Category Archives: G

The Timeless Truth

10 Sunday May 2015

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Thursday 7th May 201k 18.45

Kent County League-Premier Division

GURU NANAK 0

STANSFELD (OXFORD & BERMONDSEY) 2 (Jolley 24 33)

Att 83

Entry FREE

No Programme

Very much with my GroundhopUK hat on I’d love to see a hop game at an ethnic club like Gravesend’s Guru Nanak. For me the clubs I like to see on these events tend to be those who give a little local flavour to their visitors, and a Sikh club with their cuisine and culture would be as much an education as it would be a football match. Continue reading →

Circumstances

09 Thursday Apr 2015

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Friday 3rd April 2015 ko 18.30

Northern Counties East Division One

GRIMSBY BOROUGH 3 (Fuller 21 70 Hall 81)

HALL ROAD RANGERS 1 (Walker 5)

Att 284

Entry £4

Programme £1

When Chris Berezai and I started working on this hop, Grimsby Borough were the first club on our wish-list. That’s mainly because the club have only recently moved into the Bradley Football Development Centre, but it was a decision that created a few headaches. The first was which side to watch, Cleethorpes Town use the facility too, and the idea of watching a Cleethorpes side playing in Grimsby appealed (Grimsby Town famously play in Cleethorpes!), but the fact that the ground is council-owned caused a bigger headache.

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Brutalist

26 Thursday Mar 2015

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Saturday 21st March 2015 ko 19.00

Lowland League

GALA FAIRYDEAN ROVERS 1 (Bonnar 49)

UNIVERSITY OF STIRLING 2 (Bonar 43 Geddes 90)

Att 323

Entry £5

Programme £2

The sun began to set and as the coach reached Galashiels I relaxed for the first time since we’d left Hilingdon 36 hours earlier. I knew everyone wanted to visit the iconic club of Gala, and in Graeme McIver I had a club contact who was competent to the point where Chris and I knew all we needed to do is let him get on with staging the game. That doesn’t happen very often, clubs at the level GroundhopUK organise hops for aren’t used to having 300-plus crowds so guidance is essential, to do otherwise is at best unfair, and at worst folly. Graeme simply needed to know how many tickets we’d sold and a rough idea of the likely attendance, and he was more than capable of doing the rest. Continue reading →

Hushed Tones

04 Wednesday Feb 2015

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Saturday 24th April 2010 ko 14.30

Welsh League Division Three

GARW SENIORS BOYS & GIRLS CLUB 2 (Williams 11 S Misbah 64)

CORUS STEEL 3 (Piper 20 Johnson 31 Hislop 50)

Att 31

Entry £3

Prog £1

Badge £3

Tea in a mug 50p

There are grounds that the discerning football enthusiast should visit, the real theatres of the sport, the likes of Wembley, and Old Trafford, and then there are the places with real history such as Hallam and Sheffield FC. Then you start to find the tucked away places that don’t get much publicity, but have a life all of their own. These are the grounds you hear about when groundhoppers congregate over a beer (or two), and you hear names such as Benburb and Beesands, but believe me Blandy Park, Pontycymmer is high on the list of anyone who’s visited.

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The Town of 138

21 Sunday Dec 2014

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Tuesday 16th December 2014 ko 19.45

Southern League Division One Central

GODALMING TOWN 3 (Mazzone 17 Wheeler 25 Connell 36)

BEDFORD TOWN 3 (Liversedge 40 52p 55)

Att 103

Entry £8

Programme £2

Badge £3.50

Most true it is, I dare to say,
E’er since the Days of Eve,
The weakest Woman sometimes may
The wisest Man deceive.

Pope/Pulteney

There’s no escaping the fact that the Surrey town is well-to-do. Whether its the 138 listed buildings in the town, or the world-famous Charterhouse School, the area oozes gentility. A famous son was Jack Phillips, the radio operator on the RMS Titanic who refused to desert his station even when the vessel was in the final throes of its sinking.

Altogether stranger was the curious case of maidservant Mary Toft who convinced the town that she had given birth to rabbits! In 1726 eminent physicians examined her and the story caused a national sensation. Eventually Toft was found out after a porter was caught smuggling a dead rabbit into her chamber, and she confessed to inserting at least 16 rabbits into herself to “enable” their birth! The resultant public mockery, not least by satirist William Hogarth created panic within the medical profession and ruined the careers of several prominent surgeons, but Toft escaped without charges being pressed. Continue reading →

Titanic

01 Wednesday Oct 2014

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Saturday 27th September 2014 ko 15.00

IFA Premiership

GLENTORAN 1 (McAlorum 81)

DUNGANNON SWIFTS 0

Att 782

Entry £10

Programme £3

It’s impossible to visit Glentoran’s Oval Grounds home and not think of shipbuilding. You are in East Belfast and the Harland and Wolff shipyard is visible for miles around, with the towering presence of the giant yellow cranes named “Samson” and “Goliath” as focal points. The planes taking off from the nearby George Best Belfast Airport seem to climb more steeply than normal to avoid them all. Continue reading →

Bingo

26 Tuesday Aug 2014

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Wednesday 20th August 2014 ko 18.30

Gloucestershire County League

GALA WILTON 5 (Dyer 5 L Allen 19 Lee 37 68 Perris 89)

AEK BOCO 0

Att 39

Entry & Programme £2

The Gloucestershire County League is one of the better Step 7 leagues I frequent. The standard of play is good, the website is excellent, and for those interested in such fripperies, programme production is compulsory for all but those hastily-arranged midweek fixtures at the end of the season. Continue reading →

Fly Past

20 Sunday Jul 2014

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Saturday 19th July 2014 ko 15.00

Pre-Season Friendly

GUILDFORD CITY 1 (Baker 27) Spencer missed penalty 70

LINGFIELD 2 (O’Hara 41 Abraham 80)

Att c20 at the Mytchett Centre

Entry FREE

Programme – Don’t be daft

I’m not sure why City opted to play this away from the Spectrum Centre, perhaps athletics takes precedence in July. Either way it offered up the chance to watch a game at a location not normally used for Saturday football to my knowledge. Mytchett is near Farnborough, it’s where Rudolph Hess was imprisoned in Camp Z in 1941. The camp had been specially set up for his arrival with heavy security and bugging devices, and he stayed there for 13 months.

This would have been a completely run-of-the-mill pre-season friendly but for one detail, and that became obvious when nearing the ground I espied something in my rear-view mirror. Continue reading →

The price of a tank

29 Friday Nov 2013

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Wednesday 27th November 2013 ko 19.45

East Midlands Counties League Cup 2nd Round

GREENWOOD MEADOWS 2 (Spencer 45 91)

BORROWASH VICTORIA 3 (Thompson 90 105 Finlay 100p)

Att 31

Entry & Programme £5

Tea 70p

Pie & Chips £1.50 (what no peas?)

If I kept detailed records of where I’ve visited, Nottingham’s Lenton Lane would loom large. Its not the prettiest place in the world, a narrow road a sharp left from the Clifton flyover, with a hotel owned by former Hi-de-hi actress Su Pollard at one end, but to the groundhopper you find yourself returning time after time. Continue reading →

Wakering Stairs

10 Thursday Oct 2013

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Wednesday 9th October 2013 ko 19.45

Essex Senior League Gorden Brasted Memorial Trophy First Round

GREAT WAKERING ROVERS 10 (Skeels 7 18 Trenkel 24 43 82 85 Baldwin 40 62 Sparrow 56 Read 59 )

SPORTING BENGAL UNITED 2 (Ougbo 47 79) Riviera missed penalty 72

Att 71

Entry £6

Programme £1

Teamsheet FREE

When I used to follow Oxford United both home and away I used to dread the Southend arterial road. Time does dull the memory, and roadworks made the usual hold-ups still worse on what is, after all, a pretty much straight road. After passing by the almost perpetual suburbia of Southend itself, the scene changes rapidly. You become more aware of the flat land, this is I suppose the southernmost tip of East Anglia, and soon you reach the village of Great Wakering.

The village has links to the MOD island of Foulness, much of the land around Great Wakering is inaccessible due to their restrictions, the beach area is often used as a firing range.

The village’s most famous son is footballer Continue reading →