Got me under pressure

15 Wednesday Oct 2014

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Friday 10th October 2014 ko 19.00

Regionaliga Südwest

1FC SAARBRÜCKEN 1 (Döringer 13)

KICKERS OFFENBACH 1 (von den Burg 82)

Att 7,011

Entry (Haupttribune/Main Stand) €22 (€1 =80p)

Programme 50c

The alarm went off, it was 5.45am, and I was in a cheap hotel in Folkestone, its purpose only to get a car-load of hoppers to the Channel Tunnel as quickly as possible. I shuffled into the bathroom, and ran the shower only to watch the head extricate itself from the holster and hit my razor. The razor exploded in a spray of water, and I contemplated a hirsute weekend over a bacon roll and an Americano as the train travelled under the English Channel.

Continue reading →

The Absolutely Blindingly Obvious

15 Wednesday Oct 2014

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Tuesday 7th October 2014 ko 19.00

Northern Premier League Premier Division

BARWELL 2 (Castle 18p Barlone 55)

ILKESTON 1 (Adams 11)

Att 176

Entry £10

Programme £2

The more you delve into the act of watching, “Football wherever it may be,” you soon end up with illogical statistics. Why would I watch more football in Sweden for example than I have in Scotland? But it’s the individual ground visits where the really strange quirks lie. Continue reading →

Trouble with Hutchings

03 Friday Oct 2014

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Tuesday 30th September 2014 ko 19.45

Wessex League Premier Division

MONEYFIELDS 6 (Hutchings 12 20 75 90 Rutherford 16 55)

FAREHAM TOWN 1 (Woods 10)

Att c100

I suppose if you’re not an aficionado of Non-League football the first question is where is the Moneyfields Sports Ground? The name is taken from the avenue where it’s situated, in Copnor on the eastern edge of Portsea Island, in Portsmouth. In fact I could see the floodlights of Fratton Park as I turned into Copnor. Continue reading →

Titanic

01 Wednesday Oct 2014

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Saturday 27th September 2014 ko 15.00

IFA Premiership

GLENTORAN 1 (McAlorum 81)

DUNGANNON SWIFTS 0

Att 782

Entry £10

Programme £3

It’s impossible to visit Glentoran’s Oval Grounds home and not think of shipbuilding. You are in East Belfast and the Harland and Wolff shipyard is visible for miles around, with the towering presence of the giant yellow cranes named “Samson” and “Goliath” as focal points. The planes taking off from the nearby George Best Belfast Airport seem to climb more steeply than normal to avoid them all. Continue reading →

The Grand Union

29 Monday Sep 2014

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Tuesday 23rd September 2014 ko 19.30

Leicestershire Senior League Premier Division

BIRSTALL UNITED 2 (Bibby 53 Shipley 73og)

HOUGHTON RANGERS 0

ATT 32

Entry £3

No Programme (old copy) FREE

There were no lack of options for somewhere new to visit, but with midweek fixtures in the LSL rather sporadic, and the trip up likely to be uneventful it proved to be an easy decision to make, and as it turned out, a rather good one. Continue reading →

I.D.

24 Wednesday Sep 2014

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Saturday 20th September 2014 ko 19.45

North Berkshire League Division Three

BENSON LIONS 1 (Papa 47)

GROVE RANGERS 1 (Reid 59)

Att 172 at Defence Academy of the United Kingdom, Faringdon Road, Shrivenham

Entry & Programme £4

Badge £3

Catering: Beef and Veggie Burritos and Tacos

Beer: Chiltern brewery Flanders Pale Ale, Lord Lieutenants Porter

On the 2013 North Berkshire Hop we paid a highly enjoyable visit to see Benson Lions at their home ground at RAF Benson, report here. The base required an ID check, and we worked hard with Lions’ chairman Jon Radcliffe to ensure the event went smoothly.

In all groundhop games you have to have a good club and good officials to work with and that counts double for a game on an MOD base, and in Jon there’s a man who I could confidently hand the staging over to him in the knowledge it would be done beautifully. So when last year’s hop was over I phoned Jon with a proposal. Continue reading →

Hicks’ Law

24 Wednesday Sep 2014

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Saturday 20th September 2014 ko 16.00

North Berkshire League Division Two

MARCHAM 1 (Armstrong 82)

EAST HENDRED AFC 7 (Moss 18 29p Sutton 26 Hummel 32 Doig 42 Wise 56 Hicks 86)

Att 201

Entry & Programme £4

Badge £3

Catering: Baked Potatoes with various fillings. Cakes

Beer: Loose Cannon

When we put together these hops one of the many things we co-ordinate is catering. On reflection we should have added another item to the menu, on top of the baked potatoes with a myriad of fillings, curry included, and that was celery soup. Why, I hear you ask, well the March in Marcham is derived from the old English word, merece meaning a place where celery grows! Ham means settlement so we visited the village where celery grows! Continue reading →

The Abbey

24 Wednesday Sep 2014

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Saturday 20th September 2014 ko 13.00

North Berkshire League Division One

DORCHESTER 3 (J Nicholls 6 J Fleet 6 Patterson 16)

ARDINGTON & LOCKINGE 0 Fairclough sent off 73 (dangerous play)

Att 204

Entry & Programme £4

Badge £3

Food: Meat or veggie pasta

Beer: Rebellion Brewery

It was only a 4 mile journey from Crowmarsh Gifford to Dorchester-on-Thames, and for some of the trip I followed the reverse of the signs put up by Crowmarsh to guide people in to their game. I’d relaxed a little, we’d just set the second highest ever attendance for the North Berkshire Hop, and the hop’s history shows an event where few go to one game then disappear elsewhere. We’d also seen the event being backed by local people as we’d planned, and I had confidence that Dorchester had taken steps to ensure that too. Continue reading →

Jethro

22 Monday Sep 2014

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Saturday 20th September 2014 ko 10.00

North Berkshire League Division One

CROWMARSH GIFFORD 0

WALLINGFORD TOWN 1 (Searle 54)

Att 215

Entry & Programme £4

Beer; Loddon Brewery

Food: Breakfast baps, pizza

Off the top of my head this was the earliest time we at GroundhopUK have ever asked a club to kick-off, due entirely to getting 4 games on in a day, and giving people enough time to get through security at the MOD base later on.

I rather took to the town where Jethro Tull invented the seed drill when I visited them over a year ago report here, then again when they were the opponents at Long Wittenham in the final game of last year’s hop. Whilst the Recreation Ground isn’t the easiest to find, tucked as is behind a new housing development, there was plenty of space to work with. Continue reading →

Precursor

21 Sunday Sep 2014

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Friday 19th September 2014 ko 19.30

North Berkshire League Division One

ABINGDON TOWN 3 (Barroso 28 Lightfoot 83 Sutton 90og)

SAXTON ROVERS 0

Att 192

Entry & Programme £4

The North Berkshire League has held 3 annual groundhops, but for this year’s event I was handed a couple of dilemnas that weren’t of my own making. Firstly, I’ve spent each of the last 3 years bemoaning the lack of floodlights in the league, so I ought to have been pleased when Abingdon Town dropped into the league. That was due to a landlord charging a rent the club could ill-afford when they’d been flooded for 3 months at a time for each of the last 2 years. The trouble was that the club had been on a Hellenic hop back in the day, which normally would mean that they wouldn’t get another game. However I wanted to help the club and chairman Tom Larman, so we decided to stage the game as a Friday night precursor to the main event. The other problem though, had the potential to be altogether more serious. Continue reading →