Saturday 18th April 2026 ko 15:00

Somerset County League Premier Division

CLEVEDON UNITED 1 (Morgan 63p)

CLEVEDON AFC 1 (Wilcox 5)

Att 327

Entry, Badge and Ticket (in advance) £7

I’d been impressed by the organisation at Congresbury but I also knew a hop game at Clevedon United came witb its own challenges. The ground at Coleridge (of Rime of the Ancient Mariner fame) Vale is both open, there is no boundary fence or wall, and the football pitch is adjacent to a rugby ground, and there would be a game taking place there at the same time as the football! It certainly looked a challenge!

I remembered Clevedon United from their 2003-10 stint in the Western League. Back then they played their games at Clevedon Town’s Hand Stadium and moved back to Coleridge Vale afterwards. On the other hand Clevedon FC played last last season as Uphill Castle in Weston-super-Mare and moved into the Hand Stadium for this season. Is this a precursor to them having a tilt at the Western League in the future? It may have looked like a local derby, but it didn’t feel like one- but I am very much an outsider.

What did interest me was how the challenges of the day were managed. I know how I would have approached it, I’ve rolled out Hanney FC’s approach time and time again. There we took an open pitch, and put up a gazebo where we knew the vast majority of the visitors would arrive, and put everything they’d want there. For a groundhopper that would be programmes priced as “Entry by Programme” , but we tended to put food there too. Here most things were in the same place, and while there was no entry fee as such the price of the programme I think did much the same job as entry by programme. It was interesting to see two sets of organisers come to roughly the same conclusions, from different starting points.

The added complication was the rugby match, I’d have been tempted to have swapped this and the Congresbury game round to avoid the the clash. But since there was no entry fee if you wanted to avoid paying, having two sets of supporters added up to greater amounts of food sold from the barbecue. Whether that made up for the lack of an entry fee who knows, perhaps who cares? As I said in the Congresbury piece there are a few hard and fast rules, and for me the great joy of attending other folks’ hops is to learn from their approach beyond those rules. Clevedon United hosted well, and this time we got a good game too!

I felt a little discomfited at the final whistle. For me the event was over, I had an elderly Dad to visit anck in Oxford, and a pub quiz to compete in. It’s not usual for me to dip into an event, the last was in 2014! What I saw of the hop was excellent, thoughtfully organised and those who attended the other games reported similar excellence. Congratulations to all involved and I’ll look forward to the next instalment!