Author Archives: laurencereade

Whatever happened to Goronwy Jones?

16 Sunday Mar 2014

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Sunday 9th March 2014 ko 13.00

Ceredigion League Division Two

FFOSTRASOL WANDERERS 2 (A Bowen 57 C Griffiths 88)

DEWI STARS 2 (Andrew Jones 45 Owens 90)

Att 166

Entry £3

Programme £1

Badge £3

It seemed such a long time ago when Keith drove the coach past Troedyrhiw (Troy-dur-roo) Park on the way back from New Quay and the entire coach turned to their left and gawped at the beautiful ground in rural West Wales. It’s fair to say it helped push us into towards making the Ceredigion League a regular fixture.

The main stand (and you don’t get to say that very often in this league) is a classic piece of influence. Ffostrasol played at Builth Wells and liked their stand, so in 1978 built their own version. It’s a vision of lichen covered concrete, corrugated iron, and plank seating and there wasn’t a single one of the 166 present that didn’t immediately fall in love with it! Perhaps its the process of nature gradually claiming everything back to itself that appeals. Continue reading →

Plan C

14 Friday Mar 2014

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Sunday 9th March 2014 ko 10.15

Ceredigion League Division One

BARGOD RANGERS 3 (Skinner 2 35 D Evans 76)

MAESGLAS 3 (J James 15 38 Irvine 29)

Att 238

Entry £3

Programme £1

Badge £3

Tea & A Welsh Cake £1

Hat £3

So picture the scene, I’m sat in my office at work and I’ve got Twitter on in the background. All of a sudden the following tweet pops up….

Llanybydder

….and our Sunday morning game goes out of the window just under 3 weeks before the event. I knew Chris Berezai was at a business meeting in the north, so I spent a frantic few minutes looking at the Ceredigion website (and I’m thankful its detailed and up to date). It became clear that unless we were either going to run the hop a game short, or rejig all the other fixtures there was only one game open to us, Bargod vs Maesglas. We’d already postponed our visit to Saron as they’d played every 1st XI in their league, many hoppers won’t watch games involving reserves, and the only 1st XI Bargod had to meet was Maesglas. Continue reading →

Menu

12 Wednesday Mar 2014

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Saturday 8th March 2013 k0 16.00

Ceredigion League Division Two

CILGERRAN ROVERS 1 (K Phillips 66)

LLANON 0

Att 226

Entry £3

Programme £1

Badge £3

Beer £2.75

Cheese £4

Hat £5

Food – All of it!

I have a mate Graeme who has an unusual hobby, he collects Chinese takeaway menus. Other than that and the groundhopping he’s quite a well-adjusted chap he’s a schoolteacher, but if you’re in a car and you pass the takeaway, your journey will be paused for him to dash out and collect another one for his collection. Being a groundhopper helps his cause and other hoppers collect for him, so he’s got menus from places such as Hungary, the USA and Malta but I think the centrepiece of his collection ought to be a British takeaway menu from China! Continue reading →

Slovak the Pole

12 Wednesday Mar 2014

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Saturday 8th March 2014 ko 13.15

Ceredigion League Division One

CARDIGAN TOWN 6 (B Davies 19 28 J Thomas 52 D Nash 74 86 K Morgan 80)

NEW QUAY 0

Att 224

Entry £3

Programme £1

Badge £3

Beer £2.20

Lamb Cawl £2.20

As the coach pulled into Ceredigion’s county town I was more than pleased to see the rugby club there on our right with the football pitch next door. The previous year we’d tried to negotiate Cardigan’s one-way system en route to Maesglas and its fair to day we’d seen a little more of the town than we’d planned! Continue reading →

Expectations

11 Tuesday Mar 2014

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Saturday 8th March 2014 ko 10.30

Ceredigion League Division One

ABERPORTH 3 (Griffiths 67 Glover 84og Smith 97)

CRANNOG 2 (R Roberts 11 S Jones 28)

Att 166

Entry £3

Programme £1

Badge £1

Each time our coach crosses the border from Carmarthenshire to Ceredigion I get the feeling that something interesting is going to happen. Perhaps that’s just the anticipation of another game at another new ground, but on this particular Saturday my sense of expectancy was heightened. In this part of West Wales things happen differently, you are in Welsh Wales after all, and the pace of life is more relaxed. Understanding that culture is important and that helped us to help 5 clubs put on what was a hop that showcased themselves and their beautiful part of the world. I loved it, and I hope all those who attended did too. Continue reading →

Resurrection

10 Monday Mar 2014

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Friday 7th March 2014 ko 19.45

Welsh League Division Three

LLANELLI TOWN 3 (J Evans 22 Samuel 37 John 73p)

CWMAMAN INSTITUTE 1 (Jenkins 52)

Att 257

Entry £3

Programme £2

GroundhopUK special hospitality ticket (entry, programme, buffet, presentation) £10

Badge £3

From an overnight stop in Bridgend it didn’t take long to reach our base for the Welsh Spring Hop, the Ivy Bush Hotel in Carmarthen. We’d organised the five clubs’ programmes to be delivered to journalist Chris Harte who lives locally, and it was a pleasure to catch up with him in his library before returning to the hotel to make up 116 programme packs before heading off to Caerphilly and Castell Coaches to meet the coach and our new driver Carl. We had a pick-up near Cardiff station before heading west to the end of the M4 and then off to Llanelli at Stebonheath Park. Continue reading →

The Non Hop Hop Game

10 Monday Mar 2014

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Thursday 6th March 2014 ko 19.00

Welsh League Division Two

CARDIFF METROPOLITAN UNIVERSITY 3 (Clapton 48p Hickman 71 Roscrow 88)

DINAS POWYS 0

Att 78

Entry £2

Programme £1

It has long occurred to me that both the feeder leagues to the Welsh Premier League have names that give no impression as to their purpose. In the north and mid-Wales there’s the Cymru Alliance and below that the Welsh Alliance, which is the same title, just in a different language. Parallel to the Welsh Alliance in the north is the even more confusingly titled Welsh National League with its fig-leaf suffix, (Wrexham area). In the south its the 3 divisions of the Welsh league; so there must be scope to tidy up the nomenclature!

Continue reading →

Modus Operandi

05 Wednesday Mar 2014

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Tuesday 4th March 2014 ko 19.30

Isthmian League Division One South

CRAWLEY DOWN GATWICK 2 (Sargent 28 Akanbi 42)

THREE BRIDGES 3 (Romain 53 Daniel 68 Rivers 90)

Att 113

Entry £8

Programme (reissue with insert) £2

Badge £4

Tea £1

The Mid-Sussex village is one of those pretty settlements that utterly belies its location close to Gatwick airport, and the M23 and M25 motorways. In fact I’d planned on visiting just before the Maltese tour, details here, but genuinely couldn’t face driving to Gatwick, then driving home, and returning a few hours later! Continue reading →

Me Corderoy Britches

03 Monday Mar 2014

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Saturday 1st March 2014 ko 18.30

Northern League Division Two

DARLINGTON RAILWAY ATHLETIC 2 (Allison 33 84)

THORNABY 3 (Bythway 10 Melvin 22 Woodhouse 82)

Att 195

Entry £4

Programme £1

Badge £3

Teamsheet 20p

So journey’s end for the 3rd of the 4 Northern League hops, and for me at least the first revisit of the 3 events! I’d paid Brinkburn Road a visit in 2006 on a Friday night for a FA Vase game against, yes, Thornaby! Continue reading →

Drift

03 Monday Mar 2014

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Saturday 1st March 2014 ko 14.30

Northern League Division Two

STOKESLEY SPORTS CLUB 1 (Upton 67)

TOW LAW TOWN 2 (Thexton 18 26)

Att 189

Entry £4

Programme £1

Badge £3

Pie & Peas £2

The second game of the “Southern” day of the Northern League saw one of the league’s southernmost outposts. So much so the that the town is actually in North Yorkshire, more normally associated with the Northern Counties East league at this level of the game, although there’s been a fair amount of exchange over the years.

This is the land where Captain Cook grew up. He was born in nearby Great Ayton in the foothills of the North York Moors, and the distinctive Roseberry Topping hill, with its Matterhorn-esque silhouette as a background. It was once the symbol of the now defunct county of Cleveland and was in almost complete contrast with the petrochemical industrial backdrop of Redcar that we’d left behind. It’s fair to say that Broughton Road is a ground best visited in the light for the spectacular scenery behind. Continue reading →