Category Archives: C

Show me the way

19 Sunday Apr 2015

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Wednesday 15th April 2015 ko 18.30

Gloucestershire County League

CHELTENHAM CIVIL SERVICE 0

FRAMPTON UNITED 0

Att 104

Entry FREE

Programme £1.50

In an odd way, the roots of the club aren’t in Cheltenham. The Civil Service suffix refers to GCHQ which used to be based near Swakeleys Junction, Hillingdon. The football club was formed there in 1948 and when the Government Communications HeadQuarters moved to Cheltenham in 1953 the club (and half the team) relocated with it. They moved to their current home at Tewkesbury Road, Uckington, at Cheltenham’s western edge in 1954, and the club renamed itself from GCHQ in 1957 as players from other parts of the Civil Service locally were representing the club. Continue reading →

Individuality

27 Friday Feb 2015

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Wednesday 25th February 2015 ko 19.30

Western League Division One

CHARD TOWN 1 (Chlopecki 38)

ROMAN GLASS ST GEORGE 2 (Hamilton-Dunn 42 88)

Att 62

Entry £5

Programme £1

When groundhoppers talk over a pint, often its ground quirks that dominate the conversation. If the topic of sloping pitches comes up you soon find out who’s been to Chard or not. Put simply the ground at Zembard Lane is the slope to which all other slopes are compared.

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Reds & Blues

07 Friday Nov 2014

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Wednesday 5th November 2014 k0 19.30

Welsh League Division 3

CARDIFF GRANGE HARLEQUINS 2 (Cawley 15 Dabusso 52)

BRIDGEND STREET 3 (Penekett 37 Kane 55 Dunfold 75)

Att c33

Entry £3

Programme- None. The club puts a downloadable version on the results section of their website, but the website hasn’t been updated for a while.

It’s a long time since I first encountered the Grangetown-based team, taking a 7-0 drubbing away at Plas Kynaston Lane, then home to Cefn Druids in January 2006. That was during Quins one season in the Welsh Premier League, an unhappy experience for them, their chances of survival stymied by a major sponsor pulling out just before the start of the season. A year or two later I went to see them at their home at Leckwith Stadium, and even now there are still echoes from that time. Continue reading →

Rogues Gallery

23 Thursday Oct 2014

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Tuesday 14th October 2014 ko 19.30

Leicestershire Senior League Premier Division

COTTESMORE AMATEURS 1 (Mackie 21)

SILEBY TOWN 3 (Coggan 5 Jelly 11 34)

Att c30

Entry £2

No Programme, Old Copy £1

It is odd that England’s smallest county Rutland has clubs at two different leagues at the same level. Uppingham, Oakham and others play in the Step 7 Peterborough & District League but the anomaly is that Cottesmore play in the parallel Leicestershire Senior League. With my GroundhopUK hat on another set of floodlights in the PDFL with a Rutland hop scheduled for next season would have been handy! Such is life, and with plans for next July’s event well progressed the weekend should be a hugely enjoyable one.

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Jethro

22 Monday Sep 2014

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Saturday 20th September 2014 ko 10.00

North Berkshire League Division One

CROWMARSH GIFFORD 0

WALLINGFORD TOWN 1 (Searle 54)

Att 215

Entry & Programme £4

Beer; Loddon Brewery

Food: Breakfast baps, pizza

Off the top of my head this was the earliest time we at GroundhopUK have ever asked a club to kick-off, due entirely to getting 4 games on in a day, and giving people enough time to get through security at the MOD base later on.

I rather took to the town where Jethro Tull invented the seed drill when I visited them over a year ago report here, then again when they were the opponents at Long Wittenham in the final game of last year’s hop. Whilst the Recreation Ground isn’t the easiest to find, tucked as is behind a new housing development, there was plenty of space to work with. Continue reading →

Scratching at it

10 Wednesday Sep 2014

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Wednesday 3rd September ko 18.00

Hampshire Premier League Senior Division

COLDEN COMMON 3 (Chester 17 Reed 45 90)

HEDGE END RANGERS 2 (Cross 39 Turner 42p)

Att 60

Entry FREE

Programme £1

The great beauty of writing about an endless supply of football grounds is that the process of putting together these articles makes you think a little deeper than, “I like this place,” and let’s face it there are no lack of football bloggers out there whose description of what they’ve experienced is often little more than, “Decent” or “Nice,” God I hate those two words. Continue reading →

Crowland

10 Sunday Aug 2014

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Crowland Abbey and Trinity Bridge, Lincs

This is, I suppose a codicil to the United Counties League, and Peterborough & District League hop, we did after all use the town as hop HQ for the weekend. It’s the lot of the participant on the organised groundhop that you don’t see too much of the area other the hotels and football grounds, but this hop broke a few moulds, and me finding time to explore was one.

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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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