Category Archives: E

Do. Or do not. There is no try.

02 Wednesday Oct 2019

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Sunday 25th August 2019 ko 11.00

Bridgend & District Sunday League – Premier Division

EWENNY RANGERS 3 (Paget 17 Cirotto 43 Taylor 78)

GARTH VADER 4 (Dickinson 40 Bellamy 60og Rogers 73 88)

Att 88

Entry FREE

Programme & Donation £2

With all due to respect to the good folk of the Bridgend & District Sunday League, the intention never was to pay them a visit, even if we do seem to be visited the football pitches of Bridgend, one at a time, once a year! When the Gwent Premier League finally gave Chris Berezai the finalised fixtures for the Welsh Hop we were scheduled to watch Ynysddu play Pilcs at Nine Mile Point. There was unfortunately an issue with that. Continue reading →

Esh, winning

28 Thursday Feb 2019

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Saturday 23rd February 2019 ko 15.00

Northern League Division 2

ESH WINNING 5 (Donaldson 4 Arnott 32 Marley 35 63 Mole 67)

EASINGTON COLLIERY 2 (Pounder 14 71)

Att 64

Entry £5

Programme £1

It had been an odd way to visit. I’d dropped off the other 3 members of my party at West Auckland Working Men’s Club, for some Thomas Lipton Trophy history before they headed to West’s FA Vase game. I’d met the Northern League committee there, and it was lovely to catch up with Mike Amos, the inventor of the organised groundhop, and Harvey Harris the organiser of the league’s re-union hops a couple of years ago. The sense of anticipation there was obvious, so did seem a little counter-intuitive as I headed north, further into the North Pennines in County Durham. There was method in my madness though. Continue reading →

Head Above Water

23 Monday Apr 2018

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Friday 30th March 2018 ko 15.00

South West Peninsula League Division One East

HONITON TOWN 0

ILFRACOMBE TOWN 1 (Montague 55)

Att 227 at Exwick Villa FC

Hop Ticket £25 (no programmes included)

Entry £3

Programme £1

On any organised hop there’s always a “Highlight” game, it’s the game that as organiser you know that your patrons will look at the hop’s fixtures, and think “That’s the one I really want.” It doesn’t have to be the best appointed ground, just the one that grabs people’s attention, and for this hop it was Honiton’s Mountbatten Park, if for no other reason than it’s Honiton’s first season in the Peninsula League and so the fewest number of hoppers would have visited before. Continue reading →

Miracle on Addison Road

04 Sunday Feb 2018

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Tuesday 30th January 2018 ko 19.45

Oxfordshire Senior Cup Quarter Final

EASINGTON SPORTS 1 (Hill 11)

BANBURY UNITED 2 (Johnson 19 Wise 44)

Att 305 (Ground Record)

Entry & Programme £5

I spent 7 happy (well the first 6) years living in Banbury, and me being me I saw a fair amount of time at both Easington Sports, and at Banbury United’s Spencer Stadium. The latter is still my favourite ground in Oxfordshire. I don’t think anyone would dispute that Easington are the town’s second club but what has happened at Addison Road has been little short of miraculous.  Continue reading →

Tactics

04 Thursday Jan 2018

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Saturday 30th December 2017 ko 14.00

Suffolk & Ipswich League, Senior Division

EAST BERGHOLT UNITED 2 (Collins 83og Jay 87p)

CAPEL PLOUGH 3 (Alderson 6 Middlebrook 21 Webb 60)

Att 104

Entry FREE

Put yourself in my position. Driving a car-load of hoppers heading east with the ground sodden, and a pitch inspection due at Eastern Counties League outfit Woodbridge Town. The game falls due to a waterlogged pitch so you interrogate the Football Traveller for alternative fixtures. One solution is to divert to Aveley Town’s new ground, it’s on 3G and the game is on. Another is to roll the dice and go for something at Step 7 on grass. So what would you do? Continue reading →

The X Factor

10 Monday Jul 2017

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Saturday 9th July 2017 ko 12.00

Pre-season Friendly

NANTYGLO (7 60)

WHITEHEADS RHISGA 5 (16 25 36 72og 78)

Att c10 at Ebbw Vale Sports Centre

Free Entry

The delight of this one was how all the pieces fell into place. Firstly I knew I’d be in Bristol, making easy a trip over the Severn Bridge to probably my favourite place to watch non-league football, the South Wales Valleys. Then when Nantyglo left me know that they’d booked Ebbw Vale Sports Centre for midday, it allowed a visit to a ground -not (yet) used, by a club side, and the chance to double it up with a 3pm kickoff too! Continue reading →

Aye

09 Sunday Apr 2017

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Saturday 25th March 2017 ko 11.00

East of Scotland League

EYEMOUTH UNITED 0

LOTHIAN THISTLE 3 (Brown 10 Delvin 30 Guy 87)

Att 227

Entry £4

Programme £1

From the moment GroundhopUK and the Lowland League agreed 3 years ago to launch the Scottish Hop it was inevitable that we’d end up in the East of Scotland League. The league, along with the South of Scotland feeds the Lowland, and the two leagues share a fixture secretary too! Just as inevitably Chris Berezai and I knew that we’d get the odd hopper who’d decide the East of Scotland League was too low a level for them and decide to head elsewhere, but there seemed to me some who’d come to their conclusion had done so without ever having seen an EoSL game first! Surely a game a 11am with no simultaneous kick-offs would be a risk-free way of finding out?

Continue reading →

Wagons

20 Monday Mar 2017

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Saturday 11th March 2017 ko 13.30

Carmarthenshire League Premier Division

EVANS & WILLIAMS SPORTS 0

TROSTRE SPORTS 1 (Waters 22)

Att 134 at Pitch 3 Penygaer Playing Fields

Entry FREE

Programme £2

I remember when Chris Berezai and I first discussed how we were going to organise GroundhopUK’s entire run in the Carmarthenshire League. It was never going to be difficult to sell somewhere like Abergwili to the hoppers, but the Penygaer Playing Fields in deepest darkest Llanelli was another matter entirely! It is the typical unlovely council facility with 5 pitches and a tired looking changing room block resplendent in anti-climb paint and barbed wire. Perhaps it was no bad thing that we only headed there at the very last minute! Continue reading →

Cathedral View

15 Wednesday Feb 2017

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Friday 10th February 2017 ko 19.45

Eastern Counties League Premier Division

ELY CITY 2 (Darling 69 Neal 86)

HAVERHILL ROVERS 1 (Palmer 83)

Att 89

Entry £6

Programme £1

The Eastern Counties League has used the Friday night fixture as a promotional tool for a few years, and whilst this tie saw quite a few groundhoppers present, I do wonder whether the unusual fixture actually saw an increase in attendance. Whilst I found it convenient, I’m sure some others would prefer the traditional Saturday afternoon kick-off.  Continue reading →

Run For Home

07 Sunday Aug 2016

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Saturday 31st July 2016 ko 13.30

Peterborough & District League- Division 3

EYE UNITED 3 (Law 31 Joyce 81 90)

FC PETERBOROUGH 0

Att 196

Entry £4

Programme £1

Chicken/ Veggie curry £3

We knew we’d lose a few hoppers after the Crowland game, Wisbech St Mary’s first ever game in the Eastern Counties League was always going to be an attraction. In fact I was slightly relieved when I spotted that the opposition there was to be AFC Sudbury’s reserves. Many hoppers won’t watch a game involving a reserve side, so that league’s decision to schedule the match that way was, I’m sure unwittingly, doing us a favour! But whatever the whys and wherefores due east, I felt we had a good pair of games to offer, and Eye was intriguing. Continue reading →