Cool

07 Thursday Aug 2014

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Saturday 2nd August 2014 ko 13.45

Peterborough & District League Premier Division

RIVERSIDE 3 (Dello Russo 4 Lancaster 40 Donohoe 90p)

UPPINGHAM TOWN 1 (Binley 62)

Att 257

Entry £5

Programme £1

Badge £3

 

I was a little nervous as the coach left Leading Drove, for the mile-or-so journey to Daimler Avenue also in Yaxley. Its not as though GroundhopUk hadn’t organised games at lower levels of the game, will we ever visit a club of lower status than say Uffington United? It wasn’t as if the people at Riverside weren’t obviously up for the challenge, I’d enjoyed their company and admired their ideas at the club meetings, but I was very aware that we were at least in part taking some people out of their comfort zones.

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Cuckoo

05 Tuesday Aug 2014

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Saturday 2nd August 2014 ko 11.00

United Counties League Premier Division

YAXLEY 3 (Coleman 31 Cotton 43p 76)

LONG BUCKBY 1 (Hailstone 90og)

Att 206

Entry £6

Programme £1

Badge £3

The coach, expertly coaxed by Rick at the wheel made the tight left turn into Leading Drove, and down the narrow drive to the football ground on the left. There’s a pitch to the right, used by Stilton FC, and since they play in the Peterborough & District League the original idea was to have a game there straight after this one, but they turned us at GroundhopUK down for reasons unknown, and with league official Daniel Leggett being an expert on the geography of the PDFL, he approached Riverside in their place, but that is another article!

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In the Deep end

05 Tuesday Aug 2014

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Friday 1st August 2014 ko 19.45

United Counties League Premier Division

DEEPING RANGERS 3 (Lewis 38 Oliver 78 Flack 85) Lewis sent off 43 (dangerous play)

HARBOROUGH TOWN 0

Att 307

Entry £6

Programme £1

Badge £3

So back on GroundhopUK duty and the fruition of something that started with a tweet from league official Daniel Leggett to Notts hop organiser Rob Hornby. That found me visiting Peterborough Sports to meet Daniel, only to find most of the committee there wanting a chat, and things moved fairly quickly from there. The next move was a first for us, involving a new league, the Peterborough & District League, a feeder to the UCL. We’d visited other league’s clubs where geographically convenient, Penybont and Radnor Valley for example on the Mid-Wales hops but a dual hop would be something new for us to plan. Continue reading →

Bridge over the River Wye

04 Monday Aug 2014

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Wednesday 30th July 2014 ko 18.30

West Dean Charity League Intermediate Section

TIDENHAM 3 (Shipp 11 Jacobs Jennings 90) Murphy missed penalty 8

MUSHET & COALWAY 3 (Howard 2 Hawson 33p Bick 39)

Att 21

Entry FREE

No Programme

So more West Dean League action, except this time I found myself at a southern outpost for the North Gloucestershire League. The Tidenham War Memorial Hall, is found in Tutshill, around a mile from the bridge over the Wye into Chepstow and Wales. The name “Tut” refers to the watchtower that use to guard against Welsh incursions in medieval times, but its best know now for being the birthplace of “Harry Potter” author JK Rowling. Continue reading →

The World Cup of Wye

31 Thursday Jul 2014

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Tuesday 29th July 2014 ko 18.30

West Dean Charity League Intermediate Section

REDBROOK ROVERS 4 (14 37 55 66)

HUNTLEY 4 (1 42 59 77)

Att 19

Entry FREE

Programme No

Each pre-season the clubs in the Forest of Dean in membership of the North Gloucestershire League have a cup competition instead of playing friendlies. Its separated into 3 sections, Senior, Intermediate, and Junior, on a divisional status. Its organised rather like the World Cup with a group stage followed by a knock-out phase, and I’m indebted to Gloucestershire non-league expert Tim Burgin fir supplying me with the details. Continue reading →

Rivetting

31 Thursday Jul 2014

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Saturday 26th July 2014 ko 14.00

Pre-Season Friendly

RIVETS 7 (Lane 1 Ithier 9 Tomlinson 20 82 Carter 45 Webb 45p Chiarello 67)

WING 0

Att 7

Entry FREE

Programme- They’d sold out; what do you think?

Every so often I like to go completely back-to-basics, and watch a game on a park pitch, stripping the game back to the only essentials, 22 people, two goals and a ball. This game certainly did that and satisfied the OCD part of me that simply has to see a game at somewhere I’ve passed by regularly. Continue reading →

The Bigger Picture

27 Sunday Jul 2014

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Thursday 24th July 2014 ko 19.30

Pre-Season Friendly

ABINGDON TOWN 1 (Lightwood 75)

OXFORD UNITED XI 10 (O’Dowda 16 Long 27 52 56 Roberts 32 45 Bevans 35 Culley 64 Hawtin 87)

Att c350

Entry & Programme £5

So Oxford United’s development squad ran up 10 goals against a North Berkshire League outfit, and genuinely that isn’t the story at all. In Oxfordshire few clubs have fallen as rapidly and as far as Town in recent years. I remember seeing Town playing in the Isthmian League Division One (then just 2 promotions from the Football League) but now find themselves, in theory, seven promotions from their guests’ status. But where did it all go wrong?

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What we did on our holidays

27 Sunday Jul 2014

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Wednesday 23rd July 2014 ko

Pre-Season Friendly

AEK-BOCO 2 (Kitson 41 72)

CADBURY HEATH 2 (Tongue 10 Huxley 44)

Att 78

Entry FREE

No Programme

My appearance at this was purely based to London-based Mark Wilkins. We were watching Coventry United the previous day, and I asked Mark where he was going the next day. He replied, and once I’d established they were a team from Hanham in Bristol, and not a Nigerian Islamic terrorist group I decided to join him. Continue reading →

Just Wanna Play

27 Sunday Jul 2014

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Tuesday 22nd July 2014 ko 18.45

Pre-Season Friendly

COVENTRY UNITED 1 (Stokes 52) Nduna missed penalty 43

BRINKLOW 3 (Cawley 13 90 Nelson 67p)

Att 47 at Keresley RUFC, John E Radford Fields, Burrow Hill Lane, Corley

Entry FREE

No Programme

This was one of those grounds you can’t visit for football during the normal season, but with the pitch at Allard Way being reseeded, the club moved this fixture to Keresley, a village right on the northern edge of the Coventry conurbation. Its a rural location, even the undulating pitch showed signs of its former use as strip-farmed agriculture.  As it so often the case with a rugby union ground, the facilities are mostly in the clubhouse, there was no rope, rail, or stand, but to be fair to the egg-chasers, this was the furthest pitch from the clubhouse. And on a warm evening, what facilities did you need anyway? Continue reading →

Fly Past

20 Sunday Jul 2014

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Saturday 19th July 2014 ko 15.00

Pre-Season Friendly

GUILDFORD CITY 1 (Baker 27) Spencer missed penalty 70

LINGFIELD 2 (O’Hara 41 Abraham 80)

Att c20 at the Mytchett Centre

Entry FREE

Programme – Don’t be daft

I’m not sure why City opted to play this away from the Spectrum Centre, perhaps athletics takes precedence in July. Either way it offered up the chance to watch a game at a location not normally used for Saturday football to my knowledge. Mytchett is near Farnborough, it’s where Rudolph Hess was imprisoned in Camp Z in 1941. The camp had been specially set up for his arrival with heavy security and bugging devices, and he stayed there for 13 months.

This would have been a completely run-of-the-mill pre-season friendly but for one detail, and that became obvious when nearing the ground I espied something in my rear-view mirror. Continue reading →