Hope for Capricorns

09 Monday Mar 2026

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Saturday 6th December ko 14:00

Bristol Premier Combination Division One

LION 0

AFC MANGOTSFIELD 3 (Mansfield 9 Rice 23 Douglas 49)

Dorrington sent off 90 (violent conduct)

Att 2 at Little Stoke Park, Bristol

Free Entry

Red sun go down way over dirty town
Starlings are sweeping around crazy shoals
Yes and a girl is there high heeling across the square
Wind it blows around in her hair and the flags upon the poles
Waiting in the crowd to cross at the light
She looks around to find a face she can like.

Church bell clinging on just a trying to get a crowd for Evensong
Nobody cares to depend upon the chime it plays
They’re all in the station praying for trains
Congregation late again
It’s getting darker all the time these flagpole days
Drunk old soldier he give her a fright
He’s a crazy lion he’s a-howling for a fight

“Lions” Dire Straits 1978

On one hand it isn’t usually difficult to find a game in Bristol on a Saturday afternoon. I’d organised to drop Robyn off at a friend’s birthday celebration in town, and the idea was to pick her up as soon as it was over. That meant that I wouldn’t be able to travel far, but that wasn’t going to be a problem was it?

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Enter The Dragon

08 Sunday Mar 2026

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Saturday 29th November 2025 ko 14:00

European U19 Women’s Championship Qualifying League A Group A7

CYMRU 3 (Bowen 63 Selan Yarayan 67og Em Cole 86)

TÜRKIYE 1 (Yaran Ersan 53)

Att c200 at Dragon Park, Newport

Entry FREE but you do have to be on a guest list

Sometimes you see somewhere that piques your interest, and Dragon Park certainly did that for me! Based in Newport it’s the national football development centre intended to develop the Welsh under-21, Women’s and age-based squads. . The centre also provides an based for the Welsh Football Trust, the game’s development body, so the main building also includes facilities for sports science and education too.

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Stairway

04 Wednesday Mar 2026

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Saturday 15th November 2025 ko 14:00

Cymru South

TREOWEN STARS 3 (C Davies 24 Meachan 35 43)

YNYSHIR ALBIONS 0

Att 85

Entry £6

Programme £2

When you’ve spent most of the last 25 years groundhopping, it isn’t the simple statistics of how many and where that do it for me. When people ask I tell them, then add the tagline “Which shows I need to get out more” when the exact opposite is the case! These days, it’s the connections you make that drive me on, and Treowen was a classic case of this.

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The Hill

25 Wednesday Feb 2026

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Saturday 8th November 2025 ko 14:00

Kent County League Premier Division

KINGS HILL 4 (Sibley 38 Grainger 52 Young 62 Wade 65)

CANTERBURY CITY 2 (Ikem 19 31)

Official Attendance 176

Entry & Programme £2.50

I know I’ve said it many times before but I do like to see groundhops in the diary that aren’t organised by ourselves at GroundhopUK. Other than the feeling that I don’t want to be the only game in town, I do like to attend other hops as there is always either something to learn, or at worst to reinforce our way of doing things. So when the Kent County League announced a Groundhopper Day I was a little intrigued.

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Yellow Brick Road

23 Monday Feb 2026

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Friday 7th November 2025 ko 20:00

EFL Championship

WATFORD 1 (Bola 6)

BRISTOL CITY 1 (Twine 29)

Att 19,574

Entry £30

No Programme

Parking £12

It has to be said there is absolutely no possibility of acting on impulse when you’re watching Championship football. Tickets have to be bought in advance, and since they were for the away end, and Robyn and I don’t live in Bristol we had to discover where to collect our tickets and once there, even to confirm whether the booth in fact, actually had our tickets. Then you need to research where to park- we used the official parking at Watford Grammar School for Girls for £12 and that’s before you think about the M25 at rush hour…

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Culver Road

22 Sunday Feb 2026

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Saturday 1st November 2025 ko 17:45

Southern Combination Premier Division

LANCING 1 (Collier 36)

NEWHAVEN 3 (Blunt 3 Roag 60p Oliver 87)

Att 293

Entry £8

Programme £2

If you are going to revisit a ground as a neutral, then I’d suggest leaving plenty of time between the visits, and go when the changes to the stadium are clear and manifest. I’d argue that Culver Road and I would be a case in point.

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The Swifts

18 Wednesday Feb 2026

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Saturday 1st November 2025 ko 14:00

Southern Combination Division 2

SOUTHWATER 4 (Bicknell 24 Beg 38 88p Blayney 58)

FERRING 2 (Lanigan 4 Sutton 90+3)

Att 162

Entry £3

Programme £3

We headed to Horsham’s environs for our second game of the day, and by tradition it seems, one from the County League’s bottom division. Southwater is known locally for its country park but it is also home to Southwater Royals FC who play in the West Sussex league and Southwater FC who’ve played in the Southern Combination since 2021.

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Sussex By The Sea

12 Thursday Feb 2026

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Saturday 1st November 2025 ko 10:45

Southern Combination Premier Division

AFC VARNDEANIANS 1 (Nandhra 77)

Durand sent off 36 (2nd Booking)

PEACEHAVEN & TELESCOMBE 4 (Wiltshire 34 Tighe 41 Downey-Powell 58 Agihotra 62)

Att 223 at Withdean Stadium, Brighton

Entry & Programme £8

If you take the groundhopping mantra “Everywhere once” literally, I’d have swerved the Withdean Stadium. I visited back in 2001 when Brighton & Hove Albion used here as a lifeboat between the Goldstone Ground, the Priestfield, and the Amex. I had to pretend to be a Darlington fan to get a ticket; all the home areas were sold out, and I perched on a bank of green temporary seats while Brighton won what’s now called League 2. How times change….

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Explosive

05 Thursday Feb 2026

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Friday 31st October 2025 ko 19:30

Southern Combination Division 2

ALFOLD 2 (Penalver 33 Massey 67)

RUSTINGTON 5 (Harris 7 90+3 De Gruchy 12 25 38)

Att 185

Entry £4

Programme £1.50

It was a little awkward. About a week before the Sussex Hop I was invited on to a podcast to talk about the forthcoming weekend. It turned out that my interviewers had also seen a few games on the Kent Hop too. They described it all as a little flat, which with a couple of exceptions wasn’t inaccurate, but I did have a lot of hope for the Sussex. Yes I am aware that Alfold is in fact in Surrey- such is county boundaries slightly uneasy relationship with English football!!

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The Aerodrome

28 Wednesday Jan 2026

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Tuesday 28th October 2025 ko 19:45

South West Peninsula League Premier East

MIDDLEZOY ROVERS 3 (Gilbert 40 Scott 48 Mead 62)

CULLOMPTON RANGERS 2 (Down 35 Corrick 38)

Att 167

Entry £6

Programme £1.50

Sometimes things work out in your favour. Work took me to Cornwall for the day so a trip to Westonzoyland on my way home made sense, and no I didn’t ever foresee heading to Bridgwater on the M5 northbound to see a Peninsula League game!

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