Category Archives: S

Forza Titani

03 Thursday Oct 2024

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Thursday 5th September 2024 ko 20:45

UEFA Nations League League D Group 1

SAN MARINO 1 (Sensoli 53)

LIECHTENSTEIN 0

Att 914 at Stadio San Marino, Serravalle

Entry €12

Programme €2

Teamsheet FREE

The roots of Robyn and I being at a game involving Europe’s third smallest country lie in an unlikely place- Stockholm! You may remember our friends Per and Bettan; each year they like to have a week in Rimini so when we decided to have some time away during Robyn’s birthday week, we decided to follow their example!

For those in the know, Rimini is the gateway to the tiny country of San Marino so with us in the area it was straightforward to factor in a San Marino Nations League fixture. I’ll be completely candid at this point; I didn’t pay too much attention as to who they were playing!

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Brackets

25 Wednesday Sep 2024

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Tuesday 20th August 2024 ko 19:45

Midland League Division One

SUTTON UNITED 2 (Gildea 4 33)

PAGET RANGERS 0

Att 132

Entry £6

Programme £2

Teamsheet FREE

As the saying goes “What’s in a name?” Well quite a lot of you happen to be Sutton United! For the avoidance of any doubt this is the club based in Sutton Coldfield, not the National League Premier side based in South London. As if to make it worse I’ve seen the club referred to as Sutton United (Birmingham); Sutton Coldfield and Birmingham are two very different places.

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Otherworld

28 Wednesday Aug 2024

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Saturday 27th July 2024 ko 11:00

United Counties League- Premier North

SHIREBROOK TOWN 1 (Costa 62)

NEWARK & SHERWOOD UNITED 1 (Monteiro 50og)

L White penalty saved 69

Att 448

Entry £5

Programme £1

I must say I enjoyed my close season far more than I expected, the chance to recharge my groundhopping batteries was appreciated, even the pre-season friendlies were often an exercise in enjoying a day out, rather than with any kind of aim. Robyn and I were ready to return to GroundhopUK duty for the UCL Hop but then we hit a snag….

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Carville

21 Wednesday Aug 2024

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Saturday 20th July 2024 ko 14:00

Pre-season friendly

SPARTANS YOUTH 1 (Ralph 90)

WEALDSTONE U23 1 (86)

Att 31 at Carville Hall Park North , Lionel Road North, Brentford.

Free Entry

Where do I start with this one? Probably with the most obvious, we were taking advantage of a club that normally groundshares playing a rare game at home. Spartans Youth are starting their third season in the first division of the Combined Counties League, but have groundshared at Northwood, and this season at Bedfont FC, a little nearer to the planes flying into Heathrow!

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The Icon

05 Monday Aug 2024

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Sunday 16th June 2024 ko 15:00

Damallsvenskan

DJURGÅRDENS I.F. 1 (Åsland 58p)

KRISTIANSTAD DFF 2 (Alanen 40 Eiriksdottir 45)

Eiriksdottir missed penalty 84

Att 522 at Stockholms Stadion

Entry 150 sek (c£11.07)

The Swedish Hop’s cost of £320 included bed and breakfast for two nights, all transport in Sweden, together with entry fees for all games, and a goodie bag!

When Kim and I put this hop together he quickly made the decision to use the 1912 Olympic Stadium as the anchor point for the event. He and I took the view that we could put virtually any other grounds on the hop just so long as we could take in a game here. And we so nearly had it all taken away from us…

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The Third

01 Thursday Aug 2024

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Sunday 16th June 2024 ko 10:30

Stockholm P2008- 1A

VASALUND IF III 1 (Almqvist 71)

AIK SOLNA FK I 7 (Hammarin 21 76 Lööw 30 40 50 Henareh 42 84)

Att 29 at Skytteholms IP Plan B

Free Entry

The Swedish Hop’s cost of £320 included bed and breakfast for two nights, all transport in Sweden, together with entry fees for all games, and a goodie bag!

If one football ground could encompass what the Swedish Hop is all about you could say it’s Skytteholms. It’s in Solna close to where organiser Kim Hedwall lives in Stockholm’s northern suburbs. We visited the main pitch on the very first hop in 2007, then again in 2013, and on both occasions the facility was overshadowed by the Råsunda Stadium, where non-Brazilian fans first glimpsed Pele in the 1958 World Cup and AIK played their home games.

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The Deer

22 Monday Jul 2024

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Saturday 15th June 2024 ko 10:00

Stockholm Youth League P2007A

SOLLENTUNA FK NORD 1 (Sheko 89)

URSVIK IK 14 (Mermer 6 Adam 10 Mohamed 10 30 64 Sörenson 37 59 76 83 Altgenug 53 66 Sjöman 75 79 84)

Att 30, 2 dogs and a deer at Edsbergs Sportfält 3, Sollentuna

Free Entry

The Swedish Hop’s cost of £320 included bed and breakfast for two nights, all transport in Sweden, together with entry fees for all games, and a goodie bag!

In the long history of the Swedish Hop the Saturday and Sunday morning games tended to be in the lowest tiers, normally divisions 6 and 7. With us never being able to attract the levels of groundhoppers that would allow us to get local associations to move kick-off times, we’ve always taken in what games we can, whenever we can.

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The Dome

21 Sunday Jul 2024

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Friday 14th June 2024 ko 20:00

Division 4 Stockholm Mellersta

SICKLA IF 2 (Rosell 40 Marsden 80)

RINKEBY UNITED 2 (Rawufa 57 Jobe 88)

Att 88 at Nacka IP2

Free Entry

The Swedish Hop’s cost of £320 included bed and breakfast for two nights, all transport in Sweden, together with entry fees for all games, and a goodie bag!

The tram from Sickla Kaj wended its way to Solna, and I used the time to reflect on how the Swedish Hop has changed everything for me since that day in 2007 when the plane landed at Skavsta and the very first Swedish Hop watched Nyköping BIS that evening. That was my first ever game abroad, and it was organiser Kim Hedwall that got me there. Since then, I’ve watched football in 28 countries, so I’ve got a lot to thank him for. He started me off, and without that start so much that’s wonderful would never have happened. It is possible that I’d never have met Robyn. Infamously we met on Twitter and what attracted me to her was my tales of footballing travel. As I said, I owe Kim and Sweden a lot.

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No, not me

11 Tuesday Jun 2024

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Saturday 4th May 2024 ko 14:00

Thames Valley Premier League, Premier Division

SLOUGH HEATING LAURENTIANS 2 (Aragrez 55 Lovering 77p)

HOLYPORT RESERVES 1 (Brinsden 8)

Att c30 at Polish Club, Stoke Poges

The weather was warm and sunny, and I had a lovely double lined up. Yet for all of that I felt conflicted, I’d made a fairly major decision in my footballing life, and that evening was when I was going to have to make that choice public and deal with the consequences. I wanted something beforehand that was low-key and relaxing.

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Beechwood

19 Friday Apr 2024

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Saturday 16th March 2024 ko 20:00

East of Scotland League- Premier Division

SAUCHIE JUNIORS 3 (D Smith 7 30p 44)

Kavanagh sent off 39 (violent conduct)

HILL OF BEATH HAWTHORN 2 (Watt 46 Tosh 83)

Att 447

Entry £10

Programme £2

We left the Perth area with mixed feelings. On one hand we’d visited 3 lovely clubs and taken advantage of the weather holding while we were visiting grounds with little or no cover, on the other the rain was hammering down putting the evening’s game at Sauchie in doubt, and by extension at Whitburn on Sunday morning.

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