Category Archives: B

His and Hers

29 Wednesday Jun 2016

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Saturday 25th June 2016 ko 18.00

FA Women’s Super League Division 2

BRISTOL CITY WOMEN 4 (Farrow 18 43 Emslie 28 42)

OXFORD UNITED WOMEN 1 (Umotong 25)

Att 475

Entry £8

Programme £2

Part of the fun of being one half a footballing relationship is when your two favourite sides meet, or in this case the women’s versions! Pondering that last phrase that is rather a British sounding statement, in the UK there’s only Glasgow City that plays high-level football without having an equivalent men’s team. That wasn’t always the case though and I do wonder how many home fans realised that the roots of their women’s team are rather unusual to put it mildly? Continue reading →

Sweet Emotion

08 Wednesday Jun 2016

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Sunday 29th May 2016 ko 16.05

Scottish Junior Cup Final

BEITH JUNIORS 1 (Christie 61)

POLLOK 1 (R. Winters 72)

No extra time, Beith won 4-3 on penalties

Att 4,877 at Rugby Park, Kilmarnock (Kilmarnock FC)

Entry £10

Programme £3

Odd isn’t it? A football match that coincides with virtually nothing, is televised and south of Scotland you’d have had to know what you were looking for to find out about it. There’s really no good reason for it, do the rest of the UK really mistake Junior for Juvenile, surely nearly 5,000 wouldn’t turn out for a youth game? The truth of the matter is that the Scots’ Junior scene is vibrant and for a few reasons its main cup competition is especially gripping. Continue reading →

Contraction

07 Tuesday Jun 2016

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Saturday 28th May 2016 ko 14.30

SJFA East of Scotland Cup Semi-Final

BO’NESS UNITED 4 (Donnelly 9 Snowdon 37 Wright 61 Walker 90)

FORFAR WEST END 0

Att c450

Entry £5

No Programme

You really don’t need a map to find out where you are in Bo’ness. To the south Falkirk and the Grangemouth Oil Refinery looms large, and the town lies on the southern banks of the Firth of Forth, and as such was a site for ship-breaking businesses until the 1970’s. There’s a heritage railway, the Bo’ness and Kinneil Railway that runs for 5 miles from the town. But the obvious quirk here is the name, how did that apostrophe find its way in? Continue reading →

Muffled Hooves

11 Wednesday May 2016

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Monday 2nd May 2016 ko 11am

South West Peninsula League Division One East

BRIXHAM AFC 8 (Dodgson 13p 51 57 Robinson 19 Mercieca 81 84 85 89)

NEWTON ABBOT SPURS 3 (Matthews 12 Dyson 41 Price 73)

Att 65 

Entry & Programme £3

So where to go on a Bank Holiday Monday? I wanted to head south-west not least to allow girlfriend Robyn to come along, and obviously a double header appealed. The ground very much on my radar was Seale-Hayne, the soon-to-be vacated home of Plymouth Argyle Reserves and with that kicking off at 3pm it was simply a case of finding an early game. Continue reading →

Bucolic

09 Monday May 2016

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Wednesday 27th April 2016 ko 18.30

Gloucestershire Northern Senior League Division 2

BIBURY AFC 7 (Rockley 6 Reynolds 21 68 McSherry 30 Deacon 76 O’Neill 80 Montgomery 90)

LONGFORD 0

Att 31

If you want a pretty English village to visit just head just over the border from Oxfordshire into Gloucestershire and pay Bibury a visit. It sits on the burbling River Coln, with the Arlington Mill at its centre. Don’t take my word though, William Morris described Bibury as “The most beautiful village in England” Continue reading →

Lionesses Pride

05 Thursday May 2016

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Sunday 24th April ko 16.00

Thames Valley Counties Women’s League Cup Final

BENSON LIONESSES 0

OXFORD CITY NOMADS 3 (Frackiewicz 22 51 62)

Att c200 at Milton United FC

Entry £1

Programme £1

On one level I was at this one purely down to Jon Radcliffe and the Benson Lions. It you aren’t aware of him and them, they represent the absolute pinnacle of my time as a groundhop organiser. Benson Lions are the RAF side based on the base, and if you were at either of the games they hosted, you’ll know why I hold Jon and the club in such high regard. Continue reading →

Rule Breaking

22 Friday Apr 2016

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Thursday 14th April 2016 ko 19.45

Essex Senior League

BOWERS & PITSEA 3 (Hilton 45 Manor 55 Portway 86)

TAKELEY 0

Att 97

Entry £6

Programme £1

I’m not sure why I made a beeline for a floodlit game in Essex, when there was no lack of earlier unlit kick-offs a good deal closer to home. That’s a tactic I picked up from the groundhoppers with thousands of grounds ticked off. The theory is that there are around 1500 floodlit grounds in the UK, so use those winter midweek evenings making use of those lights. You then visit the unlit grounds during the light evenings and on Saturdays, allowing you to stretch the finite number of floodlit grounds as far as possible. Continue reading →

Aitch-Kew

10 Sunday Apr 2016

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Saturday 2nd April 2016 ko 14.00

Birmingham FA Saturday Amateur Cup Final

CADBURY ATHLETIC RESERVES 1 (Ellett 90 )

PEUGEOT MILLPOOL 1 (Welland 80) Matthews sent off 70 (2nd Booking)

No extra time, Cadbury won 4-2 on penalties

Att c50 @ Birmingham FA Ground, Ray Hall Lane, Great Barr

Entry & Programme £3

 

This is one of those that fits the category of “Passed it hundred times, so needed to visit,” but there’s a real twist! On one hand I’d certainly never travelled along leafy Ray Hall Lane, in Great Barr, but if you’ve ever travelled southbound down the M5 just south of its intersection with the M6 you may well have spotted two football grounds. One is FC Premier who rather appropriately play in the Premier Division of the Birmingham and District League, the other is the Birmingham FA Ground. Continue reading →

Tennis (Nearly)

07 Thursday Apr 2016

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Saturday 26th March 2015 ko 16.45

South West Peninsula League Division One West

BUDE TOWN 5 (B Hopcroft 7 45 Stratton 27 Hill 55 Potter 82)

HOLSWORTHY 1 (Bonney 80) Chandler sent off (serious foul play) 37

Att 409

Entry £4

Programme 50p

The last game of the Peninsula League felt rather out on a limb. We’d had 2 games close to St Austell, but now we struck out north driving for an hour to the northern edge of Cornwall, to the extent that the game managed to be both a local derby, and feature the only non-Cornish club on the hop, the visitors being from just over the border into Devon. Continue reading →

A Hundred Good Points Of Husbandry

21 Monday Mar 2016

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Friday 18th March 2016 ko0 19.45

Eastern Counties League-Premier Division

BRANTHAM ATHLETIC 1 (Travis 27)

STANWAY ROVERS 1 (Hunt 64)

Att 100

Entry £7

Programme £1.50

So, another entry in the Eastern Counties League’s regular Friday night fixtures, although on this occasion the impact of playing early was a little diluted by nearby Wivenhoe playing simultaneously. You are only just in Suffolk here, in fact so close to Essex are you, that the Manningtree transmitter is clearly visible from the near goal.  Continue reading →