Author Archives: laurencereade

John Jenkins

06 Monday Jan 2025

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Tuesday 26th November 2024 ko 19:45

Russell Cotes Cup First Round

MONEYFIELDS 4 (Kamin 14 Sargeant 23 Mahammedkier 67 De Sousa 83)

BAFFINS MILTON ROVERS 1 (Lukonyomoi 2)

Att 117

Entry £5

Programme £1

You may recall that a few years ago I visited the Portsmouth suburb of Copnor for the Moneyfields Sports Ground, named after the avenue on which it was located. The trains rumbled past behind the goal past the site of a station that was never built.

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The Microwave Oven Song

05 Sunday Jan 2025

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Saturday 16th November 2024 ko 14:00

North Bucks & District League- Intermediate Division Challenge Trophy- Quarter Final

REAL MK 1 (Boboc 21)

BLETCHLEY SCOT RESERVES 1 (Dowdall 41)

No extra time Scot won 6-4 on penalties

Att 4 at Pitch 2 Marsh Drive, Great Linford, Milton Keynes

Sometimes the restrictions placed upon you produce something interesting. That morning the car was going in for a change of sensor, and in the evening we had tickets to see a tribute band in Banbury. So my options were restricted so I travelled to Wavendon, collected Chris Garner and simply aimed for the nearest game at a ground neither of us had been to before.

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Peripatetic

02 Thursday Jan 2025

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Saturday 9th November 2024 ko 15:00

Isthmian League Division One South East

SITTINGBOURNE 5 (Cosgrove 34 Sinai 45+1 Stevenson 83 Boachie 89 Kingsford 90+3)

DEAL TOWN 0

Att 340

Entry £10

Programme £2

With the organised hop season over you’d have thought the very last place I’d have wanted to find myself was the South East! But then Robyn wanted to tick off Gillingham towards her aim of completing her “92” and Sittingbourne is just that little bit too far away for me to get there midweek after work. Then there’s the which Sittingbourne ground conundrum…

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Smooth Hoperator

30 Monday Dec 2024

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Sunday 27th October 2024 ko 14:30

Southern Combination Division One

EAST PRESTON 1 (Kaffo 18)

Green penalty saved 31

Hastings sent off 65 (DOGSO)

GOLDALMING TOWN 2 (S Ndiulor 5 Edwin 59)

Att 231

Entry £6.50

Programme £2

I’d had to look up my previous visit to the Lashmar, 2007 for those interested, and my abiding memory of the place was that the footprint of the area pitchside wasn’t big so I wondered how East Preston might make best use of it with a big crowd expected. I’d seen their plans, but expectation and delivery can be two completely different things, can’t they?

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Diet Pies

24 Tuesday Dec 2024

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Sundy 27th October 2024 ko 11:00

Southern Combination Premier Division

PAGHAM 3 (Neighbour 45+2 63p Johnston 55)

LOXWOOD 2 (Brown 66 Martyn 76)

Att 259

Entry £7

Programme £2

GroundhopUK’s trip to Nyetimber Lane was a well over a year in the planning. It was their game that was lost to Storm Babet during last year’s hop, to the extent that it was wasn’t so much waterlogged off, more flooded to the extent that I’m not sure we could have got to the ground, much less see a game!

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The Crows Arms

16 Monday Dec 2024

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Saturday 26th October 2024 ko 17:45

Southern Combination Premier Division

CROWBOROUGH ATHLETIC 2 (Forster 6 18)

HASSOCKS 1 (Funnell 4)

Att 413

Entry £7

Programme £2

I must admit I treated the Saturday evening game on the Sussex Hop with a certain amount of trepidation. It wasn’t that Crowborough might do badly, rather it was me considering the antonym of the maxim “Smaller clubs tend to make more of an effort.”

Please don’t see this as a dig at any one club, more a comment that the vast majority of clubs with a history at Southern, Isthmian or Northern Premier League level can cope with hosting a hop game’s crowd. The catch is by scaling up and no more the club does miss out on additional revenue and the hopper gets to swerve the burgers…. again!

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Limekiln

11 Wednesday Dec 2024

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Saturday 26th October 2024 ko 14:30

Southern Combination Division Two

JARVIS BROOK 2 (Penfold 18 Adams 38)

Bateman sent off 57 (2nd booking)

SOUTHWATER 2 (Lewis 45+3 Packham 90+3)

Att 257

Entry & Programme £5

From the outskirts of Crawley to to the outskirts of Crowborough felt like travelling from one side of Sussex to the other. It was further than we’d normally like to travel between games on a hop day, and was the case because of the league wanting to reward clubs who’d featured as away clubs in last year’s rather wet event. That’ll happen again in next year’s hop, but will have to be discontinued at some point, we like to limit the driving where we can!

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Thirds

05 Thursday Dec 2024

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Saturday 26th October 2024 ko 11:00

Southern Combination Division One

OAKWOOD 1 (Morris 59)

ALFOLD 2 (Heath 84 Agbontean 89)

Att 187 (ground record)

Entry £7

Programme £2

God knows it can’t be easy being Oakwood. Being the second club in any town is difficult but try being the third club in Crawley with Crawley Town and Three Bridges in front of you in the pecking order. For the Saturday of the Sussex Hop Craig and I acted as an advance party, getting to each ground before the coach and helping out where where needed.

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Grotto

02 Monday Dec 2024

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Friday 25th October 2024 ko 19:30

Southern Combination Premier Division

ROFFEY 3 (Chedzey 20 Kyle 40 J Pearse 52)

AFC VARNDEANIANS 1 (Bukleb 19p)

Att 307

Entry £8

Programme £2

On reflection there aren’t many worse places to be jaded at than in the middle of a traffic jam on the M25 on a Friday night. I knew why I was; we’d come off the back of a Kent Hop 3 weeks earlier that had seen catering that with the exception of Sutton Athletic had failed to inspire. I’d spent most of that weekend metaphorically swerving burgers! Then there was the Sussex Hop to consider; I’d worried that at GroundhopUK we were promoting two hops in October at both a similar level, and part of the UK.

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Good Tucker

25 Monday Nov 2024

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Wednesday 16th October 2024 ko 19:45

Wiltshire League Premier Division

FARINGDON TOWN 0

SHRIVENHAM FC 1 (J Hirst 15)

Harrison sent off 90+1 (serious foul play)

Att c250

Free Entry

Programme by donation to the Jack Badger fundraiser

Football does ebb and flow in all its guises, and perhaps more than most in Faringdon’s corner of West Oxfordshire. Some may know the club as the hosts of the annual Faringdon Memorial Thursday Cup others may remember their hosting of a game on the 2012 North Berkshire Groundhop. I certainly got to know the club well in the preamble to that event! Hop or no hop though, I was always going to be at Faringdon’s first game under lights.

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