The 100 Club

18 Tuesday Mar 2014

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Monday 17th March 2014 ko 19.45

Isthmian League Division One North

BARKINGSIDE 3 (C Liddiard 5 Carwell 32 Rolls 45)

ERITH & BELVEDERE 0

Att 92

Entry £8

Programme £1.50 (reissue from postponed game)

Badge £1.50

Tea 80p

Supporters Handbook £1

In the beginning, well 1957, the underground trains at Barkingside rattled along the Central Line destined for Central London, but if you fancied something more exotic you could travel the other way and visit Hainault and from there change. That got you to Woodford, and exciting-sounding destinations were within your grasp such as Theydon Bois and Epping. There was even a further branch north-east of that where treats such as North Weald, Blake Hall and Chipping Ongar could be explored.

But just beyond the northbound platform, a football ground was being built. Barkingside took a long lease from the local council to give them a suitable home and slowly Oakside Park was put together. Very much from the Heath Robinson School of Architecture it was practical, but homely. The club built themselves up on the field too, moving through the leagues until a second place finish in last season’s Essex Senior League saw them play Isthmian League football for the first time this season. Continue reading →

The Bartender & The Thief

16 Sunday Mar 2014

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Saturday 15th March 2014 ko 14.30

Welsh League Division Three

CWMAMMAN UNITED 5 (M Hughes 16 Spring 39 Bonomi 58 66 L Hughes 69)

CWMAMAN INSTITUTE 0

Att 23

Entry FREE

Programme Comp

As a child growing up in Oxford, my parents had a liking for holidays in West Wales so I got well used to getting to the end of the M4 at Pont Abraham and the 10-year-old me always felt that this was where my holiday began. And decades later, when I reached that road’s end, almost in a random place- why wasn’t it built all the way to Carmarthen, I felt exactly the same way. Continue reading →

Fogbound

16 Sunday Mar 2014

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Thursday 13th March 2014 ko 19.45

Somerset Premier Cup

ODD DOWN (BATH) P

PAULTON TOVERS P

Postponed due to fog (!)

Not much needs to be said about this other than that I arrived just as the referee made the correct decision to call off the tie.

I had a look round and took a few shots, and I quite like the results. It’ll be interesting to compare these with the ones I’ll take when I return!

And that is the sole reason for publishing this. Normal service will soon be resumed!!

Continue reading →

Whatever happened to Goronwy Jones?

16 Sunday Mar 2014

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Sunday 9th March 2014 ko 13.00

Ceredigion League Division Two

FFOSTRASOL WANDERERS 2 (A Bowen 57 C Griffiths 88)

DEWI STARS 2 (Andrew Jones 45 Owens 90)

Att 166

Entry £3

Programme £1

Badge £3

It seemed such a long time ago when Keith drove the coach past Troedyrhiw (Troy-dur-roo) Park on the way back from New Quay and the entire coach turned to their left and gawped at the beautiful ground in rural West Wales. It’s fair to say it helped push us into towards making the Ceredigion League a regular fixture.

The main stand (and you don’t get to say that very often in this league) is a classic piece of influence. Ffostrasol played at Builth Wells and liked their stand, so in 1978 built their own version. It’s a vision of lichen covered concrete, corrugated iron, and plank seating and there wasn’t a single one of the 166 present that didn’t immediately fall in love with it! Perhaps its the process of nature gradually claiming everything back to itself that appeals. Continue reading →

Plan C

14 Friday Mar 2014

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Sunday 9th March 2014 ko 10.15

Ceredigion League Division One

BARGOD RANGERS 3 (Skinner 2 35 D Evans 76)

MAESGLAS 3 (J James 15 38 Irvine 29)

Att 238

Entry £3

Programme £1

Badge £3

Tea & A Welsh Cake £1

Hat £3

So picture the scene, I’m sat in my office at work and I’ve got Twitter on in the background. All of a sudden the following tweet pops up….

Llanybydder

….and our Sunday morning game goes out of the window just under 3 weeks before the event. I knew Chris Berezai was at a business meeting in the north, so I spent a frantic few minutes looking at the Ceredigion website (and I’m thankful its detailed and up to date). It became clear that unless we were either going to run the hop a game short, or rejig all the other fixtures there was only one game open to us, Bargod vs Maesglas. We’d already postponed our visit to Saron as they’d played every 1st XI in their league, many hoppers won’t watch games involving reserves, and the only 1st XI Bargod had to meet was Maesglas. Continue reading →

Menu

12 Wednesday Mar 2014

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Saturday 8th March 2013 k0 16.00

Ceredigion League Division Two

CILGERRAN ROVERS 1 (K Phillips 66)

LLANON 0

Att 226

Entry £3

Programme £1

Badge £3

Beer £2.75

Cheese £4

Hat £5

Food – All of it!

I have a mate Graeme who has an unusual hobby, he collects Chinese takeaway menus. Other than that and the groundhopping he’s quite a well-adjusted chap he’s a schoolteacher, but if you’re in a car and you pass the takeaway, your journey will be paused for him to dash out and collect another one for his collection. Being a groundhopper helps his cause and other hoppers collect for him, so he’s got menus from places such as Hungary, the USA and Malta but I think the centrepiece of his collection ought to be a British takeaway menu from China! Continue reading →

Slovak the Pole

12 Wednesday Mar 2014

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Saturday 8th March 2014 ko 13.15

Ceredigion League Division One

CARDIGAN TOWN 6 (B Davies 19 28 J Thomas 52 D Nash 74 86 K Morgan 80)

NEW QUAY 0

Att 224

Entry £3

Programme £1

Badge £3

Beer £2.20

Lamb Cawl £2.20

As the coach pulled into Ceredigion’s county town I was more than pleased to see the rugby club there on our right with the football pitch next door. The previous year we’d tried to negotiate Cardigan’s one-way system en route to Maesglas and its fair to day we’d seen a little more of the town than we’d planned! Continue reading →

Expectations

11 Tuesday Mar 2014

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Saturday 8th March 2014 ko 10.30

Ceredigion League Division One

ABERPORTH 3 (Griffiths 67 Glover 84og Smith 97)

CRANNOG 2 (R Roberts 11 S Jones 28)

Att 166

Entry £3

Programme £1

Badge £1

Each time our coach crosses the border from Carmarthenshire to Ceredigion I get the feeling that something interesting is going to happen. Perhaps that’s just the anticipation of another game at another new ground, but on this particular Saturday my sense of expectancy was heightened. In this part of West Wales things happen differently, you are in Welsh Wales after all, and the pace of life is more relaxed. Understanding that culture is important and that helped us to help 5 clubs put on what was a hop that showcased themselves and their beautiful part of the world. I loved it, and I hope all those who attended did too. Continue reading →

Resurrection

10 Monday Mar 2014

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Friday 7th March 2014 ko 19.45

Welsh League Division Three

LLANELLI TOWN 3 (J Evans 22 Samuel 37 John 73p)

CWMAMAN INSTITUTE 1 (Jenkins 52)

Att 257

Entry £3

Programme £2

GroundhopUK special hospitality ticket (entry, programme, buffet, presentation) £10

Badge £3

From an overnight stop in Bridgend it didn’t take long to reach our base for the Welsh Spring Hop, the Ivy Bush Hotel in Carmarthen. We’d organised the five clubs’ programmes to be delivered to journalist Chris Harte who lives locally, and it was a pleasure to catch up with him in his library before returning to the hotel to make up 116 programme packs before heading off to Caerphilly and Castell Coaches to meet the coach and our new driver Carl. We had a pick-up near Cardiff station before heading west to the end of the M4 and then off to Llanelli at Stebonheath Park. Continue reading →

The Non Hop Hop Game

10 Monday Mar 2014

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Thursday 6th March 2014 ko 19.00

Welsh League Division Two

CARDIFF METROPOLITAN UNIVERSITY 3 (Clapton 48p Hickman 71 Roscrow 88)

DINAS POWYS 0

Att 78

Entry £2

Programme £1

It has long occurred to me that both the feeder leagues to the Welsh Premier League have names that give no impression as to their purpose. In the north and mid-Wales there’s the Cymru Alliance and below that the Welsh Alliance, which is the same title, just in a different language. Parallel to the Welsh Alliance in the north is the even more confusingly titled Welsh National League with its fig-leaf suffix, (Wrexham area). In the south its the 3 divisions of the Welsh league; so there must be scope to tidy up the nomenclature!

Continue reading →