Daily Archives: August 29, 2012

Steamed Up!

29 Wednesday Aug 2012

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Friday 24th August 2012 ko 6.30pm

Mid-Wales League Division 2

LLANFAIR UNITED 4 (G Jones 13 80 Gethin 24 74)

ABERMULE 1 (Anthony 31)

Att 261

I should start by declaring an interest in the next 11 articles. The Welsh Hop is organised by GroundhopUK and I am Chris Berezai’s deputy. So what you read will be very much from the perspective of the organiser!

In this case it meant being at the hop base, The Dolforwyn Hall Hotel, near Newtown, around 11am. That’s been the hop’s home for the last 3 years, this year sadly being the last, as we’ve run out of clubs in the Mid-Wales League! Still this year’s event was a good chance to go out with a bang, and with a record number of pre-booked tickets sold, and a second coach in operation for the first time, we were good to go. Continue reading →

The Aylesbury Ring

29 Wednesday Aug 2012

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Thursday 23rd August 2012 ko 6.30pm

Pre-season Friendly

LONG MARSTON 10 (13 15 23 27 32 33 47 57 64 80)

LONG MARSTON RESERVES 3 (39 41 46)

Att 5 (h/c)

The idea of this was to find a game so as to avoid getting to Lee and Gilly’s in Southam too early. I should explain; they very kindly offered to put me up in so as to give Lee and I a shorter journey the next day to Newtown for the weekend’s Welsh groundhop. The thing is that they only got married in June, and this weekend would be their first apart since the wedding. They’d said nothing, but for me the obvious thing to do was to give them as much time as possible, and since when do I need an excuse to find a game?

Salvation came in the form of the Milton Keynes Chuckle Brothers, James Rennie and Chris Garner. Long Marston vs Pitstone, Ivinghoe and Cheddington United. The latter is a team formed to make use of the ground built for Spartan South Midland League Pitstone and Ivinghoe but with a pitch that’s too small for the league’s requirements.

Long Marston represents a place I worked at around 20 years ago. Not much has changed, it’s still just about in Hertfordshire, and is found on the easternmost tip of the Aylesbury ring, a 31 mile walking tour that is never more than 5 miles from the Buckinghamshire town. The village was the scene of the last witch-lynching in the UK in 1751. Continue reading →