Cooperation

23 Monday Sep 2013

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Saturday 21st September 2013 ko 11am

North Berkshire League Division Three

BENSON LIONS 1 (Keightly 83)

WESTMINSTER 4 (McMahon 17 59 Bourton 30 69)

Att 153

Entry & Programme £4

Badge £3

Bottle of Real Ale £2.50

Full English RAF breakfast including tea £5

The North Berkshire League Groundhop is very much my baby, so much so it’s the only time that at GroundhopUK Chris Berezai and I swap places, with me leading, and him acting as deputy. It makes sense, when I live a mere 10 miles from Steventon, the village that provides the centre-point of the league. Continue reading →

Shine On

20 Friday Sep 2013

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Wednesday 18th September 2013 ko 19.45

Central Midlands League South Division

SOUTH NORMANTON ATHLETIC 2 (Mottershead 35 Fretwell 62)

HUCKNALL TOWN 0

Att 82

Entry £3

Programme £1

Lees Lane is one of those grounds that circumstances have led me to fail to visit. I like many others visited much of the CMFL during the years of their organised groundhops, but I found myself watching Newry City during their groundhop game. That was something that needed rectifying, I’d heard good things about the club and the ground. Continue reading →

Beautiful Deception

19 Thursday Sep 2013

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Sunday 15th September 2013

Matlock Bath and The Heights of Abraham

Stood in the Derwent Valley you are aware of so many different sights and sounds. There’s the tree-lined sides, the shops, the bed and breakfasts, even the grumble of a motorbike’s exhaust. In many respects its a seaside resort a good 80 miles from the coast, but take a cable-car trip up and over the gorge and the secrets are revealed. Continue reading →

Essence of England

16 Monday Sep 2013

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Saturday 14th September 2013 20.00

Matlock Bath Parade of Illuminated and Decorated Boats

Entry £5

When I was asked to photograph Rowsley versus Newhall, it gave me a excuse to stay on and photograph a wonderful English tradition.

Matlock Bath lies just over a mile south of Matlock, in Derbyshire. It’s a spa town, sitting snugly in the Derwent valley, and Princess Victoria of Kent’s visit in 1832 made the village the place to visit for those attached to the social scene. The likes of Ruskin and Lord Byron took the waters and the latter nicknamed the place Little Switzerland, a name that has stuck! Continue reading →

The Long Shot

16 Monday Sep 2013

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Saturday 14th September 2013 ko 15.00

Midlands Regional Alliance Premier Division

ROWSLEY 86 2 (T Baker 29 Roome 85)

NEWHALL UNITED 1 (Ward 26p)

Att 8

Entry FREE

Tea FREE

No Programme

Head north on the A6 from Matlock and in around 6 miles you’ll reach the pretty village of Rowsley. It’s at the confluence of the rivers Derwent and Wye, and was the site of an extensive marshalling yard for the Manchester, Buxton, Matlock and Midlands Junction Railway. The station was frequently used by King Edward VII when he visited nearby Chatsworth House. The station became a goods depot until 1968, when it was closed and converted to a contractor’s yard. It then became the centrepiece of a shopping development which is still open today. Perhaps it goes without saying I didn’t pay it a visit! Continue reading →

‘Ommer ‘Em!

12 Thursday Sep 2013

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Wednesday 11th March 2013 ko 19.45

West Midlands (Regional) League Premier Division

CRADLEY TOWN 2 (Hill 85 Devlin 87)

BEWDLEY TOWN 0

Att 40

Entry £3

Programme £1

If like me you’re 40-plus and from Oxford, the Black Country town of Cradley equals Speedway. I remember watching the likes of Erik Gundersen, Lance King and Gert Handberg at Dudley Wood Stadium and being vaguely disturbed by a poster of former great Bruce Penhall in the bath, with far too few bubbles to preserve his modesty! Continue reading →

Taking the King’s Shilling

08 Sunday Sep 2013

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Saturday 7th September 2013 ko 14.30

Anglian Combination Division Two

BUNGAY TOWN 11 (ELEVEN) (Flint 8 Barnes 19 27 Ling 20 87 Mirner 24 52 89 Wilby 32 Andrews 76 Hammersley 86)

BRANDON TOWN 0

Att 88

Entry -5p

Programme 50p

Burger £2.50

Once a year Football has, ” Non League Day,” when an international weekend means there’s no Premier League and Championship games scheduled. Fans are encouraged to support grass roots football, and the smaller clubs try their best to entice new supporters to come and visit them. Last year, I ended up at an iconic ground, Northern League Crook Town http://wp.me/p1PehW-1dV, but this year I wanted a fresh approach, so I decided to pick the club with what I thought was the best marketing gimmick. And Bungay won that battle by an absolute mile. Continue reading →

Threesome

08 Sunday Sep 2013

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Tuesday 3rd September 2013 ko 18.15

North Leicestershire League Premier Division

KEGWORTH IMPERIAL 0

GREENHILL Y.C. 4 (Morris 3 Mason 49 Nelson 52 70)

Att 49

Entry FREE

Nothing for sale

Sometimes I can sit there with a copy of the Football Traveller and there isn’t a fixture that grabs me. Its daft, a weekly magazine with around a thousand fixtures in, a case perhaps of Bruce Springsteen’s “57 channels and nothing on..”  In the end Newhall United secretary Dan Bishop suggested this one, after I asked for something low level. Dan never, ever lets you down….. Continue reading →

That’s the wise thrush; he sings each song twice

08 Sunday Sep 2013

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Saturday 31st August 2013 ko 15.00

League 2

OXFORD UNITED 1 (Constable 24)

ROCHDALE 1 (Lund 50)

Att 5,260 (203 away)

Entry – Season Ticket

Programme £3 (including free Oxford Mail)

With the plethora of organised groundhops (too many to tell the truth) this season, this was my first visit this season to Grenoble Road. A lot has changed since last season, especially on the playing side with over a team’s worth of players released, and replaced, some from the youth team. There’s been some high-profile recruits, Continue reading →

Reunion

06 Friday Sep 2013

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Friday 30th August 2013 ko 19.45

FA Cup Preliminary Round

WANTAGE TOWN 2 (Claydon 60 86)

DIDCOT TOWN 3 (Webb 3og Ferriera 37 Haysham 70)

Att 321

Entry £6

Programme £1 (poor, far too many adverts)

After the excesses of the weekend, I’d felt rather footballed-out. There were no lack of options on Tuesday and Wednesday, but save for a little writing the urge to jump in the car had been absent. But on Friday, a nice local game beckoned, and an FA Cup game too. It was time to get back in the swing of things, and on arrival I wasn’t the only one to have thought along the same lines. There were a good 20 hoppers, many of whom had been touring around North Wales with Chris and I. There was North Berkshire League representation too, with fixtures secretary Charlie East, and Treasurer Mike Panting casting an interested local eye on the proceedings.

However the reunion had a far more significant member, Continue reading →