Category Archives: R

Looking Back

31 Wednesday Dec 2014

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Hindsight is a wonderful thing, so with 2015 nearly upon us let’s cast a final glance on 2014, after all some exceptional places did get a visit! If you’d like to see more of the places featured, the links with take you to the original articles.

January saw a week’s visit to Malta, and between avoiding nervous British pensioners, and my attempts to source the biggest full English breakfast on the Island, we did manage to watch 9 games. For me there were two highlights, the games on Gozo, where there seemed to be more capacity in the Catholic Churches than residents!

SONY DSC

Of Continue reading →

Stiff Little Fingers

06 Thursday Nov 2014

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Tuesday 4th November 2014 ko 19.30

Western League Division One

RADSTOCK TOWN 4 (Carter 6 Harvey 26 Hardiman 89 Metcalf 90)

WINCANTON TOWN 2 (Jordan 68 Chant 90)

Att 61

Entry £6

Programme £1

Perhaps its just my ignorance, but until I visited nearby Welton Rovers, you can see their lights as you travel south from Bath, I didn’t associate Somerset with coal mining. That was genuinely my error, the pits were started in the late 18th century and at one point were owned by the Waldegrave family, you may remember MP William Waldegrave, but the last pit finally closed in 1973. The clues are still there, be it the “Miners” nickname of the football club, or the rows of terraces miners’ cottagers as you climb the hill towards the Southfields Recreation Ground. Continue reading →

Cool

07 Thursday Aug 2014

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Saturday 2nd August 2014 ko 13.45

Peterborough & District League Premier Division

RIVERSIDE 3 (Dello Russo 4 Lancaster 40 Donohoe 90p)

UPPINGHAM TOWN 1 (Binley 62)

Att 257

Entry £5

Programme £1

Badge £3

 

I was a little nervous as the coach left Leading Drove, for the mile-or-so journey to Daimler Avenue also in Yaxley. Its not as though GroundhopUk hadn’t organised games at lower levels of the game, will we ever visit a club of lower status than say Uffington United? It wasn’t as if the people at Riverside weren’t obviously up for the challenge, I’d enjoyed their company and admired their ideas at the club meetings, but I was very aware that we were at least in part taking some people out of their comfort zones.

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The World Cup of Wye

31 Thursday Jul 2014

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Tuesday 29th July 2014 ko 18.30

West Dean Charity League Intermediate Section

REDBROOK ROVERS 4 (14 37 55 66)

HUNTLEY 4 (1 42 59 77)

Att 19

Entry FREE

Programme No

Each pre-season the clubs in the Forest of Dean in membership of the North Gloucestershire League have a cup competition instead of playing friendlies. Its separated into 3 sections, Senior, Intermediate, and Junior, on a divisional status. Its organised rather like the World Cup with a group stage followed by a knock-out phase, and I’m indebted to Gloucestershire non-league expert Tim Burgin fir supplying me with the details. Continue reading →

Rivetting

31 Thursday Jul 2014

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Saturday 26th July 2014 ko 14.00

Pre-Season Friendly

RIVETS 7 (Lane 1 Ithier 9 Tomlinson 20 82 Carter 45 Webb 45p Chiarello 67)

WING 0

Att 7

Entry FREE

Programme- They’d sold out; what do you think?

Every so often I like to go completely back-to-basics, and watch a game on a park pitch, stripping the game back to the only essentials, 22 people, two goals and a ball. This game certainly did that and satisfied the OCD part of me that simply has to see a game at somewhere I’ve passed by regularly. Continue reading →

Hot Potatoes!

16 Wednesday Apr 2014

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Saturday 12th April 2014 ko 12.50

Notts Senior League Senior Division

RUDDINGTON VILLAGE 0

BOOTS ATHLETIC 1 (Bonnick 58)

Att 319

Entry £3

Programme £1

Team Sheet 20p

Badge £3

The trip from Wollaton took the cavalcade over Nottingham’s Clifton flyover, where for Rob Hornby his groundhop organising started, the famous 5-games-in-a-day Central Midlands hop where in 2004 Bilborough Pelican, Dunkirk and Greenwood Meadows were the meat in a Graham St Prims and Sandiacre Town sandwich!

From there it is was a very short drive to Elms Park in the pretty village of Ruddington, and my first impression of the place was that an awful lot of cars were doing U-turns! The reason was that in with the prepaid ticket was a set of instructions on how to get to the ground, but the club had decided to make that entrance for players and officials only! Cue a quick volte-face and an entirely sensible trip to car park on the 2nd XI pitch which allowed a surprisingly quick exit afterwards.

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The Two Green

20 Thursday Feb 2014

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Tuesday 18th February 2014 ko 19.30

Leicestershire Senior League Premier Division

ROTHLEY IMPERIAL 2 (Love 33 Howard 70)

SILEBY TOWN 1 (Jelly 53)

Att 29

Entry £3

No programme

Tea 50p

Regular readers on these travels will know that I like to tell both of you, dear readers, a little about where I visited. The trouble with the small Leicestershire village of Rothley is where to start and what to leave out!

The village is centred off two greens, the Cross Green and the Town Green, both reached from the crossroads on the A6 that is the village’s raison d’etre. Continue reading →

Hope

25 Saturday Jan 2014

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Saturday 18th January 2014

14.00 Malta Premier League

RABAT AJAX 2 (Allopardi 61 Micallef 72)

TARXIEN RAINBOWS 6 (Barbosa 10 Pulo 29 77 82 Santos Silva 36 71)

Att c350

16.00 Malta Premier League

VITTORIOSA STARS 0

VALLETTA 4 (Nafti 26 Agius 28 Dos Santos 78 Nyang 84)

Att c350

At Hibernians Stadium, Paola

Entry €6 (both games)

No Programme

Teamsheet FREE

If you want to find out about what makes a country tick, give its public transport a try. With Andy headed to tick a ground on Gozo I decided to tick one of Malta’s most famous grounds Hibernians, very much in the hinterlands of the country’s capital Valletta.

The bus wended its way along the northern coast of the island, passing past the salt pans at the edge of St Paul’s Bay, then through the small villages due east. Hearing the Maltese language fascinated me. The structure is Semetic, or Arabic and its the only language of its type to have a western alphabet albeit with some adapted letters, there’s an H with an extra horizontal bar for example. However with Sicily only 50 miles north, the Italian influence is clear with large chunks of the language thrown into the linguistic melting pot, Grazie and Ciao being perhaps the most obvious. Continue reading →

Crux Roesia

13 Friday Dec 2013

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Tuesday 10th December 2013 ko 19.45

Southern League Division One Central

ROYSTON TOWN 0

KETTERING TOWN 0

Att 234

Entry £8

Programme £2

Badge £2.50

Sometimes its obvious you’re driving to somewhere ancient. The A505 north from the A1 is more or less dead straight, as it follows the Roman road, Icknield Way. When the road intersects with Ermine Street, now the A10, you’re in Royston. The crossing of the two old roads was marked by Roisia’s cross, which eventually was corrupted into Roisia’s Town, then Royston. Sadly all that remains of the cross is the footstone. Continue reading →

The Long Shot

16 Monday Sep 2013

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Saturday 14th September 2013 ko 15.00

Midlands Regional Alliance Premier Division

ROWSLEY 86 2 (T Baker 29 Roome 85)

NEWHALL UNITED 1 (Ward 26p)

Att 8

Entry FREE

Tea FREE

No Programme

Head north on the A6 from Matlock and in around 6 miles you’ll reach the pretty village of Rowsley. It’s at the confluence of the rivers Derwent and Wye, and was the site of an extensive marshalling yard for the Manchester, Buxton, Matlock and Midlands Junction Railway. The station was frequently used by King Edward VII when he visited nearby Chatsworth House. The station became a goods depot until 1968, when it was closed and converted to a contractor’s yard. It then became the centrepiece of a shopping development which is still open today. Perhaps it goes without saying I didn’t pay it a visit! Continue reading →