Carville

21 Wednesday Aug 2024

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Saturday 20th July 2024 ko 14:00

Pre-season friendly

SPARTANS YOUTH 1 (Ralph 90)

WEALDSTONE U23 1 (86)

Att 31 at Carville Hall Park North , Lionel Road North, Brentford.

Free Entry

Where do I start with this one? Probably with the most obvious, we were taking advantage of a club that normally groundshares playing a rare game at home. Spartans Youth are starting their third season in the first division of the Combined Counties League, but have groundshared at Northwood, and this season at Bedfont FC, a little nearer to the planes flying into Heathrow!

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Pretty Flamingo

19 Monday Aug 2024

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Saturday 13th July 2024 ko 15:00

Heritage Cup

CRAY WANDERERS 0

SHEFFIELD FC 4 (A Smith 45 Watson 54 62 Aldrich 58)

Att 466 at Flamingo Park, Sidcup

Entry £10

Programme £2

I know why I’d been attracted to this one, and it wasn’t the quasi-competive fixture. Without ever trying since returning from Sweden I’d watched my football at a steady succession of 3G cages and I was getting heartily bored of them. I chose to ignore Flamingo Park having a 3G pitch…

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The Other

14 Wednesday Aug 2024

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Tuesday 9th July 2024 ko 19:30

Pre-season Friendly

THAME UNITED 1 (79)

RISBOROUGH RANGERS 1 (43)

Att 54 at 3G Pitch, Meadow View Park

Free Entry

A few days after this game I received a message from another groundhopper in regard to Thame United’s friendlies. He wanted to know whether they would be played on the main stadium pitch, or like this one on the floodlit 3G next door?

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Holloway

12 Monday Aug 2024

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Saturday 6th July 2024 ko 12:00

Pre-season friendly

ASCOT UNITED 2 (15, 34)

FLEET TOWN 3 (9, 21, 84)

Att c30 at 3G pitch, Royal Holloway College Sports Centre, Egham

Free Entry

I must admit, pre-season friendlies for me are little more than an excuse to get back on the road after the close season. With that in mind I try to make a virtue of them, such as seeking out games where the club plays at home when normally groundsharing or in this case playing at a completely 3rd party ground!

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Intriguing

09 Friday Aug 2024

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Saturday 29th June 2024 ko 14:00

Pre-season friendly

BISHOPS CANNINGS 3 (Rascek 20 37, 77og)

WROUGHTON 7 (Peachey-Score 12secs 32 45, Herbert 4 36, Barbeto 62, Whitham 71)

Att c25 at Wiltshire FA Ground, Green Lane, Devizes

Free Entry

What I love about my footballing life is that its hard to pigeonhole. Take the end of the season, I was variously at Wembley Stadium, a small town in Sweden and an FA Ground that hitherto I didn’t know existed!

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The Icon

05 Monday Aug 2024

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Sunday 16th June 2024 ko 15:00

Damallsvenskan

DJURGÅRDENS I.F. 1 (Åsland 58p)

KRISTIANSTAD DFF 2 (Alanen 40 Eiriksdottir 45)

Eiriksdottir missed penalty 84

Att 522 at Stockholms Stadion

Entry 150 sek (c£11.07)

The Swedish Hop’s cost of £320 included bed and breakfast for two nights, all transport in Sweden, together with entry fees for all games, and a goodie bag!

When Kim and I put this hop together he quickly made the decision to use the 1912 Olympic Stadium as the anchor point for the event. He and I took the view that we could put virtually any other grounds on the hop just so long as we could take in a game here. And we so nearly had it all taken away from us…

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The Third

01 Thursday Aug 2024

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Sunday 16th June 2024 ko 10:30

Stockholm P2008- 1A

VASALUND IF III 1 (Almqvist 71)

AIK SOLNA FK I 7 (Hammarin 21 76 Lööw 30 40 50 Henareh 42 84)

Att 29 at Skytteholms IP Plan B

Free Entry

The Swedish Hop’s cost of £320 included bed and breakfast for two nights, all transport in Sweden, together with entry fees for all games, and a goodie bag!

If one football ground could encompass what the Swedish Hop is all about you could say it’s Skytteholms. It’s in Solna close to where organiser Kim Hedwall lives in Stockholm’s northern suburbs. We visited the main pitch on the very first hop in 2007, then again in 2013, and on both occasions the facility was overshadowed by the Råsunda Stadium, where non-Brazilian fans first glimpsed Pele in the 1958 World Cup and AIK played their home games.

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The Squirrel

30 Tuesday Jul 2024

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Saturday 15th June 2024 ko 16:00

Division 2 Norra Svealand

FoC FARSTA 0

IK FRANKE 4 (Jacinto 48 Abshir 83 Siljander 84 Rylander 90+1)

Jacinto penalty saved 54

Att 127 & a red squirrel at Farsta IP

Entry 100sek (roughly £7.47)

The Swedish Hop’s cost of £320 included bed and breakfast for two nights, all transport in Sweden, together with entry fees for all games, and a goodie bag!

We’d left Boovallen in a hurry and with a little regret. The plan had been to head to nearby Saltsjöbaden IF for the final game of the day, the two fixtures had tessellated beautifully but as we’d all checked in to our flights the fixture got moved. Even the club couldn’t believe what had happened when Kim phoned them! So, Kim reset our compasses to the Stockholm’s southern suburbs to Farsta. We made kick-off easily enough but even then there was further regret.

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The Boo Bear

25 Thursday Jul 2024

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Saturday 15th June 2024 ko 13:15

Division 3 Södra Svealand

BOO FF 5 (Hellström 31 Tsilicheistos 45+4 Medew 53 58 Nilsson 69)

FC BRANDBERGEN 3 (Katourgi 9 24 36)

Att 79 at Boovallen

Free Entry

The Swedish Hop’s cost of £320 included bed and breakfast for two nights, all transport in Sweden, together with entry fees for all games, and a goodie bag!

From our close-to unplanned trip to northern Stockholm we picked our way back through the capital’s tunnels towards Kim Hedwall’s planned base for the hop, Nacka and Saltsjöbaden- we even passed within sight of our hotel in Hammarby Sjöstad along the way. You could see Kim’s motivation, the area is idyllic, so he knew he’d be showing off his country in the best possible light.

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The Deer

22 Monday Jul 2024

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Saturday 15th June 2024 ko 10:00

Stockholm Youth League P2007A

SOLLENTUNA FK NORD 1 (Sheko 89)

URSVIK IK 14 (Mermer 6 Adam 10 Mohamed 10 30 64 Sörenson 37 59 76 83 Altgenug 53 66 Sjöman 75 79 84)

Att 30, 2 dogs and a deer at Edsbergs Sportfält 3, Sollentuna

Free Entry

The Swedish Hop’s cost of £320 included bed and breakfast for two nights, all transport in Sweden, together with entry fees for all games, and a goodie bag!

In the long history of the Swedish Hop the Saturday and Sunday morning games tended to be in the lowest tiers, normally divisions 6 and 7. With us never being able to attract the levels of groundhoppers that would allow us to get local associations to move kick-off times, we’ve always taken in what games we can, whenever we can.

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