Category Archives: G

Way On Down South

18 Thursday Jul 2019

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Saturday 8th June 2019 ko 11.00

Division 6 Sydvästra Skäne

GISLÖVS IF 1 (O Idrizi 34)

VÄSTRA INGELSTAD IS 4 (Reuterskold 54 81 86 Wästerberg-Hertz 65)

Att 75

The Swedish Hop’s cost of £285 included all entry fees, programmes, coach travel, 2 bridge tolls on the Øresund Bridge and 2 nights’ bed and breakfast at the Clarion Magasinet Hotel in Trelleborg.

If Robyn’s I’s trip to Copenhagen over the previous 4 days had been about change then the same applied to the Swedish Hop afterwards. Leaving aside the fact that the hop had started in Denmark we awoke in the same hotel as for the previous two hops, the Magazinet in Trelleborg, but even that had switched from being a Best Western to a Clarion over the course of last year. Other changes though were more fundamental. Continue reading →

The Day After

14 Sunday Jul 2019

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Thursday 6th June 2019 ko 20.10 but delayed to 20.45 due to lightening

Copenhagen Series Division One

FC GRÆSRØDDERNE 4 (Juul Hansen 52 Frederickson 57 Pedersen 65 Haile 75)

ØSTERBRO IF (Olesen 80)

Att 22 at Ved Stadion, Gentofe Sportspark.

FREE Entry

We awoke to a slightly changed Copenhagen. Save for the fact that thunderstorms were going to arrive at some point that day there was the small matter of Denmark waking up to the results of a General Election. They’d opted for a change in government but as foreigners we were of course divorced from the realities of what it all added up to for the people of Denmark. So much so that what happened next surprised us, and quite honestly it shouldn’t have done.

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The Light Blue Side Of Things

23 Sunday Jun 2019

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Thursday 11th April 2019 ko 19.30

Cambridge University Association Football League- Cuppers Final

FITZWILLIAM 3 (Saunders 40 Ellis 103 Burrows 110)

PEMBROKE 1 (Ireland 69)

After extra time of 10 minutes each way

Att c300 at Grange Road (Cambridge University RUFC)

Entry & Programme FREE

If you haven’t scrolled passed this, and headed straight for the pictures you may be wondering what the appeal was here? You might assume that since I’m from Oxford that I was looking at this through some sense of rivalry but unless you’re involved at either city’s university there is no rivalry at all. As I blasted along the M11 the sense was far more about this being a “Cradle of the game” job. Continue reading →

East Heading West

31 Friday Aug 2018

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Saturday 21st July 2018 ko 15.00

Pre-season Friendly

GORLESTON 3 (Gilfedder 13 45 Ramm 21)

LOWESTOFT TOWN 4 (Brown 9 12 Overy 46 Folkes 54)

Att 193

Entry £3

No Programme

My regular reader my have spotted a running theme of me gradually ticking off the grounds of the Eastern Counties League. Part of the reason is prioritising those Leagues not being visited by an organised hop, and another is regular trips with Wavendon- based Chris. His location near Milton Keynes makes heading east sensible, but there is the vexed question of what to do about the grounds he’s done that I haven’t. One was Gorleston, and with him being unavailable I simply picked the furthest one east! Continue reading →

The Revenge of the Sixth

05 Thursday Jul 2018

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Sunday 6th May 2018 ko 14.00

Bridgend & District Sunday League- Division One Cup Final

GARTH VADER 3 (Roberts 55 66 Evans 58p)

THE SEAGULL 1 (Jones 9)

Att c70 at Llangeinor FC

Free Entry

To some people’s logic, driving from Long Eaton via Bristol to the valleys north of Bridgend to watch a Sunday League game doesn’t make a lot of sense. In fact to some groundhoppers it made no sense either, and we’re a breed that’s used to travelling long distances for the most obscure of games. But when you boiled this one down it meant complete sense for the purest of reasons- you may not drive for 4 hours for football, but you would to support your friends.

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Horwudu

19 Tuesday Jun 2018

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Wednesday 2nd May 2018 ko 18.30

North Bucks & District League Premier Division

GREAT HORWOOD 7 (Broom 20 Dixon 32 65 85 Tappin 36 Hawkins 60 Cronin 67)

WING VILLAGE 1 (Robinson 1p)

Att c15

Free Entry

This one definitely was one to salve my slice of OCD that tells me I simply have to watch a game at any ground I drive past more than once. Great Horwood lies on the main A421 between Buckingham and Bletchley, the village to your left and the Castlefields playing fields to your right. There’s been a village here since Saxon times, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records this place as “Horwudu” meaning muddy wood in 792! Continue reading →

Gingerbread

01 Friday Jun 2018

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Saturday 21st April 2018 ko 15.00

Northern Premier League-Premier Division

GRANTHAM TOWN 0

ALTRINCHAM 2 (Merrie 50 Johnston 78)

Att 689

Entry £10

Programme £2

In my working life, knowledge of the geography of the UK is useful. There’s a large map on the wall behind me, to help work out how long it takes to get from place to place, but being an inveterate groundhopper usually makes it redundant. After all, simply having driven to most of the towns helps, but the glaring exception was Grantham. Continue reading →

Everything Changes, Everything The Same

15 Tuesday May 2018

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Friday 13th April 2018 ko 19.30

Welsh League Division One

GOYTRE 1 (Leek 17)

LLANELLI TOWN 4 (Loveridge 15 45 90 C Jones 39) Vickers sent off 50 (dangerous play)

Att 151

Entry & Programme £5

For the last few years the Welsh Spring Hop has been based in West Wales, firstly in Ceredigion then for the last 2 events in Carmarthenshire. We’d had a few issues organising last year’s hop and this proved to even worse! In the end only the first and last games of the hop remained the same, visits to Goytre and Butetown and significantly neither of those clubs are in the Carmarthenshire League! The problems Chris Berezai faced were many and varied but can be neatly summed up as follows. Continue reading →

Griffin

19 Monday Mar 2018

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Sunday 11th March 2018 ko 10.30

Blackmore Vale Sunday League

TEAM GRYPHON 1 (Wilton 57)

SOUTH CHERITON UNITED 3 (Farrant 52 74 Patterson 90) Taylor sent off 90 (dangerous play)

Att 5

Entry FREE

Twitter is a wonderful tool for the groundhopper. It’s immediacy makes it so useful; a website, forum or Facebook page is unlikely to be updated quickly but a club secretary with a mobile phone can put a postponement, pitch inspection or team selection into the public domain in seconds. And Twitter is why I happened to be at the Gryphon School in Sherborne.  Continue reading →

The Cunning Linguists

16 Friday Jun 2017

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Saturday 3rd June ko 14.00

Division 7 Sydöstra Skåne

GYLLE A.I.F. 4 (Mekic 60 79 Sinteus 69 84)

BASKERMÖLLA I.F. 1 (Korac 53)

Entry 30 SEK

Programme FREE

You have to be careful with the language in Skåne, as in southern Sweden the dialect owes much to Danish, even Stockholm resident hop organiser Kim Hedwall discovered understanding the locals’ dialect wasn’t necessarily a given. He speaks standard Swedish, the kind you’d hear on TV, but this isn’t the Swedish you’d necessarily hear down here. On one hand you could see it as like a Londoner having a conversation with a Glaswegian, but there are other differences too. And the name of the 3rd club on this year’s Swedish hop demonstrated the point rather well…. Continue reading →