Category Archives: H

The Main Line

07 Wednesday Oct 2020

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Saturday 3rd October 2020 ko 15.00

Isthmian League South/East Division

HYTHE TOWN 0

PHOENIX SPORTS 4 (Ansah 53 Fitchett 57 Bryon 77 Chin 82)

Att 212

Entry £10

Programme £2

Now I’m sure one of two groundhoppers will see an article on Hythe Town and think, “Surely he’s been there before?” After all my friend Andy Short is media officer there, you may remember he was at Whitstable Town too, he’s also secretary at the Southern Counties East League (now that’s interesting!) so why my tardiness? It’s because I wanted to travel to see Hythe Town by train! Continue reading →

Red, Gold & Green

01 Tuesday Sep 2020

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Saturday 22nd August 2020 ko 14.00

Friendly

HERSHAM FC 4 (O’Connor 28 Spencer 57 60 Long 86)
CLAYGATE ROYALS 2 (Heagney 48 Pitt 89)

Att c30 at Desborough Island, Walton-on-Thames

Free Entry

West of London there are no end of small islands in the River Thames, and given how easy it is to maintain privacy on any of them they do tend to be quite exclusive. Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour has a houseboat studio “Astoria” moored at Hampton and D’Oyly Carte Island, once home to Richard D’Oyly the original producer of the Gilbert & Sullivan comic operas, is close to my destination, Desborough Island. Continue reading →

Down On The Farm

24 Monday Aug 2020

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Saturday 15th August 2020 ko 13.00

Friendly

HALSE UNITED 2 (Ingram 58 86)

BURE PARK 0

Att c20  at Halse Grange Farm

In groundhopper speak all too often a football ground lacking a ground is sometimes written off by the less experienced as being “Just a field.” Of course the ground isn’t a field, its a pitch without much around it- and you can accept it or reject it on its merits. But Halse United actually do play on a farm and their pitch is, literally, a field! Continue reading →

Harry Hill

16 Tuesday Jun 2020

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With the football season over prematurely due to the Coronavirus Pandemic I’m in the unusual position of actually having this blog up to date! So to keep the content coming, and for something to do, I’ll do some old grounds and games where there’s a story to tell.

Sunday 27th August 2006 ko 11.00

Hellenic League- Premier Division

HARROW HILL 0

SLIMBRIDGE 1 (C Cole)

Att 268

Entry £4

Programme £1

As (hopefully) the UK slowly emerges from lockdown I’ve started to think about how football will restart. I don’t include the monstrosity that is the beautiful game played behind closed doors with cardboard cut-out crowds and piped in noise. I’ll leave that to the hellish future it deserves. One thing that is clear is that the bigger the potential crowd a league can generally attract the longer it’ll take to get the crowds back, so let’s extrapolate a little. Continue reading →

Just Idag Ar Jag Stark

28 Thursday May 2020

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With the football season over prematurely due to the Coronavirus Pandemic I’m in the unusual position of actually having this blog up to date! So to keep the content coming, and for something to do, I’ll do some old grounds and games where there’s a story to tell.

Saturday 18th June 2011 ko 16.00
Superettan

HAMMARBY IF 1 (Ayranci 11)

IFK VÄRNAMO 0

Att 7,478 at Söderstadion, Stockholm

Entry 145sek

Programme 20sek

1 Swedish Krona is roughly 85p

The standing joke here was that this was the highest attendance ever to attend as hop game, as this was the 3rd game of a day that had started with my flag waving exploits at Åkersberga. The attendance was of course exceeded when the 2019 Swedish Hop visited Denmark’s (!) Parken Stadium which proves nothing else than any hop organiser should measure their success on how many extra people the event attracts, rather than on the absolute attendance figure.

And for the record Swedish Hop organiser Kim Hedwall saw it the same way- albeit with a twinkle in his eye!

Continue reading →

Hayes

18 Monday May 2020

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With the football season over prematurely due to the Coronavirus Pandemic I’m in the unusual position of actually having this blog up to date! So to keep the content coming, and for something to do, I’ll do some old grounds and games where there’s a story to tell.

Tuesday 30th September 2008 ko 19.45

FA Cup 2nd Qualifying Round Replay

HAYES & YEADING UNITED 5 (Hendry 16 36 Ruby 28 Knight 99 James 119)

STAINES TOWN 3 (Butler 20 73 Onochie 73)

Att 348 at Church Road

Entry £10  +£1 stand transfer

Programme £2

When Yeading FC and Hayes FC merged in 2007 you could easily say that they picked the better ground to give up. The new club played temporarily at Hayes’ Church Road, while Yeading’s Warren was to be redeveloped to be a permanent home for the new club. Once the work was complete, the idea was to move back to the Warren and sell Church Road for housing. Continue reading →

The Sportcentre

04 Monday May 2020

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With the football season over prematurely due to the Coronavirus Pandemic I’m in the unusual position of actually having this blog up to date! So to keep the content coming, and for something to do, I’ll do some old grounds and games where there’s a story to tell.

Saturday 1st July 2006 ko 14.00
Pre-Season Friendly

HARLOW TOWN 0

LINFIELD 2 (McAreavey 42 Thompson 56 )

Att c500

Entry £7

Programme £2

I’ve never minded pre-season friendlies, and sometimes the fixture Gods do smile on me. I was due to collect my parents from Gatwick Airport in the evening and wanted somewhere suitable to watch the England vs Portugal World Cup Quarter Final on TV. The initial plan was to get to the airport early and watch the game but then Harlow Town rather came to the rescue.

Continue reading →

Coda

08 Wednesday Apr 2020

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Saturday 14th March 2020 ko 13.30

Oxfordshire FA Intermediate Cup Semi-Final

HEYFORD ATHLETIC 1 (Roberts 78)

BERINSFIELD 0

Att 52

Free Entry

You could sense that the walls were closing in. The Coronavirus pandemic had seen the Premier League, EFL and all three Step 3 leagues shut down to allow for social distancing. The National League had fudged making a decision and it seemed that the FA had yet to make a decision on local football. They’d left it to individual leagues to make up their minds what to do, and that produced the odd situation that the North Berkshire League had cancelled their games, but ended up seeing one of their clubs, Berinsfield still end up playing! Continue reading →

Claremont

13 Thursday Feb 2020

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Tuesday 26th November 2019 ko 19.45

Middlesex Senior Cup 2nd Round

HENDON 1 (Mitchell 58)

WINGATE & FINCHLEY 3 ( Ruff 17p Ochineng 32 Fleming 68)

Att 110

Entry £6

Programmes sold out

Teamsheet 50p

When Hendon left their crumbling, yet atmospheric home of Claremont Road in 2008 few could have envisioned their search for a new home would lead them to a place the width of Silver Jubilee Park from Hendon, even if the stadium itself is on the western edge of the park, and Hendon itself on the eastern! Continue reading →

Aiming High

11 Wednesday Dec 2019

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Saturday 12th October 2019 ko 10.30

Bedfordshire County League Division 3

REAL HAYNES 7 (Bucknall 17 Lumsden 28 32 62 Ahmed 53 Sheath 73og Pearson 78)

Lumsden penalty saved 60

BLUNHAM 0

Att 196

Free Entry

Programme £2

Like Phil Hiscox and the South West Peninsula League Hop I regard Craig Dabbs and the Bedfordshire Hop as being indivisible. I understand the stresses and strains of organising a hop below Step 6, for Bedfordshire you can read North Berkshire and Witney for me. People tend to be surprised when I tell them that Bedford is Robyn’s favourite hop, she knows its the only event when I genuinely relax. Continue reading →