Category Archives: G

2500 & Glentoran

27 Tuesday Feb 2024

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Saturday 17th February 2024 ko 15:00

IFA Premiership

GLENTORAN 8 (Fisher 3 45 Burns 18 O’Connor 27 35 54 Junior 67p Lindsay 90+3)

NEWRY CITY 2 (Salley 10 Carroll 82)

Att 1,725

Entry £13

Programme £4

Glentoran socks £5

When people discover I’m a groundhopper I tend to get asked two questions. One is how many grounds I’ve visited, which is easy enough to quantify and the second is what is my favourite? Back in the day that was more difficult, do I give a ground most will know about like the Nou Camp or something I loved like Hastings United that isn’t quite as well known. Then 10 years ago I headed for Belfast, visited Glentoran and ever since it’s been 2,500, and Glentoran.

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Mapperley

16 Wednesday Aug 2023

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Saturday 29th July 2023 ko 14:00

United Counties League Division One

GEDLING MINERS WELFARE 0

BLACKSTONES 1 (Duffy-Weekes 90)

Att 364

Entry £5

Programme £1.50

I must admit I wasn’t particularly looking forward to revisiting Mapperley Plains. It was nothing to do with the club or the ground, it was because I’d visited early in 2011 in the throes of a failed marriage. I was watching games solely to not be sat in an empty house. I visited, I saw the game, and I did little more than exist back then.

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Smiley’s People

15 Thursday Jun 2023

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Wednesday 3rd May 2023

Aylesbury & District League: Premier Division

GREAT MISSENDEN 3 (Tripp 65 78 84)

ELMHURST 1 (Giles 42)

Att 51

Free Entry

Football watching does tend you to draw threads. A week so earlier I’d watched a game at Brill – once the furthest flung outpost of the London Underground. Here I found myself another village with station that used to be on the Metropolitan Line but this time the station is still open; it’s just that the trains these days are normal sized ones!

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Gills not Gills

02 Thursday Mar 2023

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Tuesday 8th February 2023 ko 19:30

Western League Division One

GILLINGHAM TOWN 0

BISHOPS LYDEARD 1 (Willis 58)

Att 35

Entry £6

Programme £2

Perhaps the measure of what differentiates a genuine groundhopper from a general football fan is the Dorset town of Gillingham. My feeling is that a football fan will look at the name as immediately assume its pronounced with a soft “G” as in the EFL club of the same name, whereas the groundhopper sees the name “Gillingham” and wonders which county we’re in? Since this is Dorset, the “G” is hard, so the Gill is what fish have, not the girl’s name! Hope we’re clear on that one! Continue reading →

Gefle in Gävle

11 Tuesday Oct 2022

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Saturday 20th August 2022 ko 16:00

Ettan Norra

GEFLE IF 2 (Rauschen-Broben 61 Yakoub 87)

Lundin sent off (2nd booking) 90

SANDVIKENS IF 1 (Mohammed 20)

Kouyate sent off (2nd booking) 82

Mohammed sent off (violent conduct) 90

Att 4,142

Entry 150 sek (approx. £12)

The bus heading back into Gävle from Testbovallen stopped at Gavlevallen and we had reason to be relieved. The whole point of Robyn and I being there, was that Swedish Hop organiser Kim Hedwall had built this Saturday around visiting Gefle IF’s new home. But there was a question of lexicography to answer first. 

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Våra Barns Bramtid

06 Thursday Oct 2022

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Saturday 20th August 2022 ko 12:00

Sweden Gästrikland Youth League

STRÖMSBRO IF 3 (Bergland 53secs Törneld 35 Salminen 72)

GEFLE IF BLÅ 8 (5 15 25 41 51 65 68 75)

Att 25 at Testebovallens IP, Gävle

Free Entry

We’d long since planned our last full day in Sweden to be based around football. I’d thought about taking Robyn to any of the big 3 grounds in Stockholm, the Friends Arena, the Tele-2 and top of the list, the Olympic Stadium but there wasn’t a single game for us at any of them. We were happy to dip further down the Stockholm pyramid, but I knew Swedish Hop organiser Kim Hedwall was going to be in Gävle and let’s face it, you know he’d be able to sniff out an interesting game, or two as it turned out. Continue reading →

Ga-Pa

10 Friday Jun 2022

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Saturday 16th April 2022 ko 15:00

Landesliga Bayern Südwest

1FC GARMISCH-PARTENKIRCHEN 2 (Durr 27p 58)

FV ILLERTISSEN II 4 (Santolo 1 Kazaryon 4 Hafnel 40p Glöckle 87)

Att 100 at Stadion on Gröben

Entry €8 (£6.80), for Robyn €6 (£5.10)

Programme included

When Robyn and I started planning our honeymoon the plan was to watch 3 games in the 10 days we were in Austria. I’d learned a lesson back in 2018 when we got engaged in Stockholm and somehow contrived to watch 7 games in 5 days, and then the Swedish Hop started! We even did a game the day we got engaged, at Lidingö mainly because I’d planned it so Robyn wouldn’t guess what I’d really got planned, and neither of us thought NOT to go…. I really didn’t want to go down the same route here, but then we did have a Saturday afternoon free…

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Wonderland

28 Thursday Apr 2022

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Saturday 19th March 2022 ko 11:15

East of Scotland League First Division- Conference B

GLENROTHES 3 (L Schiavone 5 Bell 35 Cargill 64)

KINNOULL 0

Att 410

Entry £6

Programme £2

With all due respect to Caledonian Braves I felt we were moving back to traditional Scottish Hop territory. The fact was that at Bothwellhaugh we’d added roughly 200 to a crowd of 219, from now on that 200 or so would be added to local support and that would test the compromise that is every single organised hop.

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The John Noakes Hop

11 Friday Mar 2022

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Friday 4th March 2022 ko 19.45

North West Counties League Division One North

GOLCAR UNITED 3 (Cox 14 Barrett 27 Naidole 52)

CAMPION 2 (Maltby 59 Boshell 85)

Att 467

Entry £5

Programme £2

If you are roughly my age then the most famous person to have been born in Halifax was unquestionably John Noakes. The Blue Peter presenter was, in a age of two channel tv and received pronunciation a revelation to this small boy from the shires; who could forget his climbing of Nelson’s Column without any kind of safety equipment? Continue reading →

Self Raising

02 Sunday Jan 2022

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Sunday 26th December 2021 ko 15:00

National League North

GLOUCESTER CITY 0

LEAMINGTON 0

Att 1,366 

Entry (Unreserved seat, “City Stand” bought in advance) £13

Programme £2.50

Teamsheet FREE

It wasn’t completely inevitable that I’d be watching Gloucester City. Post Christmas football seems to involve a dual lottery, firstly that of waterlogged pitches, and secondly Covid postponements. As is becoming a tradition these days Robyn and I spent the second half of Christmas Day with family in Bristol, and while I’m sure I could have found two games to do on Christmas Sunday, I probably needed the lie-in more. And Gloucester’s pitch did mean that the first half of that lottery would probably fall in my favour. Of course if you know the history of Meadow Park, you know the irony of that last comment! Continue reading →