Author Archives: laurencereade

Much In Little

07 Friday Aug 2015

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Saturday 1st August 2015 ko 10.45

Peterborough & District League Premier Division

KETTON 2 (Waldron 32 Brockbank 83p)

NETHERTON 2 (Randall 16 Rankin 65)

Att 284

Entry £4

Programme £1

Badge £3

When we at GroundhopUK took on a the task of organising a hop for the United Counties and Peterborough Leagues, one area loomed large and that was the tiny county of Rutland. The tradionally smallest county in the UK intrigued Chris Berezai and I, and when I paid Uppingham Town a visit around 4 years ago, I wrote an article titled “Rutland Weekend Television.” a nod to Eric Idle’s 1970’s humorous TV show. So when we agreed the hop we were able to see if we could organise a groundhop exclusively in Rutland but was it even possible? Continue reading →

Types

06 Thursday Aug 2015

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Friday 31st July 2015 ko 19.45

United Counties League Premier Division

HARBOROUGH TOWN 1 (Wright 2)

YAXLEY 3 (Cotton 9 Gearing 48 82)

Att 313

Entry £6

Programme £1

Badge £3

The more organised hops I help organise the more I feel I can see how the future of the organised hop will pan out. On one hand it would be easy for Chris Berezai and I to simply organise events in leagues we’re interested in. With around 3,000 grounds visited between us that would see lower level leagues featuring, along the lines of the Ceredigion or North Berkshire Leagues, but we both feel that we owe it to those with far lower ground counts to organise events at Step 5 and 6. Continue reading →

Ox-Bow

06 Thursday Aug 2015

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Thursday 30th July 2015 ko 18.30

West Dean Charity League Junior Section Group 1

ST BRIAVELS 3 (38 58 85)

WESTON 3 (27secs 12 50)

Att 8

Its tempting to define the Forest of Dean as that part of Gloucestershire that’s between the rivers Wye and Severn and is south of the A40. You soon discover the fallacy of that when you head south down the A48, then turn off at Westbury and climb. The forest gradually takes over and the pace of life slows, it really is a different but beautiful part of the world, and you forget just how close you are to the Welsh border until you see mileage signs to Monmouth in single figures. Continue reading →

The River

03 Monday Aug 2015

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Tuesday 28th July 2015 ko 18.30

West Dean Charity League, Senior Section Group 1

WESTBURY UNITED 1 (Jeffries 45)

MITCHELDEAN 1 (Jones 31)

Att 25

Entry FREE

Programme NO

Is there such a thing as a quasi-friendly? If there is then the West Dean Charity League would be it. It serves for the most part in lieu of pre-season friendlies for clubs in the North Gloucestershire League with the competition divided into Senior, Intermediate, and Junior sections according to the clubs’ league status. The big change for this season is that the competition is being covered on the FA’s Fulltime website. Continue reading →

Gorge

27 Monday Jul 2015

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Saturday 25th July 2015 ko 14.30

Pre-Season Friendly

CLYDACH WASPS 0

NEWPORT YMCA 5 (28, 32, 66, 78, 81)

Att 24

Entry FREE

No Programme

If I were to scroll back through my football watching, 10 years ago I simply wouldn’t have watched this. It seems to me the lot of the new groundhopper is that the potential enormity of the hobby leads to the pursuer making rules to limit the sheer volume of possibilities on any given Saturday. Some of the popular ones include, “I don’t do fields,” ” I must have a programme,” and ” I won’t do below (names a division)”

Now the trouble with any hard-and-fast rule is that as soon as you make it, someone will immediate find an equally hard-and-fast exception to it. And the Clydach Wasps are a classic example of this. Continue reading →

UNESCO

26 Sunday Jul 2015

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Saturday 25th July 2015 ko 12.30

Pre-Season Friendly

BLAENAVON BLUES 1 (19)

TREHARRIS ATHLETIC WESTERN 1 (37)

Att 19

Entry FREE

No Programme

As far as I’m concerned Blaenavon in Torfaen is the home of the “Big Pit” the national coal mining museum of Wales, and if you haven’t paid the place a visit, have a read of this and do what I didn’t do, and combine it with a visit to Blaenavon Blues’ Memorial Ground. You can, after all, see the Big Pit from the pitch! Continue reading →

Dickie Davies’ Eyes

22 Wednesday Jul 2015

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Tuesday 21st July 2015 ko 19.15

Pre-Season Friendly

TRETHOMAS BLUEBIRDS 1 (Spain 3)

BARRY TOWN UNITED 1 (Fahiya 89)

Att c200

Entry £3

Programme £1

When I was growing up in Oxford my footballing routine was to cycle to my grandmother’s house before heading off to the Manor Ground. Afterwards Dad and I would have a cup of tea in willow-pattern cups whilst watching the football results on her Rediffusion television.

Sometimes it was on the BBC’s “Grandstand,” and sometimes is was on ITV’s “World of Sport.” If it was the ITV option then there was the added bonus of the rugby results, both Union and League too. Now I soon wondered where all those football and rugby clubs were, and I’m indebted to Dad for simply handing over the road atlas and telling me to look them up for myself, although I haven’t quite forgiven him for the likes of Port Vale and St Mirren! But those Welsh rugby clubs held an almost exotic quality for a small boy from the shires, and as I travel from town to town its wonderful to link what I’m seeing back to that Rediffusion TV. Continue reading →

State of Play

20 Monday Jul 2015

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Sunday 12th July 2015 ko 14.30

Mayo League: Super League

MANULLA 0

CASTLEBAR CELTIC 1 (O’Boyer 62)

Att 57

Entry €5

No Programme

The 4th game of this mini-Irish tour was meant to be a trip to UCD of Dublin, but their success in the Europa League qualifier the previous Thursday saw their scheduled game postponed, with no other League of Ireland games scheduled. I am grateful to Chris Bedford the publisher of the Football Traveller for contacting me to inform us of the bad news. Of course news is only bad news if you can’t spin it to your advantage, and it did give the party an interesting dilemma. Continue reading →

There was a young man

19 Sunday Jul 2015

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Saturday 11th July 2015 ko 18.30

League of Ireland- Premier Division

LIMERICK 2 (Faherty 33 Turner 82p)

GALWAY UNITED 4 (Keegan 12 61 74 Shanahan 81)

Att 650

Entry €15

Programme €4

Badge €3

I first visited the Republic of Ireland when I was 11. My scout troop camped near a small town called Castletown Bere on Bantry Bay, and other than quickly finding out why Ireland is the “Emerald Isle” my abiding memory of the place was just how long it look to get there. Now it has to be said a fleet of cars including 2 Morris Oxfords and a Morris Ital on single track roads was never likely to be fast, but I do remember upon my return grabbing Dad’s road atlas and being surprised at it only being 190-odd miles from the ferry port of Rosslare.

Continue reading →

The Path Less Trodden

15 Wednesday Jul 2015

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Friday 10th July 2015 ko 19.45

League of Ireland First Division

CABINTEELY 0

SHELBOURNE 1 (English 55)

Att 620

Entry €10

Programme €3

The previous day I’d spent a faintly boring few minutes strolling round the bookshop at the airport. These days the sport section is full of Premier League players’ ghost-written “auto”-biographies, and for the most part they follow a similar pattern. Usually a child is discovered by a club, then quickly graduates through the ranks, makes his first team debut, then fame and fortune follow. But what happens to those who for one reason or another don’t make it? Continue reading →