Category Archives: D

Diamond Lights

15 Sunday Oct 2017

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Saturday 16th September 2017 k0 10.45

North Berkshire League Division 3

DRAYTON 7 (Dennis 8 29 55p 68 S Bolton 15 C Bolton 51 Hughes 57)

UFFINGTON UNITED 1 (Harfield 66)

Att 112 at Rutherford Appleton Laboratory Pitch, Chilton, near Harwell.

Entry by programme £4

In so many ways the North Berkshire Hop is the Hummingbird of the organised hops. We’re off pyramid, we’ve only ever been a one-day event, and we’ve even had another league schedule a rival “Hop” against us. But despite some folks turning up their noses up at us, and a few even telling us it wouldn’t work, just like the hummingbird, that the laws of physics say shouldn’t fly, we’re still here, and still doing things our way.  Continue reading →

Stretching It

04 Wednesday Oct 2017

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Tuesday 5th September 2017 ko 19.45

Eastern Counties League Division One

DOWNHAM TOWN 1 (Sykes 66) Bailey sent off 59 (2nd Booking)

NORWICH UNITED RESERVES 3 (Stewart 7 Will 21 Jackson 74p)

Att 95

Entry & Programme £5

 

A fixture in the Norfolk town of Downham Market is just about as far as I can manage midweek, and it did help that was a slight delay to kick off for a rather unusual reason! Continue reading →

Train Time

28 Wednesday Jun 2017

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Saturday 24th June 2017 ko 14.30

Pre-season Friendly

DENBIGH TOWN 4 (13p 73 77 86og)

C.P.D. LLANUWCHLLYN 2 (82 90)

Att 45 @ Ty Isa, Rhewl. (Rhewl FC)

Free Entry

And Llangollen Railway

Return ticket from Corwen East to Llangollen £15

It was a day of coincidences, another chance to watch a Welsh pre-season friendly in June, and another chance to double it up with a heritage steam train ride. This time the railway was full-sized, although the Llangollen Railway runs on tracks once part of the Ruabon to Barmouth line axed under Beeching. That route included the now Bala Lake Railway which we’d travelled on the previous week! Continue reading →

The Centre of Things

26 Thursday Jan 2017

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Wednesday 18th January 2017 ko 19.45

West Midlands (Regional) League – Division One

TEAM DUDLEY 2 (Pinches 11 Knight 90)

ST MARTINS 2 (Passmore 52 Melusio 54)

Att 115

Entry & Programme £2

I live in Oxford, a city that in parts hasn’t changed much in the last two hundred years, even down to the 17th Century burial route that’s now an alleyway. That certainly is in contrast to much of the Black Country where the soot of heavy industry has gradually given way to the service economy. Nevertheless places such as Dudley, Coseley and Wolverhampton still evoke the past even if their raisons d’etre have long since gone. Continue reading →

Can’t touch Diss

08 Sunday Jan 2017

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Monday 2nd January 2017 ko 15.00

Eastern Counties League – Division One

DISS TOWN 2 (Blakely 34 Webb 74)

DEBENHAM LEISURE CENTRE 1 (Dixon 68)

Att 151

Entry £6

Programme £1

It was regular travel companion Chris Garner that suggested this one. I was scanning the fixtures without success when he pointed out that since the last Eastern Counties League club we’d visited was the Ghosts of Fakenham Town, the next really ought to be Diss Town. He was of course entirely correct, even if you do need to be aware of the music of the The Specials to understand his joke! Continue reading →

“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.
Continue reading →

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 →