to a Step 6 league as was the case 20-odd years ago.

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