Category Archives: T

Happiness

02 Sunday Aug 2026

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Friday 5th June 2026 ko 19:00

Division 3 Södra Svealand

TROSA VAGENHÄRADS SK 1 (Åkerblom 71)

HANVIKENS SK 0

Att 85 at Häradsvallen (grass)

Free Entry

The Swedish Hop cost £360 which included all transport from and to Arlanda Airport and between games, 2 nights bed and breakfast, and any admission fees.

It’s the same every year. I try and explain why Robyn and I spent a not inconsiderable amount of money to spend a weekend watching some fairly obscure football matches in Stockholm. I’m happy to admit it’s not for everyone, but since 2007, with a 3 year break for Covid these weekends have become my happy place. So much so, Robyn and I got engaged in Stockholm prior to the 2018 edition!

Sweden and I seem to complement each other, so over the years these events have slowly metamorphosed into trips with friends to see friends. I know that that doesn’t sell the hop to many others, but in all honesty, there’s a part of me that has stopped worrying. Read these next few articles, and perhaps you’ll see the value.

So I look forward to organiser Kim Hedwall’s email that always starts with “Welcome to the …th Swedish Groundhop”

Except in 2026 there were a couple of problems.

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Fuel My Fire

30 Tuesday Jun 2026

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Saturday 4th April 2026 ko 18:30

Northern League Division Two

TOW LAW TOWN 1 (Bates 27)

RYTON & CRAWCROOK ALBION 1 (Anderson 31)

Att 509

Entry £5

Programme £2

When any fan of football in the North East mentions Tow Law it’s elevation is always mentioned. It is 997 feet above sea level, and the football ground in Ironworks Road is extremely exposed so the epithet tends to be that it is always cold at Tow Law. On that basis I did fee that my visit there in September 2014 may have been under false pretences. It was lovely and warm, I didn’t even wear a coat! That was unlikely to be the case this time round…

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Stairway

04 Wednesday Mar 2026

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Saturday 15th November 2025 ko 14:00

Cymru South

TREOWEN STARS 3 (C Davies 24 Meachan 35 43)

YNYSHIR ALBIONS 0

Att 85

Entry £6

Programme £2

When you’ve spent most of the last 25 years groundhopping, it isn’t the simple statistics of how many and where that do it for me. When people ask I tell them, then add the tagline “Which shows I need to get out more” when the exact opposite is the case! These days, it’s the connections you make that drive me on, and Treowen was a classic case of this.

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The Famous Shed

05 Friday Dec 2025

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Monday 25th August 2025 ko 14:00

West Lancashire League Premier Division

TEMPEST UNITED 3 (Firth 19secs Pendlebury 29 Monson 86)

ROSSENDALE 2 (Wylie 9 Foster 21)

Att 470

Entry £3

Programme £2

From CMB it was both unusual and gratifying to see so many people walk the quarter-of-a-mile through Lostock to Tempest United. The is named after the road the ground is in but with there being little or no parking at The Famous Shed, it solved what could have been an logistical nightmare. That said we did walk past a pub on the way; it was closed and would undoubtedly done a roaring trade if they’d have known who was walking past. Still, their loss was the football club’s gain…

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Sportland

02 Tuesday Sep 2025

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Wednesday 11th June 2025 ko 18:00

Estonian “Tipner” Cup Round of 64

JK TALLINNA KALEV u21 6 (Lasn 28 Väjlas 60 Kirss 69 Oja 78 Tammepöld 80 81)

RL VANA HEA PUUR 0

Att 27 at Sportland Arena, Lilleküla Football Complex, Tallinn

Free Entry

We’d made good use of the Ühiskaart public transport cards. A combination of tram and bus had taken us roughly 6km north of Tallinn centre to the TV Tower in the village of Pirita. It was a fascinating place, built in 1980 to relay footage of the sailing competition of the Moscow Olympics based nearby!

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Balti Jam

29 Friday Aug 2025

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Tuesday 10th June 2025 ko 17:00

Estonia U19 Eliitliiga Esilliga

TALLINNA JK LEGION 1 (Blinov 82)

TARTU FC HELIOS 0

Att 73 at Wismari Jalgpallistaadion, Tallinn

Entry Free

It was interesting approaching Estonia having arrived from Sweden. I found myself making comparisons with Stockholm rather than the UK. There is a clear Scandinavian influence, but I was most interested in their past as being part of the USSR before their independence was regained in 1991. You’ll hear Russian spoken, roughly a quarter of Estonians speak it as their first language, but that percentage alters massively depending on where you are, as we were to find out later.

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The Knockin Shop

08 Friday Aug 2025

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Saturday 30th May 2025 ko 14:30

Montgomeryshire Amateur League

TREFONEN 2 (C Jones 4 L Davies 32)

LLANGEDWYN 1 (Buckley 36)

Att 72

Free Entry

With the season in England and Wales in its last couple of days it was a case of leagues squeezing in their final fixtures. I decided to do something specific and that is to mine the seam that is the narrow strip of territory in Shropshire, that’s still English but the place names are Welsh.

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Tin Tactics

02 Monday Jun 2025

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Friday 18th April 2025 ko 15:00

National League South

TRURO CITY 0

TORQUAY UNITED 1 (Jay 65)

Att 3,306

Advance Ticket for all games on the hop £55

Entry £15

Programme £3

Consider if you will the lot of the groundhop organiser. You’ve got plenty (believe me!) to worry about but one major issue is the middle game of just about any day. You know that there will be no end of competition for the groundhoppers’ attention at 3pm or thereabouts. Here the organiser Phil Hiscox had a real dilemma.

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The Return To Something Big

19 Monday May 2025

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Saturday 23rd March 2025 ko 19:45

Essex Senior League

TAKELEY 2 (Westcott 63 Miles 90+5)

SAFFRON WALDEN TOWN 0

Att 586

Non-League Day “Passport” £30

Entry £8

Programme £2

It has to be said there was a lot more time available to get from Little Oakley to Takeley than there had from Benfleet to Little Oakley earlier in the day. So much so there was enough time to visit a nearby chippy and listen to the planes roaring over our heads, taking off and landing at Stansted airport. Once we arrived at Station Road it was obvious we were, like at Benfleet, visiting something big.

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Gloucs’ in Somerset

20 Monday Jan 2025

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Thursday 28th December 2024 ko 14:00

Gloucestershire County League

TOTTERDOWN UNITED 5 (Tobin 2 24 45 Lowell 21 C Hemming 69)

ALMONDSBURY 4 (Lancastle 43 Hill 45+3 Alrawi 71 Mannings 90p)

Morgan sent off 86 (2nd booking)

Free Entry

Programme online only (non-downloadable)

With Robyn my wife being from Bristol, it’s fair to day I’ve seen plenty of the city and since she’s from Knowle West I’ve seen plenty of Totterdown. If you’ve ever been past Temple Meads station then headed south and climbed up the Wells Road you’ve been to Totterdown.

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