The Professionals

07 Monday Nov 2022

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Friday 16th September 2022 ko 19:45

Southampton Senior Cup-First Round

HEDGE END RANGERS 1 (Gould 11)

COLDEN COMMON 4 (Nash 19og Course 21 65 Ryan 51)

Att 135

Free Entry

Programme £2

You do see things differently according to your perspective. If you’re a club this looked like an ideal opportunity to get a cup game played, and to show off their new ground. But for a groundhopper this was something altogether different. Continue reading →

The Farm

02 Wednesday Nov 2022

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Tuesday 6th September 2022 ko 18:30

Pre-Season Friendly

CHADLINGTON 1 (E Bennett 3)

CHARLBURY TOWN 3 (25, 55 63)

Att c20

Free Entry

As is so often the case I was sat in the pub on a Saturday night. Kev and I go back a long way, and the fact that he splits his time working here with time in the Netherlands and Australia means I don’t see as much of him as I used to. We were talking about how we’ve both ended up knowing places in other countries far better than we know places close to our homes. Kev mentioned north-west Oxfordshire and was heard to comment, “I know parts of Amsterdam better than I know Chadlington!” I allowed myself a wry smile. Continue reading →

Rejiggery

28 Friday Oct 2022

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Monday 29th August 2022 

11:00 South Wales Alliance Division One

MAESTEG PARK 2 (Kingdon 26 Evans 42)

VALE UNITED 2 (Hanson 40 Jefferies 70)

Gauci sent off (DOGSO) 55

Jefferies missed penalty 60

Att 302

Entry £3

Programme £2

14:00 South Wales Alliance Division One

CANTON RANGERS 3 (Injai 32 Tegeltha 62 Power 68)

AFC BUTETOWN 2 (Abdulkaliq Yusuf 6 24)

Att 223

Entry £3

Programme £1

16:15 South Wales Alliance Division One

CLWB CYMRIC 4 (Withers 18 Hughes 60 Roberts 77 90)

GRANGE ALBION 0

Att 226

Entry £3

Programme £1

With this being a South Wales Alliance reunion hop we’d always planned on the Monday being the traditional “Cardiff Day.” With Canton Liberal and Canton Rangers having moved into adjacent grounds as part of the development behind the Cardiff International Sports Stadium. So it was an obvious move to make the first game at Liberal then stroll over to Rangers. There was only one issue with that idea though…. Continue reading →

Grasshoppers!

26 Wednesday Oct 2022

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Sunday 28th August 2022 ko

11:15 South Wales Alliance Premier Division

MERTHYR SAINTS 1 (Maia 37p)

ABER VALLEY 5 (Razimielski 6 45 65 James 22 Neville 83)

Att 302

Entry & Programme £5

14:00 South Wales Alliance Division One

ABERDARE TOWN 6 (Johnson 12p Jones 14 64 Olson 18 Thomas 22 Welsh 70)

AFC PENRHIWCEIBER 0

Turner missed penalty 90

Att 305

Entry £3

Programme £1

17:00 South Wales Alliance Division Two

NELSON CAVALIERS 0

CWMBACH ROYAL STARS 3 (Jones 19 J Price 43 L Price 66)

Att 254

Entry & Programme £4

In some ways Sunday was when the South Wales Alliance Hop really hit its stride. For one thing we had 3 superb grounds to visit this time, with all respect to Cardiff Cosmopolitan their 3G cage was unlikely to excite many! The other factor was having league chairman Phil Sweet on the coach, he’s a man of Merthyr so hearing his memories and knowledge of his home town put where were were and what we were watching right in perspective. Of course the hop and later myself had visited the Saints before, the hop seeing it as the very first club visited on the very first Welsh hop in August 2002. But there was a move to consider… Continue reading →

A Mixture

19 Wednesday Oct 2022

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Saturday 27th August 2022

11.15 South Wales Alliance Division Two

FAIRWATER 2 (Coles 30 Jefferies 69)

PENYGRAIG UNITED 3 (Tann 13 63 Langford 24)

Att 201

Entry £3

Programme £1

14:00 South Wales Alliance Division Two

CARDIFF COSMOPOLITAN 0

ST ALBANS 0

Att 109

Entry £3

Programme £2

17:00 South Wales Alliance Premier Division

BRIDGEND STREET 1 (Taylor 90+ 4)

CARDIFF CORINTHIANS 1 (Davies 78)

Att 264

Entry £4

Programme £1

Saturday on the Welsh Hop was a little unusual. For a start we normally make Bank Holiday Monday “Cardiff Day” but here we ended up having two days in the capital.  Now while a lot of that was due to the slightly unusual set of circumstances that saw us hopping the South Wales Alliance for a one-off reunion year. Like Tongwynlais the evening before Fairwater were one of the winners of the series of last season’s play-offs of the district leagues’ champions to get into the SWAL. Continue reading →

The Alliance

14 Friday Oct 2022

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Friday 26th August 2022 ko 18:30

South Wales Alliance Division 2

TONGWYNLAIS 1 (Older 59)

COGAN CORONATION 3 (Vilis 8 Preston 19 Taylor 72)

Att 234

Entry £3

Programme £2

I’m sure there are better analogies but for me the re-emergence of the Welsh Hop was my sign that the we were some way of putting the troubles of the pandemic behind us. With my many and varied connections to Wales I knew just how hard Coronavirus hit here, to the extent I knew the hop coach would be driven by someone new this time round. I thought of Steve Pitt who was lost to the virus during lockdown as the coach headed down the A470 from Treforest. Continue reading →

Gefle in Gävle

11 Tuesday Oct 2022

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Saturday 20th August 2022 ko 16:00

Ettan Norra

GEFLE IF 2 (Rauschen-Broben 61 Yakoub 87)

Lundin sent off (2nd booking) 90

SANDVIKENS IF 1 (Mohammed 20)

Kouyate sent off (2nd booking) 82

Mohammed sent off (violent conduct) 90

Att 4,142

Entry 150 sek (approx. £12)

The bus heading back into Gävle from Testbovallen stopped at Gavlevallen and we had reason to be relieved. The whole point of Robyn and I being there, was that Swedish Hop organiser Kim Hedwall had built this Saturday around visiting Gefle IF’s new home. But there was a question of lexicography to answer first. 

Continue reading →

Våra Barns Bramtid

06 Thursday Oct 2022

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Saturday 20th August 2022 ko 12:00

Sweden Gästrikland Youth League

STRÖMSBRO IF 3 (Bergland 53secs Törneld 35 Salminen 72)

GEFLE IF BLÅ 8 (5 15 25 41 51 65 68 75)

Att 25 at Testebovallens IP, Gävle

Free Entry

We’d long since planned our last full day in Sweden to be based around football. I’d thought about taking Robyn to any of the big 3 grounds in Stockholm, the Friends Arena, the Tele-2 and top of the list, the Olympic Stadium but there wasn’t a single game for us at any of them. We were happy to dip further down the Stockholm pyramid, but I knew Swedish Hop organiser Kim Hedwall was going to be in Gävle and let’s face it, you know he’d be able to sniff out an interesting game, or two as it turned out. Continue reading →

Stripes

04 Tuesday Oct 2022

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Friday 19th August 2022 ko 20:00

Division 4 Södra Stockholm

LÅNGHOLMEN FC 1 (Baldwin 63)

KONYASPOR KIF 1 (Okur 83)

Att 65 at Västberga IP

Free Entry

In this visit of reunions this was a little unusual and it all was due to Kim Hedwall and I picking a random game back in 2008. I remember it well, walking down to Essinge IP from the bus stop from Liljeholmen we were discussing which one of us was going to ask the referee for the team-lineups. As we walked in I was so attuned to hearing Swedish for a second I didn’t recognise the language I was hearing! Continue reading →

Tunnbrödsrulle

03 Monday Oct 2022

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Thursday 18th August 2022 ko 20:00

Division 6B Stockholm 

NOCKEBYHOVS IF 2 (Björklid 13 Ahmed 76)

APOLLON SOLNA 1 (Engström 69)

Att 41 at Åkeshovs BP

Free Entry

From the moment the ferry from Helsinki docked at Värtaterminalen I wondered how Sweden had changed since Robyn and I had visited last, a pandemic and 3 years ago. We took a bus into Nybroplan and immediately saw one change, you can use your credit card on the ticket gates in the same way you can in London. Continue reading →