Diet Pies

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Sundy 27th October 2024 ko 11:00

Southern Combination Premier Division

PAGHAM 3 (Neighbour 45+2 63p Johnston 55)

LOXWOOD 2 (Brown 66 Martyn 76)

Att 259

Entry £7

Programme £2

GroundhopUK’s trip to Nyetimber Lane was a well over a year in the planning. It was their game that was lost to Storm Babet during last year’s hop, to the extent that it was wasn’t so much waterlogged off, more flooded to the extent that I’m not sure we could have got to the ground, much less see a game!

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The Crows Arms

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Saturday 26th October 2024 ko 17:45

Southern Combination Premier Division

CROWBOROUGH ATHLETIC 2 (Forster 6 18)

HASSOCKS 1 (Funnell 4)

Att 413

Entry £7

Programme £2

I must admit I treated the Saturday evening game on the Sussex Hop with a certain amount of trepidation. It wasn’t that Crowborough might do badly, rather it was me considering the antonym of the maxim “Smaller clubs tend to make more of an effort.”

Please don’t see this as a dig at any one club, more a comment that the vast majority of clubs with a history at Southern, Isthmian or Northern Premier League level can cope with hosting a hop game’s crowd. The catch is by scaling up and no more the club does miss out on additional revenue and the hopper gets to swerve the burgers…. again!

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Limekiln

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Saturday 26th October 2024 ko 14:30

Southern Combination Division Two

JARVIS BROOK 2 (Penfold 18 Adams 38)

Bateman sent off 57 (2nd booking)

SOUTHWATER 2 (Lewis 45+3 Packham 90+3)

Att 257

Entry & Programme £5

From the outskirts of Crawley to to the outskirts of Crowborough felt like travelling from one side of Sussex to the other. It was further than we’d normally like to travel between games on a hop day, and was the case because of the league wanting to reward clubs who’d featured as away clubs in last year’s rather wet event. That’ll happen again in next year’s hop, but will have to be discontinued at some point, we like to limit the driving where we can!

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Thirds

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Saturday 26th October 2024 ko 11:00

Southern Combination Division One

OAKWOOD 1 (Morris 59)

ALFOLD 2 (Heath 84 Agbontean 89)

Att 187 (ground record)

Entry £7

Programme £2

God knows it can’t be easy being Oakwood. Being the second club in any town is difficult but try being the third club in Crawley with Crawley Town and Three Bridges in front of you in the pecking order. For the Saturday of the Sussex Hop Craig and I acted as an advance party, getting to each ground before the coach and helping out where where needed.

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Grotto

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Friday 25th October 2024 ko 19:30

Southern Combination Premier Division

ROFFEY 3 (Chedzey 20 Kyle 40 J Pearse 52)

AFC VARNDEANIANS 1 (Bukleb 19p)

Att 307

Entry £8

Programme £2

On reflection there aren’t many worse places to be jaded at than in the middle of a traffic jam on the M25 on a Friday night. I knew why I was; we’d come off the back of a Kent Hop 3 weeks earlier that had seen catering that with the exception of Sutton Athletic had failed to inspire. I’d spent most of that weekend metaphorically swerving burgers! Then there was the Sussex Hop to consider; I’d worried that at GroundhopUK we were promoting two hops in October at both a similar level, and part of the UK.

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Good Tucker

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Wednesday 16th October 2024 ko 19:45

Wiltshire League Premier Division

FARINGDON TOWN 0

SHRIVENHAM FC 1 (J Hirst 15)

Harrison sent off 90+1 (serious foul play)

Att c250

Free Entry

Programme by donation to the Jack Badger fundraiser

Football does ebb and flow in all its guises, and perhaps more than most in Faringdon’s corner of West Oxfordshire. Some may know the club as the hosts of the annual Faringdon Memorial Thursday Cup others may remember their hosting of a game on the 2012 North Berkshire Groundhop. I certainly got to know the club well in the preamble to that event! Hop or no hop though, I was always going to be at Faringdon’s first game under lights.

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The Fugitives

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Saturday 12th October 2024 ko 14:00

Gwent Premier League, Premier Division

ROGERSTONE AFC 4 (Smith 30 56 Porter 59 Goodfellow 82p)

LUCAS CWMBRAN 0

Att 102 at Newport Fugitives Athletic Club

Entry & Programe £3

On occasion I’ve opined that I don’t pick my games they pick me; this was a classic example. After the glut of games that was the Kent Hop all I knew was that the last thing I wanted to watch was something English and at Steps 5 or 6. So when Rogerstone tweeted that they were opening their new ground, my mind was charmingly made up for me!

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Hextable

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Sunday 6th October 2024 ko 14:30

Southern Counties East League-Premier Division

SUTTON ATHLETIC 2 (Ahmed 89 Fisher 90+2)

TUNBRIDGE WELLS 0

Att 284

Entry £10

Programme £2

For those in the know, Sutton Athletic don’t actually play in Sutton at Hone, but rather at nearby Hextable, but even that isn’t completely accurate. Lower Road is a short distance east of the village, itself a few miles north of Swanley, and within hearing of Brands Hatch motor racing circuit. The club moved from the Roaches Recreation Ground in 2011 in order to find a ground they could develop.

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Another Dawn

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Sunday 6th October 2024 ko 11:00

Southern Counties East League Premier Division

CORINTHIAN 2 (Arnold 10 Fitzgerald 13)

ERITH & BELVEDERE 1 (Melconian 80)

Att 247

Entry £9

Programme £2

I’d long since changed my way of thinking once it became clear that in my terms the SCEFL Hop was going to be, in my terms, six revisits. Other than a social event, there was the idea of how 200 or so hoppers might react to each of the host clubs. However I knew everyone would love Corinthian…

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Crayford

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Saturday 5th October 2024 ko 19:00

Southern Counties East League Premier Division

V.C.D. ATHLETIC 2 (Freeman 45+5, 56)

Gboda sent off 39 (serious foul play)

LARKFIELD & NEW HYTHE 1 (Alaka 73)

Ibbertson sent off 29 (DOGSO)

Gordon sent off 90+4 (serious foul play)

Att 382

Entry £10

Programme £3

Over the years Vickers Crayford Dartford has been good to me. I’d first seen them play around 25 years ago when they were groundsharing at a dilapidated Harrow Meadow, the Eltham-based home of the now defunct Greenwich Borough. Borough and Harrow Meadow was where Ian Wright first played his football, the club giving him a chance when others wouldn’t.

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