Category Archives: C

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 →

The Non Hop Hop Game

10 Monday Mar 2014

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Thursday 6th March 2014 ko 19.00

Welsh League Division Two

CARDIFF METROPOLITAN UNIVERSITY 3 (Clapton 48p Hickman 71 Roscrow 88)

DINAS POWYS 0

Att 78

Entry £2

Programme £1

It has long occurred to me that both the feeder leagues to the Welsh Premier League have names that give no impression as to their purpose. In the north and mid-Wales there’s the Cymru Alliance and below that the Welsh Alliance, which is the same title, just in a different language. Parallel to the Welsh Alliance in the north is the even more confusingly titled Welsh National League with its fig-leaf suffix, (Wrexham area). In the south its the 3 divisions of the Welsh league; so there must be scope to tidy up the nomenclature!

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Modus Operandi

05 Wednesday Mar 2014

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Tuesday 4th March 2014 ko 19.30

Isthmian League Division One South

CRAWLEY DOWN GATWICK 2 (Sargent 28 Akanbi 42)

THREE BRIDGES 3 (Romain 53 Daniel 68 Rivers 90)

Att 113

Entry £8

Programme (reissue with insert) £2

Badge £4

Tea £1

The Mid-Sussex village is one of those pretty settlements that utterly belies its location close to Gatwick airport, and the M23 and M25 motorways. In fact I’d planned on visiting just before the Maltese tour, details here, but genuinely couldn’t face driving to Gatwick, then driving home, and returning a few hours later! Continue reading →

The Carshalton 6

26 Wednesday Feb 2014

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Tuesday 25th February 2013 ko 19.45

Isthmian League Premier Division

CARSHALTON ATHETIC 0

DULWICH HAMLET 4 (Clunis 21 Lodge 30 Daly 39 51)

Att 277

Entry £10

Programme (reissue from postponed game on 1st January with insert) £2

Badge. Carshalton Athletic I am NOT paying £5 for a badge.

Tea £1

My original idea was to visit the War Memorial Ground a couple of weeks ago, but then it was suggested to me by Mishi Morath that it would be more interesting to wait for Dulwich Hamlet to be the visitors. I diverted to an interesting evening at Tunbridge Wells, including a supporter reinforcing a cliché by complaining that I’d referred to them as Tunbridge, something she found, “Tres Annoying!” Mishi’s advice proved to be sound, and my trip to the ground just off Colston Avenue proved to be far more interesting than I expected. Continue reading →