Saturday 30th March 2024 ko 11:30

South West Peninsula League Premier West

LISKEARD ATHLETIC 2 (Kane 23 M Gilbert 50)

DOBWALLS 0

Att 508

Entry £6

Programme £1

It wasn’t just the final day of the Peninsula League Hop. It was also the final day of 6 weeks’ worth of organised groundhopping events that had started at FC St Helens in the North West Counties League, meandered round the northern reaches of the East of Scotland League two weeks later, and the start of the end of it saw us dipping into Cornwall!

20 games had been scheduled. 17 were to take place, Robyn and I were exhausted; my wife was struggling with the heavy cold I was coming down with, and my car’s gear box was, quite literally in a death rattle. Thanks to Craig for driving round the weekend’s grounds. Thankfully Easter will be much later next year, so Phil Hiscox will have more breathing space for this hop, provisionally slated for southern Cornwall.

While it had been a less than ideal schedule, it clearly hadn’t affected crowd figures at all- any groundhop would love to see a crowd of 500-plus. Mind you, there was a novelty value here, this was, would you believe Liskeard’s first home game since mid-December? Perhaps the heavy pitch was the giveaway, and I was more than pleased that the rains arrived after kick-off. Noone wanted another Honiton!

I’ve no doubt my tiredness had a lot to do with it, but I enjoyed the simple pleasures here. Robyn buying a round of School Cake, the club’s easy-going but oh-so effective hosting. There must have been no end of pressure on this tie, but you saw no hint of it here. I found somewhere to rest up and enjoyed the game.

It was of course a derby, there was less than 3 miles between the two grounds, but while the hosts weren’t exactly used to playing at home they made playing at Lux Park count, deservedly winning. But forgive me, but the game wasn’t the biggest priority to me here. I was just happy to be here, amongst friends, and seeing Phil Hiscox get another game on a difficult pitch completed. I’m sure he was internally ticking of the games, I know I would have been!