Category Archives: S

Treading Caerphilly

26 Sunday Apr 2015

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Tuesday 21st April 2015 ko 18.30

Peterborough & District League Premier Division

STILTON UNITED 0

SAWTRY 4 (B Smith 30p 44 61 Ablitt 55)

Att 24

Entry FREE

Nothing for sale

A few years ago, I visited United Counties League side Yaxley at their Leading Drove Ground. The car park was full so I parked at a pitch opposite and a little further along the road. I marvelled at how little there was there, literally just a pitch, two dugouts and two goals surrounded by flat fields all the way to the East coast main line in the distance. The highest structure in the place is the two crossbars! I found out that Stilton FC played there, logged the place for future reference, and completely forgot about the place for 3 years! Continue reading →

Ambitions

19 Sunday Apr 2015

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Monday 13th April 2015 ko 18.30

Hampshire Premier League, Senior Division

AFC STONEHAM 1 (Forbes 48)

HAMBLE CLUB 3 (Thomson 5 90 Watts 35)

Att 71

Entry FREE

No Programme

When you visit a few grounds in a particular league, you start to get a feel for that league. And then a club comes along that completely changes that perception and that club for me was AFC Stoneham. Continue reading →

Imagine

12 Sunday Apr 2015

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Saturday 4th April 2015 ko 16.45

Northern Counties East League Premier Division

SHAW LANE AQUAFORCE 1 (Denton 38)

HEANOR TOWN 0

Att 344

Entry £5

Programme £1.50

Imagine if you will, you were from Barnsley and a keen Sheffield Wednesday fan. You’ve started and built a successful water meter business, so you decide to rent an executive box at Hillsborough. You’ve won the game of life, and are metaphorically munching the prawn sandwiches at your favourite club, but there’s something missing.

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Battleground

25 Wednesday Mar 2015

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Saturday 21st March 2015 ko 15.30

Lowland League

SELKIRK 1 (See 58)

THE SPARTANS 1 (Brown 84)

Att 281

Entry £5

Programme £2

With so much riding on this hop I was nervous as the coach left Innerleithen for our middle game of the day. It’s that word “middle” that’s key, on any organised groundhop you tend to see, “Drift” where hoppers find an alternative games for the middle game on a Saturday when the competition for them is at its greatest. The solution is to schedule 4 games so that the hopper has to miss 2 hop games to go elsewhere but the geography and the lack of floodlights at Selkirk’s Yarrow Park made that impossible. Continue reading →

Mix & Match

07 Wednesday Jan 2015

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Tuesday 6th January 2015 ko 19.45

Northern Premier League Challenge Cup 2nd Round

STAFFORD RANGERS 2 (Curtis 71 90)

RUSHALL OLYMPIC 2 (Mugisha 35 Heath 88)

No extra time, Rushall won 6-5 on penalties

Att 192

Entry £5 (reduced from £9)

Programme £1 (reduced size)

Don’t you just love seeing a floodlit stadium come into view as you turn round a bend? If like me you do, then a trip to Marston Road is a must. That must for me was way overdue, perhaps that one season when in the Conference Premier, my club Oxford United played Rangers made me subconsciously procrastinate from going.

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Coffee Football

17 Friday Oct 2014

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Sunday 12th October 2014 ko 10.00

Voetball Cafeploeg

FC SOBEMAI 1 (Dabart 60og)

WEST EIND & BOOGARDE KERMIS 3 (G-J Savat 39 44 van Waryenberge 60)

Att 42 at Stadion Edelharte de Lille, Maldegem

Entry FREE

Programme NO

I could tell you about how we got up at 5.30am to do this one, or about the fog on the motorway from Luxembourg, and even the guilt that three of us felt when we all fell asleep just after crossing into Belgium leaving an exhausted Lee to drive for 3 hours plus listening to us snoring!

We reached the East Flanders town of Maldegem, diverted to avoid a Sunday Flea Market, crossed the narrow gauge tracks then turned left into the Stadion Edelharte de Lille, just 7km south of the Dutch border. Our collective jaws dropped, leaving any other tale I could tell utterly redundant.

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Got me under pressure

15 Wednesday Oct 2014

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Friday 10th October 2014 ko 19.00

Regionaliga Südwest

1FC SAARBRÜCKEN 1 (Döringer 13)

KICKERS OFFENBACH 1 (von den Burg 82)

Att 7,011

Entry (Haupttribune/Main Stand) €22 (€1 =80p)

Programme 50c

The alarm went off, it was 5.45am, and I was in a cheap hotel in Folkestone, its purpose only to get a car-load of hoppers to the Channel Tunnel as quickly as possible. I shuffled into the bathroom, and ran the shower only to watch the head extricate itself from the holster and hit my razor. The razor exploded in a spray of water, and I contemplated a hirsute weekend over a bacon roll and an Americano as the train travelled under the English Channel.

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Cathedral City

04 Thursday Sep 2014

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Monday 25th August 2014 ko 14.15

Welsh Alliance Division Two

ST ASAPH CITY 3 (Midgley 22 61 D Evans 63)

MOCHDRE SPORTS 1 (Philips 75)

Att 254

Entry £3

Programme £1

It was quite a tight squeeze getting 2 coaches into the lane down to Roe Plas, but once again there was someone there from the club to direct us down. I do wonder whether hop clubs realise how much our coach drivers appreciate having someone to meet them? Continue reading →

Brigade

02 Wednesday Jul 2014

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Saturday 21st March 2009 ko 11.00

Middlesex County League Division One Central & East

SLOANE 4 (Crisp 45 Jarvand 58 63 Burden 78)

COPLAND 3 (Simpson 25 90 Silcott 90)

Att 128 at the Royal Hospital, Chelsea

Entry Free

Programme £2 (very good!)

Coffee 50p

The roots of this fixture lie with QPR fan, journalist and programme enthusiast Tony Incenzo. For a few years now he’s organised early kick-offs in the Middlesex County League, with the host team printing a programme, and laying on refreshments too. Its simplicity is its genius, most if not all hoppers will find a 3 o’clock kick-off to pair it off with and so it really is a case of buy one get one free, at least in terms of time! Continue reading →

Tjörn Again

17 Tuesday Jun 2014

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Friday 13th June 2014 ko 19.00

Division 4 Bohuslän/Dalsland

SKÄRHAMNS IK 2 (E Johannessen 17 79)

STIGEN/ELLENÖ 0

Att 76

Entry 100 SEK (£8.88)

Programme included

Pennant- Comp

Hot Dog and Coffee- Comp

NB On the Swedish hop, the £270 cost covered entry to all games, programmes, coach travel and two nights Bed and Breakfast.

So, picture the scene, the 3 of us had arrived at Gothenburg coach station from Oslo, and were waiting for Kim Hedwall and the hop coach to arrive. Clearly there were no lack of coaches coming and going but which one was the one with Kim? The answer became obvious and I laughed out loud as the IFK Gothenburg team coach pulled in to a lay-by. From then on wherever we went people stopped and stared and in some cases even took photos. I tried not to imagine their disappointment when I exited…..

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