Category Archives: V

The Corntown Carpet

12 Friday Oct 2018

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Sunday 26th August 2018 ko 11.00

South Wales Alliance Division Two

VALE UNITED 7 (Waagenes 7 35 Gregory 32 Caseley 74 Richards 83 86 Hanson 90)

STM SPORTS OLD BOYS 1 (Partridge 48p)

Att 168

Entry £3

Programme £1

The alarm sounded with a judder and I was shocked into life. Perhaps that evening in Abertillery could have been curtailed a little earlier. But the band Jo90 were excellent (Robyn and I booked them for our wedding!) and the delights of what appeared to be “Grab a Granny” night at the Glasgow Phoenix nightclub were nothing if not amusing!

The weather though was a cause for concern. The rain was sheeting down and at the Upper Boat in Rhydyfelin the two coachloads of hoppers wore expressions that evoked that of a schoolboy sat outside the headmasters office waiting for six of the best. I sat quietly and ate and thought. I know I and the other hoppers are well used to getting wet, but if there was one host club I really didn’t want it to rain for it was Vale United.  Continue reading →

Timbers

03 Monday Sep 2018

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Tuesday 22nd July 2018 ko 19.15

Pre-season Friendly

VIRGINIA WATER 1 (Griffiths 25)

BANSTEAD ATHLETIC 3 (Holden 11 38 Evered 88og)

Att 40 at The Timbers

15 years ago, when I started groundhopping this is what Step 6 in the South-East looked like. For the most part, a railed off pitch with a clubhouse was all you needed, and it was only when you started heading north that the difference in facilities became obvious. I remember a group of London-based hoppers not coming on one of the early Central Midlands Hops, because they’d decided there’d be all fields. The depressing thought is that I still hear these bleats even now. Remember the Notts-based hopper who told everyone 2-3 years ago that the South Peninsula League Hop would be “All fields”. What? St Austell? Wendron? Continue reading →

The Watertower

23 Friday Jun 2017

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Sunday 4th June 2017 ko 15.00

Division 5 Sydvästra Skåne

VELLINGE I.F. 7 (Marius Hansson 22 47 C Wreme 34 60 Kruse 43 Lindell 74 Krönström 90)

HUSIE F.F. 1 (Johannsson 66)

Att 68

Entry 40 sek

We began to make our way back to the Øresund Bridge and our flights from Kastrup airport. The 11th Swedish Hop’s final stop was Vellinge, whose claim to fame seems to be that it was once voted Sweden’s second best place to live, history doesn’t record who won though! The other thing Vellinge is famous for is it’s 40 metres tall, 400 million litre vatterntorn, or water tower. And if you weren’t completely au fait with what a huge concrete funnel is for, the clever Swedes have painted the thing in blue stripes! Continue reading →

Wander For Distraction, Travel For Fulfilment

09 Wednesday Nov 2016

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Saturday 5th November 2016 ko 14.00

Hampshire Intermediate Cup First Round

VENTNOR 3 (Urry 10 33 40)

BURGHCLERE 1 (Smith 90p)

Att 21

Entry FREE

If ever there was a game I felt I ought to be at this was it. Burghclere are a club I have a lot of time for, not least as they were wonderful hosts on this year’s North Berkshire League Hop and as a proud committeeman I felt I should be there to support one of our own. You see, other than being the only NBFL club in Hampshire, and so the only club in our league in the competition there was another quirk of the draw. Continue reading →

Goddess On The Mountain Top

20 Friday May 2016

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Saturday 7th May 2016 ko 18.00

4 Liga Bucuresti

VENUS BUCURESTI 0

ACS LUCKY SPORTS MANAGEMENT 3 (Gheorghe 21 Militara 37 C Achim 60)

Att 38

After a late lunch, and an unfiltered beer or two at the Nenea Ianca restaurant in Strada Covaci there was the collective feeling that despite the tragic events of the night before, that we’d regained control of our situation. But with our scheduled game at Concordia Chaijna postponed hop organiser Andrei Otineanu diverted to a local game, and it’s history made it arguably more interesting than the game we’d lost. Continue reading →

Catalina

16 Tuesday Jun 2015

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Sunday 7th June 2015 ko 12.00

Division 4 Norra Stockholm

VIGGBYHOLMS IK 3 (Persson 20 Sten 49 N Jonsson 63)

FF TÅBY CITY 1 (Higgs 89)

Att 129

NB The Swedish hop’s cost of £280 included all entry fees, programmes, two nights bed and breakfast, and coach travel between the games and Arlanda airport.

Entry & Programme 20sek

From our base in Uppsala, we set off due south towards Stockholm before striking out east into the outer reaches of the archipelago. We reached the municipality of Tåby most famous for the large numbers of Viking runic stones found here, and less so for being the home of DJ and producer Eric Prydz.

House music seemed a million miles away as the coach pulled into the small town of Viggbyholm nestling in Stora Värtan, an inlet of the Baltic Sea. There are beaches and boat clubs, and the area was opened up in no small part by the opening of the Roslagsbanan, a 891 mm narrow gauge railway running from Stockholm Östra station out north and eastwards. Continue reading →

Border Reiver

25 Wednesday Mar 2015

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Saturday 21st March 2015 ko 12.00

Lowland League

VALE OF LEITHEN 0

PRESTON ATHLETIC 2 (Bruce 41 Roy 57)

Att 312

Entry £5

Programme £1.50

Badge £3

I suspect we all needed a good night’s sleep after Friday’s long journey, certainly the faces at breakfast looked refreshed, maybe the hotel bar hadn’t done as well from GroundhopUK as is usually the case! We left East Kilbride heading south down the M74 before striking out east along the beautiful Tweed valley.

We passed through Peebles, right past Peebles Rovers’ ground (isn’t it handy that the Lowland and East of Scotland Leagues share a fixture secretary?) before reaching the small town of Innerleithen. Continue reading →

Irk the Purist

21 Saturday Jun 2014

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Sunday 15th June 2014 ko 11.00

Utveckling Elit Division 2 Västra Götaland

VÄNERSBORGS I.F. 2 (Hellqvist 35 Kriezu 79)

ALINGSÅS I.F. F.F. 2 (Wahlin 27 Rusid 82)

Att 33

Entry FREE

Programme/Teamsheets FREE

Coffee FREE

It had been a distinctly non-standard Saturday evening on the Swedish Hop. The tradition is for the veterans to take organiser Kim Hedwall out for a meal, but he’d rather trumped that idea, by organising a hot buffet at the hotel, a real bargain at £15 a head. In fact the only issue was that there wasn’t a dessert available, so half an hour after the event there was a short queue at the petrol station next door for ice creams, and we sat in the hotel’s veranda exchanging silly stories. You can take the hopper out of England…..

Continue reading →

Wooden Heart

18 Wednesday Jun 2014

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Saturday 14th June 2014 ko 13.00

Division 3 Sydvästra Götaland

VÄSTRA FRÖLUNDA 2 (De Sousa 8 Hermansson 72)

LAHOLMS FK 2 (Sulejmani 83 Morad 85)

Att 95

Entry, & Teamsheet 60sek

Badge- Comp

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

The morning saw the hop party continue to turn heads in the IFK Gothenburg team coach as we went on a sightseeing guide of Gothenburg. Its times like these having a local driver, Ebbe, was invaluable as he negotiated the traffic restrictions and tram lines to the Masthuggskyrkan, or High Hill Church for a truly spectacular view of the city and Göta älv, or Göta river, with the huge container and cruise ships setting sail for distant locations.

From there, we headed into the centre and enjoyed a coffee and cake at Eva’s Paley, a famous Swedish cake shop started by Hungarian émigrés in 1945 and it was the perfect place to watch the Gothenburg tradition of running heritage trams on a Saturday. Continue reading →

Whimper

23 Wednesday Apr 2014

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Saturday 19th April 2014 ko 15.00

Conference North

VAUXHALL MOTORS 2 (Tames 32 Clair 60)

WORKINGTON 1 (May 42)

Att 166

Entry £10

Programme £2

Badge £3.50

It’s a quirk of Rivacre Park that you use a different exit from the M53 to reach it than you do for the car plant. Nominally at least you’re in Ellesmere Port, the Cheshire town lying on the south side of the Manchester Ship Canal from the Wirral. It’s a town built on industry generally, and the efforts of the likes of Thomas Telford and William Jessop specifically. If you’ve not been here, but you own a Vauxhall Astra car, then do drive here, your car will be returning home! Continue reading →