Lads

09 Thursday Feb 2023

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Monday 27th December 2022 ko 15:00

Hellenic League Premier Division

HEREFORD LADS CLUB 0

WESTFIELDS 6 (Pitman 15 Hunt 23 McDonald 34 Muirhead 41 Edwards 65 Newbury 82p)

Att 460

Entry £7

Programme £1

I remember the phone calls last Easter all too well, with Lads Club being on the previous Hellenic Hop why as GroundhopUK’s deputy organiser wasn’t I there ? After all, I hadn’t missed an organised hop in years! The truth was that finally Robyn and I managed to get on the honeymoon in Austria that the pandemic had delayed by 2 years. That said, it didn’t stop me taking calls asking what was going on with the Worcester Raiders game? The catch was that I was watching FC Balzers of Liechtenstein at the time! Continue reading →

View

08 Wednesday Feb 2023

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Monday 26th December 2022 ko 15:00

Western League Premier Division

ILFRACOMBE TOWN 0

BARNSTAPLE TOWN 3 (Swan 17 73 Andrew 79)

Att 447

Entry £5

Programme online only (downloadable)

It must have been nearly twenty years ago. I was on a weekend away with my ex-wife and a couple of friends at Ilfracombe Holiday Park. The friends went off to explore a garden centre, but the wife had spent most of the previous night doing college study. She opted to spend most of Saturday asleep but before she dozed off she said the magic words, “Go find a game.” She did so thinking that since it was mid-May I’d stand little or no chance of finding something; she always did underestimate me.  Continue reading →

Cheer

06 Monday Feb 2023

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Saturday 24th December 2022 ko 14:00

Central Midlands League Division One North

BESSACARR 3 (Cooper 25 34 Tyers 77)

780 JLC 2 (Teal 7p Allison 88)

Att c65

Free Entry

Programme £2

Badge £2.50

Judging by the amount of groundhoppers at this one a lot of folk had the same conversation I’d had with Chris Garner. It went something like, “Do you fancy a game? Where? Yeah, but where?” 

For the record Bessacarr is a district of Doncaster, its where One Direction singer Louis Tomlinson is from. He of course famously turned out for Doncaster Rovers’s reserves, and while he didn’t actually play there, we did pass by the site of Doncaster Rovers old ground Belle Vue on the way to Cantley Park. Continue reading →

Thringstone

02 Thursday Feb 2023

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Tuesday 21st December 2022 ko 19:45

Midland League Division One

INGLES 2 (Tansley 52 Minshull 86)

CHELMSLEY TOWN 1 (Woods 90)

Att 67

Entry £5

Programme £1

In purely groundhopping terms when a club in a groundshare gets promoted to Step 6, they tend to pass me by. I may see them by chance as visiting team, but I prefer to visit the ground for the primary tenant. So when Ingles graduated from the Leicestershire Senior League, groundsharing at Shepshed Dynamo’s Dovecote, it all rather passed me by. Continue reading →

Changes

30 Monday Jan 2023

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Tuesday 20th December 2022 ko 20:00

EFL Cup 4th Round

WOLVERHAMPTON WANDERERS 2 (Jiminez 77p Ait Nouri 90)

GILLINGHAM 0 

Att 26,953

Entry £15

Programme £4

Age certainly does creep up on you. Sometimes it’s your nephews seeing that The Specials’ Terry Hall had died and not knowing who he was, other times its looking back and thinking “Was it really that long ago?” For me Molineux definitely was the latter. Continue reading →

Furlong

26 Thursday Jan 2023

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Saturday 10th December 2022 ko 15:00

Combined Counties League- Premier Division North

ASCOT UNITED 2 (Matthew 32p A Grant 74)

Bouwers sent off 27 (dangerous play)

EGHAM TOWN 0

Att 161

Entry £7

Programme online only 

In my groundhopping life I’m used to having a backup plan. In simple terms it means having an alternate game to go and watch if something happens at my intended destination. I’m far less used however, to having to find another game when I’m on season ticket duty at Oxford United. That said, I did have notice, the frost was bitter and the game was called off early. All I had to do was pick an interesting ground to show my wife Robyn. Continue reading →

Necessity

23 Monday Jan 2023

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Tuesday 6th December 2022 ko 19:45

Spartan South Midlands League Division One Cup Quarter Final

MOULTON 3 (Evans 32p 46 Ansu 87)

NORTHAMPTON O.N. CHENECKS 1 (Ling 61)

Parsons sent off (violent conduct) 52

Att 92

Entry £5

Programme £2

It is a fact of life that whenever either a new ground opens, or a club is promoted to Step 6, the groundhoppers will make a beeline for it. Part of it is something of a mystery to me, surely the grounds to target are the ones that are facing demolition? The other part of it affects those of us who ticked off everything with a set of floodlights within a reasonable distance from home. From my perspective, at the start of the season I suddenly had the likes, of Eaton Socon, Moulton and Fleetlands, all within a couple of hours from home. Issues over Fleetlands’ floodlights have delayed my visit, and you can take it as read I won’t be visiting on a Saturday.  Continue reading →

The Payoff

18 Wednesday Jan 2023

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Monday 5th December 2022 20:00 (ish!)

Somali British Champions League- Group A

HILLTOP 2 (Yislam 14 A Mohamed 64p)

O.I.R. FC 0

Att 126 at Ark Elvin Academy, Cecil Avenue, Wembley

Free Entry

Programme £3

I tend to have two pieces of advice on the odd occasion I get for groundhopping tips. One is to go “weird” early and the other is to never rule anything out until you’ve tried it. Of course the fact that I’m now at a point where finding a floodlit tick within a 2 hour drive from Oxford midweek does tend to force creativity on you! Continue reading →

Saxon

17 Tuesday Jan 2023

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Saturday 26th November 2022 ko 15:00

Isthmian League Premier Division

HASTINGS UNITED 3 (Pope 9 McKenzie 13 Scott 72)

CORINTHIAN-CASUALS 0

Att 652

Entry £12

Programme £2.50

There are football grounds that do what they need to, there are some that I’d recommend you visit, but the list of football grounds I recommend you drop everything and go and see is extremely small, but top of that list is the Pilot Field. And a small part of the reason why, is that is in a fashion you get another ground thrown in too! Continue reading →

Wye

12 Thursday Jan 2023

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Tuesday 22nd November 2022 ko 19:45

Herefordshire Senior Challenge Cup 2nd Round

HINTON 2 (Nicholls 24 Burley 63og)

WELLINGTON RANGERS 4 (Andrews 6 Mann 28 Woodcock 42 Nunn 45)

Mann missed penalty 45

Att c30

Free Entry

Any hopper might find it useful to look out for this competition on Full Time. The Herefordshire League’s comparative isolation is also its strength and there are clubs with excellent facilities playing at Step 7 when if they were a little more centrally placed you wonder if they’d be playing higher up the pyramid. Travelling costs for the likes of the Hellenic League must be substantial here. Continue reading →