Category Archives: L

Exodus

08 Monday 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.

Saturday March 1st 2008 ko 15.00

Conference North

LEIGH RAILWAY MECHANICS INSTITUTE 1 (Carroll 90)

BARROW AFC 2 (Henney 36 Walker 59)

Att 295

Entry £7

Programme £2

Part of me wonders whether I’m the right person to write about this, as this is a time when two paths crossed fairly briefly and I happened to be in the right place at the right time. Continue reading →

The Big Cheese

21 Tuesday Apr 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.

These next two articles serve two purposes, first to document the one country of the 25 I’ve visited for football, that’s never been covered in this blog- The Netherlands. Secondly this was my first footballing trip abroad as an independent traveller.

Friday 11th February 2011 ko 20.00

Dutch Erste Divisie

CAMBUUR LEEUWARDEN 2 (Schepers 21 Türk 59)

F.C. EINDHOVEN 1 (van Boekel 83p)

Att 5,950

Entry €20

Programme €1

Pennant €7

With this tale, it’s important to set the scene. Three-and-a-half years had passed since that first footballing trip abroad to Sweden, and since that time I’d added no further countries to my experiences. The reason was straightforward, my then wife was claustrophobic and would neither fly, nor go on a cross-channel ferry. I could plan, but I knew that anywhere I went would have to be without her. That I wasn’t prepared to countenance. Continue reading →

Serendipity

12 Sunday Apr 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 9th September 2006 ko 14.30

Westmorland League Division One

LUNESDALE UNITED 0

KESWICK 3 (Hilton 50 P Frampton 52 Loan 64)

Att 20

Free Entry

If I was going to tell the tale of Penrith and the unfortunate Dennis Pinkney then Lunesdale United should be the companion piece to it. The Penrith game was on the first Saturday of my holiday near Appleby, this was to be on the next weekend. But the original idea was to go to watch Morecambe vs my team Oxford United, so what happened? Continue reading →

Leões

02 Monday Mar 2020

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Friday 17th January 2020 ko 21.15

Primeira Liga

SPORTING CLUBE DE PORTUGAL 0

SL BENFICA 2 (R Silva 80 90)

ATT 41,017

Entry €65

Robyn and I knew we’d like to spend the weekend after our wedding in Lisbon. We knew they’d be plenty of interest to visit there, and the idea was to use this as a “Mini-Moon” with a longer honeymoon in the summer. The problem was would we want to watch any football? We rapidly agreed on one game, as let’s face it, clocking up an entire weekend watching nothing but football is hardly romantic. Continue reading →

The Windmill

19 Wednesday Feb 2020

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Tuesday 3rd December 2019 ko 19.45

National League North

LEAMINGTON AFC 3 (Edwards 16 Mace 57 Carline 77)

DARLINGTON 0

Att 606

Entry £13

Programme £2.50

I think you’d have to have a footballing heart of stone not to have a soft spot for the Brakes. This is the club who lost their old Windmill ground in April 1988 to a property developer and didn’t kick a football in anger for 12 and a half years. A group of fans continued to meet at the Windmill pub close to the site of the old ground and continued to pay the Birmingham FA the fees each year to keep Leamington’s registration going and the name alive. Continue reading →

The Full Monty

19 Thursday Dec 2019

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Saturday 12th October 2019 ko 14.45

Bedfordshire County League Division 3

LANCOT PARK 5 (Wilson 38 75 Nolan 41 Douglas 60p Wrench 87)

LUTON ALLSTARS 1 (Katcombe 34)

Grey penalty saved 17

Att 118

Free Entry

Programme £2

We left Luton’s environs for the last game of this year’s Bedfordshire Hop. Maybe it was because I’d long since committed to the whole event but when organiser Craig Dabbs mentioned Lancot Park, I’d recognised the name but failed to place why. Sadly for the hop I seemed to be the only one with amnesia! Continue reading →

The Tavern

26 Tuesday Nov 2019

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Friday 4th October 2019 ko 19.45

Western League Division One

LEBEQ UNITED 3 (Brown 7p 59 Sarr 13)

DaCosta sent off 55 (violent conduct)

RADSTOCK TOWN 1 (Rustell 14p)

Att 192 at Oaklands Park, Almondsbury (Gloucs FA Ground)

Entry £5

Programme £1

In a few ways the organised groundhop should have visited Oaklands Park far far earlier than this. Think back 15 or so years ago to the days of the Welsh Hellenic Hop, when GroundhopUk would spend August Bank Holiday Saturday in the South Wales Amateur League then spend Sunday and Monday in the Hellenic. Each and every year we traveled east across the Severn, and each time we failed to visit, but why? Continue reading →

Matchstick Man

22 Sunday Sep 2019

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Saturday 17th August 2019 ko 15.00
Cornwall Combination League

LIZARD ARGYLE 1 (Vaughan-Spruce 10)

ROSUDGEON 0 Fletcher missed penalty 90

Att 30

Entry by donation

Programme £1

“So there he was then, Penzance to play….

..And you, you would-be vagabond
No one invited you, you know
Matchstick man, up in the dawn
You’ve got five hundred miles to go.”

excerpt of Matchstick Man by Mark Knopfler 2018

Remember my comment that all too often I don’t pick my games, they pick me? Well this was a classic case of that happening. Robyn and I were in Bristol wedding planning and I knew that I’d be picking up an easel in Clifton but I’d be finished around 10.30am so could go anywhere within reason before heading back to Oxford afterwards. My initial idea was something in the Peninsula League but then something popped up on Facebook!

Continue reading →

Royal

05 Monday Aug 2019

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Tuesday 7th July 2019 ko 19.30

Pre-Season Friendly

8TH TRAINING BATTALION ROYAL ELECTRICAL & MECHANICAL ENGINEERS 2 (Auger 52 J Allen 62p)

SHREWTON UNITED 4 (Johnson 17 Utterson 21 Watson 44 Himsworth 65)

Att 6  @ MOD Lyneham

Free Entry

After the Swedish Hop I surprised myself by enjoying some time off from football. I needed the rest and contrary to the beliefs of some I do enjoy plenty of other things other than just football! Gone are the days when my close season was short, and on one occasion less than 24 hours! (Final game of Swedish Hop then Derby Summer League the next day!) In the end I found myself looking for a fixture rather half-heartedly, it would have to be something interesting to make me end my  summer break. Then a game behind the fence at MOD Lyneham popped up! Continue reading →

My Happy Place

29 Monday Jul 2019

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Sunday 9th June 2019 ko 12.00

Division 6 Sydvästra Skåne

LILLA BEDDINGE 4 (Olsson 4 Klinterberg-Nickmål 46 Bassini 54 Vinqvist 85)

KORPEN MALMÖ 1 (Szeregnyi 52)

Att 69

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.

Sunday morning dawned, with the weather perfect and the meatballs for breakfast seemed especially good. Even the slight hangovers evident in several of the party didn’t seem in proportion with the amount of beer we’d consumed in the Tre Lyktor the night before. And for all of that I found my sense of melancholy difficult to shift. Continue reading →