Category Archives: H

Station

21 Tuesday Feb 2023

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Monday 2nd January 2023 ko 14:00

Eastern Counties League Division One North

HEACHAM 1 (L Mitchell 42)

NORWICH C.B.S. 0

Att 131

Entry £5

Programme £2

There has been a running theme in my groundhopping for the last few years and that has been the Eastern Counties League. A lot of it is that there is no organised groundhop in that league, so I’m not likely to be helping guide a coachload of hoppers into these clubs any time soon. There’s also the fact that the ECL does seem to have a healthy intake of new clubs each season, to the extent that that without that process I’m certain I’d have finished the league years ago! Continue reading →

Lads

09 Thursday Feb 2023

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Monday 27th December 2022 ko 15:00

Hellenic League Premier Division

HEREFORD LADS CLUB 0

WESTFIELDS 6 (Pitman 15 Hunt 23 McDonald 34 Muirhead 41 Edwards 65 Newbury 82p)

Att 460

Entry £7

Programme £1

I remember the phone calls last Easter all too well, with Lads Club being on the previous Hellenic Hop why as GroundhopUK’s deputy organiser wasn’t I there ? After all, I hadn’t missed an organised hop in years! The truth was that finally Robyn and I managed to get on the honeymoon in Austria that the pandemic had delayed by 2 years. That said, it didn’t stop me taking calls asking what was going on with the Worcester Raiders game? The catch was that I was watching FC Balzers of Liechtenstein at the time! Continue reading →

The Payoff

18 Wednesday Jan 2023

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Monday 5th December 2022 20:00 (ish!)

Somali British Champions League- Group A

HILLTOP 2 (Yislam 14 A Mohamed 64p)

O.I.R. FC 0

Att 126 at Ark Elvin Academy, Cecil Avenue, Wembley

Free Entry

Programme £3

I tend to have two pieces of advice on the odd occasion I get for groundhopping tips. One is to go “weird” early and the other is to never rule anything out until you’ve tried it. Of course the fact that I’m now at a point where finding a floodlit tick within a 2 hour drive from Oxford midweek does tend to force creativity on you! Continue reading →

Saxon

17 Tuesday Jan 2023

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Saturday 26th November 2022 ko 15:00

Isthmian League Premier Division

HASTINGS UNITED 3 (Pope 9 McKenzie 13 Scott 72)

CORINTHIAN-CASUALS 0

Att 652

Entry £12

Programme £2.50

There are football grounds that do what they need to, there are some that I’d recommend you visit, but the list of football grounds I recommend you drop everything and go and see is extremely small, but top of that list is the Pilot Field. And a small part of the reason why, is that is in a fashion you get another ground thrown in too! Continue reading →

Wye

12 Thursday Jan 2023

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Tuesday 22nd November 2022 ko 19:45

Herefordshire Senior Challenge Cup 2nd Round

HINTON 2 (Nicholls 24 Burley 63og)

WELLINGTON RANGERS 4 (Andrews 6 Mann 28 Woodcock 42 Nunn 45)

Mann missed penalty 45

Att c30

Free Entry

Any hopper might find it useful to look out for this competition on Full Time. The Herefordshire League’s comparative isolation is also its strength and there are clubs with excellent facilities playing at Step 7 when if they were a little more centrally placed you wonder if they’d be playing higher up the pyramid. Travelling costs for the likes of the Hellenic League must be substantial here. Continue reading →

Humble Bumble

11 Friday Nov 2022

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Saturday 24th September 2022

11:00 Witney & District League Division 2

BRIZE NORTON 0

CASSINGTON RANGERS 1 (Blackman 3p)

Att 168

14:00 Witney & District League- Division 1

TOWER HILL 1 (Scott 82)

HATHEROP 3 (Hathaway 31 Turner-Williams 56p 63)

Skinner sent off 20 (violent conduct)

Att 154

17:00 Witney & District League- Division 1

HEYFORD ATHLETIC 2 (Chambers 20 Phipps 90)

CHADLINGTON 2 (Charlesworth 7 61)

Att 153

Entry to each game, including programme £4

When the league and I were putting together this event, I found myself thinking back to Steventon, the first game on the first North Berkshire League Hop back in 2011.

Rightly or wrongly I see the North Berks and Witney Hops as being continuations of each other- both are grassroots leagues playing (mostly) in Oxfordshire. I remember a senior (in terms of numbers) groundhopper coming up to me before the event in 2011 to inform me that, in his opinion, a groundhop here couldn’t possibly work. We held 7 hops in the North Berks, and this was to be the 3rd in the Witney & District. And while I’ll be the first to admit that these hops aren’t for every hopper, they certainly do a lot of good for the clubs, I get a lot of personal satisfaction from seeing a good club do well, and any hop organiser will tell you, the smaller clubs tend to make the most effort!

Continue reading →

The Professionals

07 Monday Nov 2022

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Friday 16th September 2022 ko 19:45

Southampton Senior Cup-First Round

HEDGE END RANGERS 1 (Gould 11)

COLDEN COMMON 4 (Nash 19og Course 21 65 Ryan 51)

Att 135

Free Entry

Programme £2

You do see things differently according to your perspective. If you’re a club this looked like an ideal opportunity to get a cup game played, and to show off their new ground. But for a groundhopper this was something altogether different. Continue reading →

Boats

29 Thursday Sep 2022

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Sunday 14th August 2022 ko 18:30

Finland Miesten Kakkonen Lohko B

HJK KLUBI 04 4 (Haggström 21 Ezeh 69 Toivonen 76 Vuorinen 84)

VJS 3 (Nyholm 24 Mehmeti 82 Oila 90)

Att 324 at Bolt Arena, Töölö, Helsinki

 Entry €15 (approx. £13.28)

After our rather frantic first day in Helsinki, we deliberately slowed down for the rest of our stay in Finland’s capital. We took a leisurely tram ride to the Market Square, and then took the ferry (included in the Helsinki public transport pass) over to Suomenlinna. The island fortress, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, like so much in Finland has a background in being Swedish, Russian, and Finnish. It was good to have a gentle stroll around the place knowing we only had one time we had to keep to, kick off in Töölö. Continue reading →

Gauges

27 Tuesday Sep 2022

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Saturday 13th August 2022 ko 17:00

Finland Kansallinen Liga

FC HONKA NAISET 1 (Sutela 56)

HPS NAISET 1 (Nurmet 66)

Att 332 at Tapiolan Urheilupuisto, Espoo

Entry €5 (approx. £4.48)

There was a certain symmetry in Robyn and I linking a trip to Helsinki to a return to a post-pandemic Stockholm to see friends that we hadn’t seen, in some cases for 4 years. Sweden did rule over Finland from the 13th century until 1809, and to this day you’ll see signs written in both Finnish and Swedish, the latter is still an official language.

Given my connections to Sweden, and the notoriously difficult to understand Finnish language I did find it difficult to pick up even a few words of Finnish, it was so much easier to use the Swedish I already knew. As Swedish statistician Mads put it, ” You call the country Finland which is in Swedish, but call the capital Helsinki- which is in Finnish!” Continue reading →

Betty

26 Sunday Jun 2022

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Saturday 19th February 2022 ko 15:00

EFL League 2

HARROGATE TOWN P

LEYTON ORIENT P

Postponed due to snow

Saturday 7th May 2022 ko 15:00

EFL League 2

HARROGATE TOWN 0

SUTTON UNITED 2 (Eastmond 8 Olaofe 79)

Att 2,484 (440 away)

Entry/Hospitality/Programme/Teamsheet £80

My regular reader will have long since worked out that I’m not target driven, I don’t set out each season to complete a division, or league or tier of the game, it isn’t what makes me tick. I’m more the kind of bloke that will look through a set of fixtures and something will take my fancy. Being a contrary soul though, there is an exception to that rule and that’s the 92. Continue reading →