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.

On one level we’d just come off a stint with the Southern Counties East, and I do wonder what could have happened if those two leagues could have co-operated? But that didn’t and probably will never happen- I do recall that the old Kent League famously didn’t get on with the County League so perhaps that’s the reason.

The proposed day was Snodland Town Reserves at 11, then this game, with Aylesford kicking off at 5:30. The choice of Snodland Town’s reserves was an odd one, the firsts had featured on the 2024 SCEFL Hop so many of the target audience will have visited before, and a high percentage of groundhoppers will not watch any game involving a reserve side, let alone the hosts.

I can understand why Snodland were interested, they were superb hosts when we visited, but perhaps it was no bad thing the game was bumped- Snodland played Guernsey in the FA Vase instead. So what we were left with was a two game event, with no transport, prebooked tickets and the like, just the promise of programmes and badges at each game, which did happen.

So I arrived at Kings Hill, a new suburb of West Malling. It’s the kind of place that you need to find using Google Maps; chances are your satnav isn’t up-to-date enough to find the Sports Park. Once you get here, you will be very pleasantly surprised at the quality of the facilities here. There are 14 pitches here together with rugby, tennis and netball too. In the longer term expect the main pitch to be floodlit, the direction of travel is obvious.

But oddly that isn’t what I’ll remember the day for, it was a pleasure to spend time with such a friendly, go-ahead club. The best tribute I can pay Kings Hill is that they hosted as well as many clubs I’ve worked with, and they’d not, to my knowledge seen a hop game elsewhere. And if you are wondering, no I didn’t advise them- they don’t know me! The attendance did look extremely generous though, and I do understand the irony of that statement!

It would be remiss of me to not mention the visitors. It is clearly a frustrating existance being Canterbury City, with the club having achieved promotion to the SCEFL using a series of borrowed grounds while the local authorities back home do little or nothing to help them find a suitable place to build a home fit for a club that made the first round of the FA Cup twice. Since they couldn’t find a groundshare, for this season they’ve had to drop down to the Kent County League, and are at home- but at Thanington Recreation Ground, which isn’t suitable if they were to seek promotion.

The game was Canterbury’s frustrations in microcosm, with them taking a two-goal lead but running out of steam in the second half as the hosts ran in 3 goals to take a deserved win.

It was an interesting afternoon and while Kings Hill did well as hosts, I don’t think I learned much new- more reinforcing my view of how successful events of this type work. I was promised elsewhere in the evening so headed straight for home. I note that the next Groundhopper Day in the KCL is this weekend. I won’t be at Ide Hill (who groundshare at Tonbridge Angels) as it’s the North West Counties Hop; 7 games does rather trump 1! Nevertheless I wish the league all the best in their ventures and will look out for whatever they come up with next.