Category Archives: W

Bolero

16 Wednesday Apr 2014

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Saturday 12th April 2014 k0 10.10

Notts Senior League Senior Division

WOLLATON 3 (Alls 24 46 Atkins 46)

BEESTON 0

Att 282

Entry £3

Programme £1

Badge £3

Tea 50p

I think the weather was playing tricks on us; it was one of days when you opened the curtains and saw a sunny day but stepped outside into the cold, with a cross-wind to boot! It wasn’t far to Wollaton, a district of Nottingham built around coal mining, but showing not a hint of its past. In fact the site of the pit is now two streets of houses named after the area’s most famous offspring, Olympic Ice Dance Champions Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean. Wollaton Hall nearby was used to film the last “Batman” film, “The Dark Night Rises,” the manor’s frontage acting as Bruce Wayne’s Stately Wayne Manor. Of course “Batman” is set in Gotham City, named after Gotham which is, yes, a district in Nottingham!

Groundhop organiser Rob Hornby had warned there wasn’t much parking at the Sports Association Ground so we got there early and found plenty of street parking. Of course as aficionados of the organised groundhops will testify, the first game of the day always has bacon rolls on sale! Continue reading →

Filtered Football

13 Sunday Apr 2014

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Saturday 5th April 2014 ko 18.30

Hessenliga

SV WIESBADEN 1899 0 Pajic sent off 85 (dangerous play)

SV VIKTORIA GRIESHEIM 1 (Starck 27)

Att 290

Entry €7 (all areas)

Programme FREE

Imagine, dear reader you were to settle in the capital of the German state of Hesse. Perhaps you’d be connected to the US military, there are many bases around here, Elvis himself visited here many times during his National Service. You’d be attracted no doubt by the spas, there are still 14 springs flowing today, and the wide boulevards. It is a thoroughly pleasant city, although an essential stop should be the Jewish Memorial on the site of the former Synagogue destroyed in the Kristallnacht pogrom on 10th November 1938. But given that you’re reading this you’ll want to watch some football, and you will have a dilemma.

Continue reading →

Farewell, the bonnie banks of Ayr!

23 Sunday Feb 2014

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Saturday 22nd February 2014 ko 14.15

Scottish Junior FA Cup 5th Round

WHITLETTS VICTORIA 4 (Holland 56 Allan 59 Balfour 69 72)

YOKER ATHLETIC 1 (Frew 42)

Att 367

Entry £5

Programme (Chinese takeaway style) 30p

Badge Comp

Tea £1

As a hopper when you can’t find anything that takes your fancy, a good option is work on the lengthy list of Scottish Junior grounds that may not be in use for much longer. I like many others had loved Benburb’s soon-to-be lost Tinto Park, and as I drove north up the M6 yet another time, I wondered if my day could be as special as a fortnight ago. I surprised myself by having as good a time as then, if not better. Continue reading →

UFO

16 Thursday Jan 2014

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Tuesday 14th January 2014 ko 19.45

Cambridgeshire Invitation Cup Quarter-Final

WISBECH TOWN 1 (White 45)

CAMBRIDGE REGIONAL COLLEGE 2 (Hogan 28 Hurst 87)

Att 101

Entry £5

Programme FREE

Sausage & Chips £1.50

Tea £1

It’s odd how everything changes at Peterborough. The lands flatten and for the most part the roads become single carriageway. You’re now in East Anglia, this is arable country, and a lot of it reclaimed land at that. Continue reading →

The Letter G

05 Sunday Jan 2014

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Saturday 4th January 2013 ko 15.00

North-West Counties League Division One

WIDNES VIKINGS 3 (Tollitt 49 McEvatt 85 87)

IRLAM 1 (Mooney 11)

Att 71

Entry £5

Programme £1.50

When the rain is this bad it’s no bad thing to have a guarantee that the game will be on! That said, it was notable that as soon as I reached Stoke, the rain stopped and the North-West Counties League was one of very few leagues that saw the majority of its scheduled games take place. However the fact that Halton Stadium has a 3G artificial pitch took the worry out of travelling. In any case I do have a soft spot for the NWCL, not least after Atherton Colleries helped us at GroundhopUK by coping with over 100 hoppers at short notice when we had a postponement on a hop we were organising. Continue reading →

Man on the edge

13 Friday Dec 2013

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Wednesday 11th December 2013 ko 19.45

Isthmian League Division One North

WALTHAM FOREST 0 Menga sent off (2nd booking) 65

NEEDHAM MARKET 4 (Townrow 35 Crisp 81 Izzet 83 Mills 90)

Att 55

Entry £8

Programme £2

Team Sheet FREE

I used to live in North-East London, although I seldom headed to this part of the world, just a short-lived job checking bus tickets for an LRT survey on a route from Walthamstow Central to Ilford Bus Station. The job required catching specific buses at specific times which meant a lot of waiting around. In fact I managed to get thrown out of McDonalds for taking just that little bit too long over a cup of coffee!

The area is notable for being the birthplace of William Morris one of the founders of the British Arts and Crafts Movement. Other notable people born in the borough include David Beckham, actor Derek Jacobi, former England cricket captain Graham Gooch, and film director Alfred Hitchcock. The heavy metal band Iron Maiden was formed in Leyton. Continue reading →

Step Right Up & Say

28 Monday Oct 2013

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Saturday 26th October 2013 ko 13.15

Northern League Division Two

WEST ALLOTMENT CELTIC 0

NORTH SHIELDS 0

Att 429

Entry £5

Programme £1

Badge £2.50

Teamsheet 10p

The journey from Heaton to West Allotment was the longest of the hop, a full 1.3 miles by road, and considerably shorter by foot, and it was amusing to see the stream of hoppers with their printed-out maps cutting through the parks and alleyways between the grounds.

Those short distances had given hop organiser Harvey Harris a dilemma. Transport between the games is a staple of the serious organised hop, but since it was possible to walk the entire hop there was a case for not bothering. But since some folk either don’t want to walk, or are less fleet of foot, Harvey came up with an ingenious solution. Continue reading →

The Colour of Magic

20 Sunday Oct 2013

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Saturday 19th October 2013 ko 15.00

Western League Division One

WINCANTON TOWN 5 (O’Hare 2 35 Gale 12 90 Davis 89)

DEVIZES TOWN 0

Att 51

Entry £5

Programme £1

To the groundhopper the A303 is something of a mixed blessing. The arterial road has no end of interesting sites to visit, and a multiplicity of quirky football grounds to be discovered. If you haven’t been to these two, Amesbury http://wp.me/p1PehW-pz and Gillingham http://wp.me/p1PehW-fh are highly recommended. The downside of the road is the congested traffic particularly around Stonehenge, it’s always a good idea to factor in an extra 30 minutes for your journey.

Wincanton is a small market town which is just about in Somerset. In fact to give you an idea of how close to the border with Dorset you are, the football club played for much of its history in the Somerset Senior League before transferring to the Dorset Senior League then being promoted to the Dorset Premier League. Last season they finished runners-up and gained promotion to the Western League for the first time in their history.

Of course in sporting terms the town is far more famous for Continue reading →

Reunion

06 Friday Sep 2013

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Friday 30th August 2013 ko 19.45

FA Cup Preliminary Round

WANTAGE TOWN 2 (Claydon 60 86)

DIDCOT TOWN 3 (Webb 3og Ferriera 37 Haysham 70)

Att 321

Entry £6

Programme £1 (poor, far too many adverts)

After the excesses of the weekend, I’d felt rather footballed-out. There were no lack of options on Tuesday and Wednesday, but save for a little writing the urge to jump in the car had been absent. But on Friday, a nice local game beckoned, and an FA Cup game too. It was time to get back in the swing of things, and on arrival I wasn’t the only one to have thought along the same lines. There were a good 20 hoppers, many of whom had been touring around North Wales with Chris and I. There was North Berkshire League representation too, with fixtures secretary Charlie East, and Treasurer Mike Panting casting an interested local eye on the proceedings.

However the reunion had a far more significant member, Continue reading →

The Double Cube

15 Thursday Aug 2013

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Wednesday 14th August 2013 ko 18.30

Hampshire Premier League Senior Division

WINCHESTER CASTLE 2 (L Nancholas 64 Anscombe 78)

OVERTON UNITED 4 (Houseman 24 31 Rudge 51 58)

Att 15

Entry FREE

No Programme

Tea FREE

Chocolate 50p

I do like these early season early kick-offs, a quick exit after work, and back home afterwards at a sensible hour. That of course is in complete contrast of course to what will follow until the clocks go forward next year!

It’s worth noting that Winchester Castle don’t play in Winchester, the Hampshire County Council Sports Ground is in fact in Chilcomb. Even that’s an approximation, the ground lies off the A31 and if you’ve visited Alresford chances are you’ve passed this place, although its easy enough to miss the entrance, I nearly did!

The view from the ground is spectacular Continue reading →