Category Archives: C

What’s in a name?

10 Sunday Aug 2014

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Sunday 3rd August 2014 ko 14.00

Peterborough & District League Premier Division

COATES ATHLETIC 2 (Drane 16 Pell 53) Drane missed penalty 89

OAKHAM UNITED 5 (Forbes 15 18 Nelson 45 82 Caldicot 47)

Att 401 

Entry £4

Programme £1

Badge £3

Let me tell you a secret; on every groundhop that’s ever been organised, whether by GroundhopUK or our friends, there has always been a “Problem child,” club. They’re the club who don’t take advice, don’t communicate with the organisers, or in the case of one, fold altogether 2 weeks before the event! Its the task of whoever’s organising the hop to work with that club to get that club, at worst, up to an acceptable level.

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Just Wanna Play

27 Sunday Jul 2014

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Tuesday 22nd July 2014 ko 18.45

Pre-Season Friendly

COVENTRY UNITED 1 (Stokes 52) Nduna missed penalty 43

BRINKLOW 3 (Cawley 13 90 Nelson 67p)

Att 47 at Keresley RUFC, John E Radford Fields, Burrow Hill Lane, Corley

Entry FREE

No Programme

This was one of those grounds you can’t visit for football during the normal season, but with the pitch at Allard Way being reseeded, the club moved this fixture to Keresley, a village right on the northern edge of the Coventry conurbation. Its a rural location, even the undulating pitch showed signs of its former use as strip-farmed agriculture.  As it so often the case with a rugby union ground, the facilities are mostly in the clubhouse, there was no rope, rail, or stand, but to be fair to the egg-chasers, this was the furthest pitch from the clubhouse. And on a warm evening, what facilities did you need anyway? Continue reading →

Four Laps, Clutch Start

20 Sunday Jul 2014

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Friday 18th July 19.30

British Elite League

COVENTRY BEES 52 (Andersen 12+1 Jepson Jensen 11+1)

BELLE VUE ACES 39 (Zagar 10 Nielsen 9)

Entry £17

Programme £2.50

In another life I could have easily become a speedway hopper, the Oxford Cheetahs’ Sandy Lane track was a cycle ride away during my youth, and once one of us learned to drive there was the likes of the Reading Racers, the Milton Keynes Knights, the Cradley Heathens, Swindon Robins, Wolverhampton Wolves, and Poole Pirates all within a reasonably straightforward drive. But if you wanted a match at a big stadium with a sense of history you went to Brandon Stadium. My hey-day was the late eighties and nineties I suppose, but times change.

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The Canal

27 Tuesday May 2014

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Saturday 24th May 2014 ko 14.30

Scots Junior East Region, East of Scotland Cup Quarter Final

CAMELON JUNIORS 3 (Wright 34 Allison 48 Batchelor 76)

CARNOUSTIE PANMURE 0

Att 122

Entry £5

No Programme

Aim for the Falkirk Wheel, and you’ll be at the edge of Camelon. It’s a town dominated by its larger neighbour, and the Union Canal that reaches its confluence with Forth and Clyde Canal at the wheel. The latter canal runs behind, and rather counter-intuitively, above Carmuirs Park, set at the back of an estate of social housing. Continue reading →

Led Zep

21 Wednesday May 2014

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Monday 19th May 2014 ko 18.30

Hertfordshire Senior County League, Senior Premier Division

CUFFLEY 0

STANDON & PUCKERIDGE 4 (Endacott 3 Stephen 16 James 47 Miller 51)

Att 41

Entry FREE

Programme NO

Tea 80p

I thought I knew North London and its suburbs, the villages with their war memorials and their church spires. God knows I spent 3 years living there, but every so often I visit somewhere that throws me.

At first Cuffley fitted my expectations, its a place of wealth, a popular place for Premier League footballers to buy property with easy access to the capital, and former Tesco CEO Sir Terry Leahy lives here. That said there is resistance locally to a Tesco Local opening here, and I do wonder if it did open, would Sir Terry shop there? But there’s more to the village than meets the eye, and it all starts with the football club…. Continue reading →

The Force Of Nature

14 Monday Apr 2014

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Friday 11th April 2014 ko 19.45

Notts Senior League- Senior Division

COTGRAVE FC 4 (Dobbins 53 Waddell 55 Kirkby 63 90)

BURTON JOYCE 2 (Roman Easom 40 75)

Att 311

Entry £3

Teamsheet 20p

Programme £1

Badge £3

I wonder how many people who attend an organised groundhop and pick-up a pre-paid pack of the hop’s programmes realise they have Rob Hornby to thank for them? For it was Rob who first came up with the idea, when he and Chris Berezai used to organise the Central Midlands League Bonanza each Easter. It was, and is a wonderful idea, the programme is a prerequisite for any event to call itself a hop, and so having a pack available to those with a pre-booked ticket quickly became a standard feature. Now when it comes to Rob, I may be biased, he’s shown me great kindness over the years, but as far as I’m concerned he’s the nicest bloke in football so I’ll attend any hop he’s organising, if its humanly possible to do so.

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Floodlight Fancy

27 Thursday Mar 2014

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Tuesday 25th March 2014 ko 19.45

Sussex County League Division One

CHICHESTER CITY 1 (Groom 7)

RINGMER 0

Att c50

Entry £5

Programme £1

Chichester and I go back a long way. My ex-wife loved Butlins so regularly we’d spend weekends at the nearby Bognor Regis stockade, to watch the likes of Coghlan’s Quo, and a version of Bucks Fizz with only one original member. We even saw Limahl in support of The Wurzels once, which looked less like entertainment and more like a gentle nudge towards alternative employment for the former Kajagoogoo man.

There was one massive advantage to the place, and that was on Saturday afternoons I could escape the high fences and security patrols, and find a game locally. Even now, a look at the grounds I’ve visited in this part of the south coast show a marked slant to Bognor Regis. Nice town Bognor, if nothing else for the annual Birdman of Bognor competition, and the heroic David Purley, but as for Butlins, well I’m rather with King George V on that one!

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The Bartender & The Thief

16 Sunday Mar 2014

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Saturday 15th March 2014 ko 14.30

Welsh League Division Three

CWMAMMAN UNITED 5 (M Hughes 16 Spring 39 Bonomi 58 66 L Hughes 69)

CWMAMAN INSTITUTE 0

Att 23

Entry FREE

Programme Comp

As a child growing up in Oxford, my parents had a liking for holidays in West Wales so I got well used to getting to the end of the M4 at Pont Abraham and the 10-year-old me always felt that this was where my holiday began. And decades later, when I reached that road’s end, almost in a random place- why wasn’t it built all the way to Carmarthen, I felt exactly the same way. 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 →