Saturday 29th July 2023 ko 11:00

United Counties League Division One

RADFORD 0

Moore sent off 83 (2nd booking)

HARROWBY UNITED 0

Att 385

Entry £6

Programme £2

A Saturday, based in Nottingham, on an organised hop will, for me, always evoke memories of the Central Midlands Hops of the early 2000’s. I wasn’t involved back then, those events were organised by Chris Berezai and Rob Hornby and to this day I still see Nottingham and its hinterland as Rob Hornby country. Rob retired from the organising lark after the 2016 Notts Senior League Hop, and it’s a shame that ill health stopped him attending this event. Get well soon Rob!

I’m not sure how the old Central Mids Hops managed to avoid Nottingham’s Hyson Green District, perhaps Radford FC were always just that little bit too strong for the CMFL? The club would be the first to admit that their home, Selhurst Street is an oasis in the middle of a troubled part of the city, to the extent that even Radford’s fans have adapted the famous chant as follows,

“Oh Radford, is wonderful. It’s full of crack, prozzies and Radford!”

If the parking at Saffron Dynamo had the propensity to be difficult, then that went double here! Put simply, there’s room for no more than 20-or-so cars here, so the club negotiated with the nearby Asda to free up 200 spaces in their car park. It solved the problem at a stroke, giving folks time to enjoy probably the quirkiest ground on this year’s hop.

An oddity of the morning concerned the visitors, Grantham-based Harrowby. When we negotiated to run this hop on behalf of the United Counties League back in 2014 they made it clear they weren’t interested in hosting a game. That is of course completely their right, but it was lovely to see them here, and I wonder if they’ve had any second thoughts after seeing this?

If the visitors wanted or needed a steer on how to host a hop game then they could have done a lot worse than watched what happened here. The only issue here was the sheer number of people we attracted, a running theme over the day. We knew we’d sold roughly 30% more tickets than last year, but crowds of the magnitude we got were beyond anyone’s expectation. It led to queues for hop staples such as catering which is shame, and part of a learning curve we’ve been on for over twenty years!

I’m sure plenty will look at the score and assume the game was dull, the next game was, this wasn’t! It’s fair to say neither sides’ forwards will remember the game with any fondness but the game was always eminently watchable.

The bottom line was that it was a pleasure to spend a couple of hours in Radford’s company; I hope the other 384 people there felt the same way.