Category Archives: D

“You Can’t Win Anything With Kids”

15 Wednesday Jun 2016

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Saturday 4th June 2016 ko 15.00

Division 4 Norra Stockholm

FC DJURSHOLM 4 (Tollis 55 Linner 83 Croon 84 87) Ibraham sent off 19 (2nd booking)

IFK ÖSTERÅKER 6 (Sindemark 27 35 Tuhcic 40 Sjöstrand 53 Musa 62 65)

Att 112

If we’d thought Danderyd was well-to-do, it was immediately trumped by Djursholm! The small town has the most expensive house prices in Sweden and ABBA’s Björn Ulvaeus has a house here. Incidentally his ex-wife and fellow ABBA member Agnetha Fältskog lives in a small town with a football team too- Ekerö, but that’s south of Stockholm.

In Djursholm, to the north-east of Stockholm the watertower is a listed building, and the local castle, in baroque style, peeps over the treeline over towards the town’s idrottsplats.  The Roslagsbanan railway trundles on narrow-gauge from what was its original terminus towards Tåby and eventually to Stockholm Östra station. It’s an understated railway for an understated dignified town.
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Dandy

13 Monday Jun 2016

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Saturday 4th June 2016 ko 12.00

Division 4 Norra Stockholm

DANDERYDS SK 2 (Issa 20 Pharmasson 90)

HUSBY FF 3 (Hien 8 47 Tsegai 75)

Att 63

It was one of those morning starts that was dictated more by when the hotel stopped serving breakfasts than what time our coach needed to leave Ulriksdal. You even could see a road sign for Danderyds sjukhus (hospital) from our hotel. It meant a relaxed breakfast with the inevitable crispy bacon, grilled frankfurteresque sausages, and for the more adventurous- pickled herrings! Continue reading →

The Worst Of Times

18 Wednesday May 2016

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Friday 6th May 2016 ko 20.30

Liga 1 Play-off

DINAMO BUCURESTI 3 (Gnohere 7 49p Rotariu 55)

FC VIITORUL CONSTANTA 3 (Marin 10 Tanase 34 Matan 84p)

Att 2,871

Entry Comp

No Programme

For the inaugural Bucharest Groundhop organiser Andrei Otineanu had decided on a mixture of lower league and top flight games and I must admit I was greatly looking forward to visting Dinamo Bucharest, if only to see another eastern European bowl albeit with the distinction of being dug out of its situation rather than the stands being built up as normal. The Dinamo Stadium is nicknamed “Groapa” or “The Hole” which does seem rather apposite! Continue reading →

Change at the Globen

11 Thursday Jun 2015

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Thursday 4th June 2015 ko 19.00

Allsvenskan

DJURGÅRDEN 1 (Johnson 37)

IFK NORRKÖPING 1 (Tklalcic 55)

Att 17.902

Entry 275 sek (c£20.61)

Programme 20 sek

If you want to know why I watch so much Swedish football this evening demonstrated why neatly. After a day’s sightseeing I was in the process of dumping my bag at the hotel in Stockholm’s Gamla Stan when my phone went off. Back in 2011 the Swedish Groundhop visited a tiny club called Åkersberga, and since the away team objected to the club’s choice of club linesmen, I was roped into helping out! It would have ended up being an obscure footnote, and a fun story to tell at parties but Continue reading →

Tested For The Unexpected

14 Thursday May 2015

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Tuesday 12th May 2015 ko 18.30

Coventry Alliance Premier Division

DUNLOP 0

A.E.I. RUGBY 2 (Linton 13 Newman 48)

Att 32

Entry FREE

No Programme

A tip for those visiting Coventry, always allow plenty of time to negotiate the suburbs, it took me 30 minutes to negotiate the final mile to the Dunlop Sports and Social Club, in Burnaby Road! As the joke goes, the Luftwaffe did horrible things to Coventry during the Second World War but the town planners did worse afterwards! Continue reading →

Hitting the straps

28 Saturday Mar 2015

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Sunday 22nd March 2015 ko 12.00

Lowland League

DALBEATTIE STAR 2 (Steele 2 Sloan 77p)

EDINBURH CITY 1 (Gair 45)

Att 400

Entry £5

Programme £2

I sat at breakfast at the hop HQ watching 100 or so hoppers have their buffet meal. The previous morning, the staff had been rather surprised by two coachloads descending on the restaurant all at once, but today there was an extra staff member and the queue moved efficiently. It proved to be a good analogy for the two clubs we visited.

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The Abbey

24 Wednesday Sep 2014

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Saturday 20th September 2014 ko 13.00

North Berkshire League Division One

DORCHESTER 3 (J Nicholls 6 J Fleet 6 Patterson 16)

ARDINGTON & LOCKINGE 0 Fairclough sent off 73 (dangerous play)

Att 204

Entry & Programme £4

Badge £3

Food: Meat or veggie pasta

Beer: Rebellion Brewery

It was only a 4 mile journey from Crowmarsh Gifford to Dorchester-on-Thames, and for some of the trip I followed the reverse of the signs put up by Crowmarsh to guide people in to their game. I’d relaxed a little, we’d just set the second highest ever attendance for the North Berkshire Hop, and the hop’s history shows an event where few go to one game then disappear elsewhere. We’d also seen the event being backed by local people as we’d planned, and I had confidence that Dorchester had taken steps to ensure that too. Continue reading →

In the Deep end

05 Tuesday Aug 2014

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Friday 1st August 2014 ko 19.45

United Counties League Premier Division

DEEPING RANGERS 3 (Lewis 38 Oliver 78 Flack 85) Lewis sent off 43 (dangerous play)

HARBOROUGH TOWN 0

Att 307

Entry £6

Programme £1

Badge £3

So back on GroundhopUK duty and the fruition of something that started with a tweet from league official Daniel Leggett to Notts hop organiser Rob Hornby. That found me visiting Peterborough Sports to meet Daniel, only to find most of the committee there wanting a chat, and things moved fairly quickly from there. The next move was a first for us, involving a new league, the Peterborough & District League, a feeder to the UCL. We’d visited other league’s clubs where geographically convenient, Penybont and Radnor Valley for example on the Mid-Wales hops but a dual hop would be something new for us to plan. Continue reading →

The Tug O’ War

23 Friday May 2014

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Sunday 5th October 2008 ko 15.00

Allsvenskan

DJURGÅRDENS I.F. 3 (Komac 20 Rajalakso 43 Quirino 90)

G.I.F. SUNDSVALL 1 (Patricksson 85)

Att 5,012 at Stockholms Stadion

Entry Comp

Programme FREE

Pennant 69 sek (approx. £6.90)

Badge FREE (“Because you are a guest”)

There aren’t many hard and fast rules in groundhopping, but the unpopularity of football grounds with running tracks is more or less universal. However, every rule should have an exception, and the Stockholms Stadion is definitely one. It was built from 1910-1912 for Stockholm’s hosting of the Olympic games in 1912, and was the first Olympic Stadium in the modern era to be permanent, architect Torben Grut actually changing the design away from a temporary wooden structure during construction. Even now the stadium seems unaltered by time, the floodlights are anchored outside of the stadium’s fabric, the 1990 facelift freshening up the place without altering its innate nature. Continue reading →

Leisure Pursuits

27 Thursday Mar 2014

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Wednesday 26th March 2014 ko 19.45

Eastern Counties League Division One

DEBENHAM LEISURE CENTRE 0

TEAM BURY 1 (Thompson 72)

Att 63

Entry £5

Programme 50p

Raffle £1

Tea £1

Burger £1.50

I suppose the first point to make is that this Suffolk village near Bury St Edmunds has absolutely nothing to be with the department store of the same name! Apparently the pronunciation is different, the village sounds more like Dee- ben- am, but that could be local inflection! The village takes its name from the River Deben who runs through the village in what is claimed to be Britain’s third longest ford, eventually reaching its estuary at Felixstowe Ferry with two Martello Towers marking the mouth.

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