Category Archives: C

Straight Outta Compton

06 Sunday Dec 2015

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Saturday 5th December 2015 ko 14.00

North Berkshire League Division 3

COMPTON 2 (Butler 25 Sosnowy 82)

HARWELL VILLAGE 5 (Robins 16 Fisher 79 Fenton 31 73 89)

Att 19

Entry FREE

No Programme

For the avoidance of any doubt this Compton is a village near Newbury in Berkshire and not south-central Los Angeles! As far as I know no gangsta rappers hail from here either! Until recently the firm Pirbright had an animal health testing facility here, that’s gradually being turned into houses, but every time I saw the signpost for Compton on the A34 I always had the same thought, that the club would be perfect for the North Berkshire League. Continue reading →

Timeless

29 Sunday Nov 2015

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Saturday 28th November 2015 ko 14.00

Southern Combination League Division Two

COWFOLD 1 (Mitchell-Harris 16)

MONTPELIER VILLA 0

Att 7

Entry FREE

Programme £1

There’s something that timeless about the West Sussex village of Cowfold. Lying in the Sussex Weald between Haywards Heath and Billingshurst, the village is built around the crossroads of the A272 and A281. There’s the Parish Church of St Peter, a village hall and a pub, and life looks like its carried on at its own pace here, for time immemorial. Continue reading →

Wonder

26 Monday Oct 2015

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Wednesday 21st October 2015 ko 19.45

Kent Invicta League

A.C. LONDON 3 (Ramos 1 23 82)

LEWISHAM BOROUGH 0

Att 85

Entry & Programme £4

When the leagues declare their line-ups for the season ahead just occasionally you see a club that just makes your eyebrows raise, and there can be little doubt that AC London certainly fit that category. Formed by the 16-year-old Prince Choudary in 2012 as a youth team the club has expanded into adult football for this season, entering the Step 6 Kent Invicta League. Choudary at 20 is now the youngest chairman/manager in senior English football, but for me the more remarkable side to the rapid rise of the club is where they’ve chosen to play. Continue reading →

I Was Wrong

25 Sunday Oct 2015

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Sunday 18th October 2015 ko 11.00

Western League First Division

CHIPPING SODBURY 8 (Bishop 1 Barrett 17p Downes 24og Beecham 30 Mackie 39 Taylor 46 Simms 58 60)

BISHOP SUTTON 1 (Keet 68og)

Att 261

Entry £5

Programme £1

For Chris Berezai and I one game loomed large on the Western Hop, our visit to Chipping Sodbury. Part of it was that it would be the only new ground for Chris and I, and that because this is the club’s first season back in the Western League since 1952. That last fact, and the unusual kick-off time would mean that they would see hoppers that perhaps the other host clubs wouldn’t. They attended the host clubs’ meeting, asked all the right questions, and I drove home content that we’d given them the best chance to making the best of their day. But a few days before the day I received an email.
Continue reading →

Clues

24 Saturday Oct 2015

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Saturday 17th October 2015 ko 16.30

Western League Premier Division

CADBURY HEATH 0

CRIBBS 0

Att 185

Entry £5

Programme £1

Once again another lean forward to check the coach driver’s sat-nav revealed another mile’s journey between games. And just like between the first two games we spotted someone who was walking between the games, so we offered him a lift to Keynsham after this one but he declined, perhaps he foresaw the score here!

Continue reading →

Listening

19 Monday Oct 2015

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Friday 16th October 2015 ko 19.45

Western League Division One

CORSHAM TOWN 1 (Lardner 82)

CALNE TOWN 2 (Windsor 12 Beasley 54)

Att 293

Entry £5

Programme £1

If you metaphorically scratch the surface of the Western League Hop, you get League General Secretary Mark Edmonds. It was him who put the idea in as part of his successful application to the role, and it was him who first put the idea to his clubs. From GroundhopUK’s perspective we’d had an abortive attempt at the project a decade or so earlier, so we hadn’t even considered the idea. But all kinds of coincidences happened to make this happen. Continue reading →

Scandal

01 Tuesday Sep 2015

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Wednesday 26th August 2015 ko 18.15

Thames Valley Premier League, Premier Division

COOKHAM DEAN 0

WOODLEY UNITED RESERVES 5 (Waller 10 Male 45p 68 Wilks 59 73)

Att 14

Entry FREE

No Programme

Most people have regrets, but John Profumo most have had more than many. If only he’d never met Christine Keeler, and Mandy Rice-Davies, or paid Cliveden House a visit… Actually the Taplow-based mansion could have been his salvation, if he’d only looked from a west-facing window and stared over the valley towards Cookham Dean. 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 →

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 →

Sphinx

13 Monday Jul 2015

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Tuesday 7th July 2015 ko 19.00

Pre-Season Friendly

COVENTRY SPHINX 3 (Thompson 51 Evangelinos 80 Jayes 90)

RACING CLUB WARWICK 0

Att 41 at Pitch 3, Sphinx Drive

Entry FREE

Programme FREE

I have to confess that I tend to read “Sphinx” and think of “Carry on Cleo” and the appalling joke, “Why the sphinx in Egypt? That’s because they have no drains.” The unusual suffix is due to the ground being the former Hawker-Siddley Motors works ground; the Sphinx was the firm’s badge. Continue reading →