Thursday 2nd April 2026 ko 19:30

Northern League Division One

WEST AUCKLAND TOWN 4 (Robinson 23 63 Steel 56 O’Gorman 87)

THORNABY 0

Att 508

Entry £7

Programme £2

I think just about everyone enjoyed the previous 2 Easters with Phil Hiscox in the South West Peninsula League, but in that time we at GroundhopUK had been approached by the Northern League. If anyone didn’t know the concept of the organised groundhop was invented by Mike Amos and the Northern League in 1992, and the league ran a series of successful events finishing in 1992, when the league ran out of clubs to visit.

A series of “Reunion” events were run in 2008 mopping up grounds that were new since 1996 so when the league contacted us to say they wanted to run another event we initially assumed they were asking us to stand aside to let them run it themselves. It was therefore both a shock and an honour to be asked to run the event for them, but the request did get us thinking.

I have watched football on 2,700 plus different grounds over 25 years, but did not attend any of the original Northern Hops. it struck the 4 of us that if you extrapolated the principle further the interest in a series of hops taking in all grounds in the league except for the 2008 reunions must be huge! We made the suggestion of a series of Easter Hops, which the league loved, with the proviso that if Phil in the South West wants to do another hop, that can be factored in. Then the enormity of it all hit me!

To use a north-eastern analogy it felt like getting the call to play guitar for Mark Knopfler. You know you can do the job well, but the excitement of organising an event for the Northern League… as exciting as the prospect was, we all felt the responsibility too. Having 25 years experience organising these events does give you perspective, so when a couple of the clubs saw the likely attendance as being their normal gate plus prebooked tickets we had that to fall back on, and the league did send out an email with the attendances at this year’s North West Counties League Hop!

Starting the event at the World Champions was an inspired move. In 1904 Thomas Lipton of tea fame, was awarded the Knight of the Grand Order by the government of Italy, a country where he had business interests. When Sir Thomas offered to reciprocate for this great honour, the Italian ambassador asked him to organise a major international sporting event in Italy.

He decided to create a World Cup of football, and the idea was that the best club teams in England, Germany, Italy and Switzerland would be invited to take part. Here histories vary; some say the English FA wanted to invite Woolwich Arsenal, but got their WAFC’s confused, although more likely though is that the FA decided, as they did in 1930 to decline the invitation, and so Lipton simply invited a team that was prepared to take part.

Whatever the reasoning West Auckland in County Durham were an odd choice. An amateur side, consisting mainly of coal miners, were struggling at the bottom of the Northern League, but they won the trophy, beating Stuttgart Sportfreunder 2-0  in the semi-final then FC Winterthur by the same scoreline in the final on April 12th 1909. So you may be thinking it was a fluke, but clearly it wasn’t, because two years later they won it again! This time they beat FC Zurich 2-0 in the semi-final before demolishing the mighty Juventus 6-1 in the final on April 17th 1911.

The achievement was marked in 2013 by The Friends of West Auckland who had raised £200,000 to erect a bronze statue designed by London-based artist Nigel Boonham. It was unveiled by actor Tim Healy who had starred in the television film, “The World Cup: A Captain’s tale” that told the tale of the first World Cup winners. Sadly the trophy was stolen from West Auckland Working Mens’ club in 1994, a replica is normally on display there, but for the occasion the trophy was in the ground for photos for a donation to charity.

Once at the ground it was easy to slip into familiar routines- mainly distributing programme packs and hotel keys. It was good to count off Northern League committee members as they turned up. I know it sounds obvious, but having them there shows commitment to the hop, and you need them if something needs attention. Anyone remember Felinfach?

It was good to catch up with Mike Amos, but also to meet George Courteney. George had a storied career as a referee including officiating in the 1980 FA Cup Final and the 1989 European Cup Winners Cup Final. He also refereed in the 1986 and 1990 World Cups in Mexico and Italy. He was awarded the MBE in 1991, retiring that year. He’s now a very sprightly 85 so I introduced him to my wife Robyn who being younger didn’t know who he was. I gave her a brief explanation, and her response was “So a proper referee then!” George laughed, and we all enjoyed his company for the weekend.

It was lovely to be able to let West Auckland get on with the business of hosting, and if they hadn’t expected a huge crowd, it didn’t show. They looked a good side too, despatching Thornaby with some aplomb, but despite the fact that we had another 11 games to go I felt the pressure lifting. We were working with good people.