Friday 22nd August 2025 ko 18:45

West Lancashire League Premier Division

BLACKPOOL WREN ROVERS 2 (King 58 68)

POULTON 1 (Hallan 55)

Scammell sent off (serious foul play) 72

Att 388

Entry £3

Programme £2

For groundhoppers of a certain age August Bank Holiday always added up to multiple games in Wales. The Welsh Hop lasted from 2002 to 2022 and we all missed the epic events they always were. Any replacement had to be good, and we even ran events without anything on August Bank Holiday for two years. The irony is that you could say the solution to it was in house…

Martin Benson is a regular on our events, you may remember his contribution when BBC Scotland covered the Scottish Hop back in 2022. He’s on committee at the West Lancashire League, mentioned the idea to his colleagues and when the idea took root got GroundhopUK on board. The great joy of have a hop for the West Lancs for me is that while being at Step 7 the league tries to be the best run at its level. That meant high levels of adminstrative efficiency and there was Martin acting as an extremely effective link between ourseves and the league.

In fact there were only two issues. The first was that we were let down for accomodation by a university easily visible from the M6 two weeks before the event forcing us into a less than ideal hotel in Blackpool. The second was more personal, in the week before the event close friends of ours lost their father, someone whose presence was part and parcel of my childhood- or “Small boys in a dusty Scout hut in the late 80’s” as I put it in my wedding speech.

The funeral was on the Friday morning of the hop, and we simply had to be there- hightailing it up the M6 to Blackpool after the reception. I was a little surprised that no-one picked up on the fact that Robyn and I were wearing black. It was difficult switching from sorrow to joy.

I don’t think any of us expected the hop to visit Wren Rovers first of the triumverate of themselves AFC Blackpool and Squires Gate. We’d tried to tick those off on the 2024 North West Counties Hop but a monsoon put paid to our ideas. We’ll attempt those in March next year, but Wren Rovers literally the width of a fence from Squires Gate proved to be excellent hosts. They were in the North West Counties League until 1998 and although the floodlights are no longer fully functional (we had to pull the tie forward an hour) it’s obvious the ground has hosted football at a higher level. Hopefully that will happen again in the future.

Moreover we failed to jinx them on the pitch either as so often happens on these events. In an occasionally fiesty, but gripping game Wren Rovers just about deserved their win, and you could hardly begrudge it given their hosting. As is always the case though I was just grateful for a good evening, after what had been quite a day.

Dedicated to the memory of Peter Bean.