Category Archives: T

Shelter

13 Tuesday Dec 2022

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Saturday 15th October 2022 ko 15:00

Central Midlands League Cup 1st Round

TEVERSAL 1 (Fletcher 23)

Fletcher sent off 45 (2nd booking)

DERBY SINGH BROTHERS 1 (Lawrence 43p)

No extra time, Teversal won 5-4 on penalties

Att 33

Entry £3

Programme £1

As a groundhopper there are always occasional grounds that seem to pass you by. In the case of Teversal, I always imagined the Northern Counties East Hop would visit Carnarvon Street, but two things happened, first the club seemed sufficiently unhappy at the whole procedure neither league nor organisers dared to ask them, and then they got relegated back to the Central Midlands League, where ironically we could actually feature them now. I wonder; they’ve certainly got the ground! Continue reading →

Making It Work

08 Thursday Dec 2022

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Sunday 9th October 2022 

11:00 Southern Counties East League- Premier Division

RUSTHALL 4 (Fares 9 Clark 16 Gitiba 60 Baldwin78)

K SPORTS 2 (Holliday 27 Lewins 48)

Att 344

Entry £8

Programme £2

14:00 Southern Counties East League- Premier Division

TUNBRIDGE WELLS 1 (McCreadie 58)

LORDSWOOD 1 (Reid 32)

Att 518

Entry £8

Programme £2

Without a massive amount of evidence I felt supremely confident about the SCEFL Hop’s Sunday schedule. Part of it was that I felt I knew the clubs a little, I’s seen what a go-ahead club Rusthall are when I’d visited 9 years ago, and my visit to Tunbridge Wells  a year later gave me the impression that they were an Isthmian League club in waiting. Normally my internalised challenge to clubs I revisit on hops is to change my perception of them., here I wanted them to reinforce my view. There were a couple of snags with that though. Continue reading →

Humble Bumble

11 Friday Nov 2022

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Saturday 24th September 2022

11:00 Witney & District League Division 2

BRIZE NORTON 0

CASSINGTON RANGERS 1 (Blackman 3p)

Att 168

14:00 Witney & District League- Division 1

TOWER HILL 1 (Scott 82)

HATHEROP 3 (Hathaway 31 Turner-Williams 56p 63)

Skinner sent off 20 (violent conduct)

Att 154

17:00 Witney & District League- Division 1

HEYFORD ATHLETIC 2 (Chambers 20 Phipps 90)

CHADLINGTON 2 (Charlesworth 7 61)

Att 153

Entry to each game, including programme £4

When the league and I were putting together this event, I found myself thinking back to Steventon, the first game on the first North Berkshire League Hop back in 2011.

Rightly or wrongly I see the North Berks and Witney Hops as being continuations of each other- both are grassroots leagues playing (mostly) in Oxfordshire. I remember a senior (in terms of numbers) groundhopper coming up to me before the event in 2011 to inform me that, in his opinion, a groundhop here couldn’t possibly work. We held 7 hops in the North Berks, and this was to be the 3rd in the Witney & District. And while I’ll be the first to admit that these hops aren’t for every hopper, they certainly do a lot of good for the clubs, I get a lot of personal satisfaction from seeing a good club do well, and any hop organiser will tell you, the smaller clubs tend to make the most effort!

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The Alliance

14 Friday Oct 2022

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Friday 26th August 2022 ko 18:30

South Wales Alliance Division 2

TONGWYNLAIS 1 (Older 59)

COGAN CORONATION 3 (Vilis 8 Preston 19 Taylor 72)

Att 234

Entry £3

Programme £2

I’m sure there are better analogies but for me the re-emergence of the Welsh Hop was my sign that the we were some way of putting the troubles of the pandemic behind us. With my many and varied connections to Wales I knew just how hard Coronavirus hit here, to the extent I knew the hop coach would be driven by someone new this time round. I thought of Steve Pitt who was lost to the virus during lockdown as the coach headed down the A470 from Treforest. Continue reading →

Jim

15 Wednesday Jun 2022

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Tuesday 26th April 2022 ko 18:30

Spartan South Midlands League Division Two

TOTTERNHOE 3 (Tizard 20 Woolaway 45 Perry 89)

RISBOROUGH RANGERS DEVELOPMENT 1 (Pekun 72)

Att 30

Free Entry

Once upon a time this was my favourite time of the season. Once the clocks go forward in Spring there’s the opportunity to take in a whole slew of midweek games at grounds without floodlights. Groundhoppers tend to refer to this as “Silly Season” which is a little pejorative if you’re involved at a club but is more a comment on what’s available mid week rather than any comment on the quality on offer. My issue with this time of year is more prosaic, however. Continue reading →

Pandy

18 Wednesday May 2022

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Saturday 2nd April 2022 ko 14:00

Bridgend & District League Open Cup 2nd Round

TONDU ROBINS 0

LLANHARRY 6 (Peete 3 Doughty 9 T Hamilton 12 Richards 50 Watts 67 Williams 79)

Att 27 at Pandy Park, Aberkenfig

Free Entry

It seems to me that if you want to find an interesting football match, all you really need to do is head to South Wales- there’s no end of them. The previous Saturday on the way back from Denaby Main we’d had a look at my options and this one rather jumped out, not least due to Tondu Robins’ long stint in the Welsh League. In the end it all added up to a lot more than that.

Continue reading →

Viva Chew Magna!

14 Tuesday Sep 2021

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Saturday 28th August 2021 ko 15:00

Somerset County League Division 2

CHEW MAGNA 3 (Pickford 57 Dunleavey 69 Haskins 83)

CUTTERS FRIDAY 2 (Evans 23 Hargreaves 23)

Att c15 at Tunley Recreation Centre, Old Bath Road, BA2 0EB

Free Entry

On one level you could say I got this one wrong. I was seeing family in Bristol so wanted a game reasonably local, to the point that my nephew Che decided to come along. That may have been to prove to himself that not every game I see involves him getting soaked, as was definitely the case at Stockwood Wanderers last year! My options boiled down to two Somerset County league games either- Chew Magna or Clutton.  I got the family to vote on it and Chew Magna won out. So why would some say I’d got it wrong? Continue reading →

The Sales Pitch

28 Monday Jun 2021

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Saturday 26th June 2021 ko 14:00

Pre-Season Friendly

TWEEDMOUTH RANGERS 10 (11, 17, 22, 32, 35, 46, Friere 49 60 80, 82)

BERWICK COLTS 0

Att c80 at Old Shielfield, Berwick-upon-Tweed

Free Entry

Pies £2

The fun of these next two games is the way they do make a mockery of attempts to pigeonhole them. This Saturday out was built around taking in a Berwick Charities Cup game at the Stanks, a competition that I’d argue fits in the 2020/21 season, but its 18.30 kickoff allowed for this pre-season friendly beforehand. That presumably would be precursor to the 2021/22 season, so if you took that train of thought far enough you’d think we started next season before we finished the last! Continue reading →

The Unlikely Station

24 Monday May 2021

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Sunday 23rd May 2021 ko 10:30

Upper Thames Valley Sunday League

TACKLEY UNITED 1 (Wynn 38)

CHILTON BLUE & WHITES 5 (Stevens 12 Burton 45 Kerry 56 Ayres 77 Mangan 90)

Stevens missed penalty 41

Att 48

Free Entry

Back in the day I was working as a financial adviser and one evening I had an appointment in Tackley. It wasn’t a push to get me there, I lived in Banbury and the village is roughly equidistant on the A423 between there and Oxford. I pulled up outside the Village Hall and as I went to my customer saw Tackley FC about to kick off a Witney & District League League game. I didn’t get much out of that appointment but I did make a mental note to visit the ground properly. Continue reading →

Returns

15 Thursday Apr 2021

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Saturday 10th April 2021 ko 15.00

North Bucks & District League – Premier

TOWCESTER TOWN 5 ( Parker 9p Dixon 70 72 Kirby 82 85)

CITY COLTS 2 (16 37)

Att c25 at Islington Road, Towcester

Free Entry

I’m not sure why, but Lockdown Mark 3 seemed to have more of an impact on me than the other two. There was the salve of the UK’s successful vaccination programme which at least gave us some light at the end of the tunnel and it was gratifying to see news of so many of the hopping fraternity receiving their first jabs. Nevertheless I was saddened to hear of the death of Hull-based hopper Phil Grayson from Covid-19 during this period of lockdown- it showed that while we are heading in the right direction, we are still a long way from having this accursed virus beaten. Continue reading →