Author Archives: laurencereade

Best Wishes

09 Wednesday Aug 2017

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Sunday 30th July 2017 ko 11.00

Peterborough & District League Division One

LONG SUTTON ATHLETIC 0

TYDD ST MARY 0

Match abandoned 12 minutes- serious injury

Att 346

Entry £4

Programme £1

The coach parked up outside the ground and in front the main road looked choked. It was a mixture of through traffic, and groundhoppers who in many cases had found inappropriate places to park. The inevitable happened, a hopper’s car scraped a local’s car and apart from the thoroughly unpleasant exchange of views afterwards the best he can hope for is the loss of his no claims bonus. I wonder whether he’ll book the coach next time? I however had other thoughts… Continue reading →

The Power of 3000

07 Monday Aug 2017

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Saturday 29th July 2017 ko 19.45

United Counties League Division One

BOURNE TOWN 1 (Russell 90p)

RAUNDS TOWN 2 (Porter 36 Townsend 81)

Att 459

Entry £5

Programme £2 (poor for what it was)

I’ve said it before, but it’s worth repeating how much Chris Berezai and I love it when there’s someone there to meet the hop coach, it takes any uncertainty out what adds up to GroundhopUK handing over a coachload of hoppers to another club for another couple of hours, even if a fair few immediately disappear to tick off a pub or pubs! Here Bourne did the greeting in spades with an official there to welcome each and everyone to Abbey Lawns before whisking Chris, coach driver Dwayne and I off to hospitality. But this wasn’t an evening about hospitality, this was an evening about redemption. Continue reading →

The Legacy

06 Sunday Aug 2017

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Saturday 29th July 2017 ko 16.00

Peterborough & District League Division Two

SPALDING TOWN 2 (Coote 17 Wilson 90)

WISBECH ST MARY SAINTS 1 (McKenna 40)

Att 241

Entry £4

Programme £1

The story goes that a local man left a legacy leaving Spalding United £200,000 Pinchbeck United £200,000 and Spalding Town 2p! Now I haven’t been able to verify the account, or who or what at Spalding Town irked him, but if true if would help to explain how the UCL/PDFL hop came to be at Knight Street, in Pinchbeck. Continue reading →

Beer Drinkers

04 Friday Aug 2017

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Saturday 29th July 2017 ko 13.45

Peterborough & District League Premier Division

MOULTON HARROX 3 (Parry 6 Watkin 26 Woods 42)

SUTTON BRIDGE UNITED 0

Att 280

Entry £4

Programme £1

You got a sense of divergence as the crowd left Holbeach. Some headed for Deeping, some for Fakenham and others March Town. The destinations all had one thing in common, they all were grounds at Step 6 or above, or putting it another way the kind of grounds that if we’d have made the hop an exclusively UCL event, would not have seen hoppers on anything like the scale that happened here. Whilst I understand their reasons, there is a point of view that doesn’t deal with life at Step 7 or below; it would have been lovely to have seen them try the delights of Moulton Harrox and Spalding Town, there were were strong reasons for optimism. Continue reading →

The Prime Meridian

01 Tuesday Aug 2017

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Saturday 29th July 2017 ko 10.45

United Counties League Premier Division

HOLBEACH UNITED 6 (Bird 14 53 Leckie 18 Jackson 56 Sanders 83 Davies 85)

SLEAFORD TOWN 0

Att 333

Entry £6

Programme £1.50

From our base in Peterborough coach driver Dwayne set sail north-east heading into East Anglia in general and more specifically the Fenlands. The topography flattened out considerably, Holbeach has a coastal suffix with good reason, it used to be only 2 miles from the sea, and it’s area South Holland, a good hint as to who drained the land!  Continue reading →

The Hot Spot

31 Monday Jul 2017

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Friday 28th July 2017 ko 19.45

United Counties League Division One

HUNTINGDON TOWN 0

PINCHBECK UNITED 0

Att 221

Entry £6

Programme £1

I’ll never forget the genesis of the United Counties/ Peterborough & District League Hop. It all started with the UCL tasking apprentice Daniel Leggett to organise what they’d seen work well elsewhere. He soon hit an impasse and contacted former Notts Senior League hop organiser Rob Hornby. Rob couldn’t help him, but did contact me. I met Daniel at Peterborough Sports, and soon enough Chris Berezai and I were meeting the clubs. There was a surprise waiting for us though! Continue reading →

Twitching

26 Wednesday Jul 2017

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Tuesday 25th July 2017 ko 19.30

Preseason Friendly

HULL CITY 0

FC NANTES 0

Att 2,097 at Craven Park (Hull Kingston Rovers RLFC)

Entry £12

Programme £1.50

Every so often in groundhopping you get a game played at a one-off ground that the case is so compelling for going that you drop everything and go there. It is the footballing version of what twitching is to birdwatching, and yes, there were many groundhoppers at this game.  Continue reading →

Grand Prix

24 Monday Jul 2017

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Saturday 22md July 2017 17.00

F.I.M. Speedway British Grand Prix

1st Maciej Janowski (Pol)

2nd Jason Doyle (Aus)

3rd Matej Zagar (Slo)

4th Bartosz Zmarzlik (Pol)

Att 40,234 at Principality Stadium, Cardiff

Entry £25

Programme £10

It had been roughly 10 years since my last speedway GP at the now rebranded Millenium Stadium, in Cardiff. I found myself using the old routine, parking in the side streets of Newport, then using a group saver to get a return the one stop to Cardiff Central for around £3.45. It still works well, apart from the bloke who’d had a beer in Bridgewater, tried to get to Taunton, and woke up in Newport. At least he amused the carriage-full of Poles! Continue reading →

Westland

20 Thursday Jul 2017

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Saturday 15th July 2017 ko 15.00

Preseason Friendly

YEOVIL TOWN 1 (Olomola 75)

BRISTOL CITY 3 (Reid 22 28 Magnusson 25)

Att 2,636 (883 away)

Entry £8

Programme £1

On occasion I get asked how I pick my games, and people are often surprised when I say that often they pick me! This one was a case in point, I was due to be in Minehead in the evening and my girlfriend Robyn is a Bristol City fan. Then there was the Martin McConachie factor to consider…

Continue reading →

The Great British Play-Off

13 Thursday Jul 2017

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Tuesday 11th July 2017 ko 18.45

Pre-season Friendly

PENN & TYLERS GREEN 0

WINDSOR FC 1 (Shafi 18)

Att c40

Entry £2

I reckon that in groundhopping circles Penn & Tylers Green have got an unnecessarily bad press. I know why, I remember the Hellenic Hop visiting quite a few of the grounds of Division 1 East at Step 6, and I know of a few southern-based hoppers that took some convincing that a trip to the Step 7 Central Midlands League Hop was a worthwhile exercise. I heard the comments, along the lines that if Division One East was little more than railed off fields than what must the level below be like? Continue reading →