Bert

04 Thursday Apr 2019

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Saturday 9th March 2019 ko 19.45

North-West Counties League Division One North

ST HELENS TOWN 1 (Diggle 49)

GARSTANG 3 (Coar 12 Sailor 60 Hothersall 75)

Att 292

Entry £5

Programme £2

One of the advantages of the day’s first 3 games all being so close together was that I still felt reasonably fresh as the coach pulled into the wide expanse of the Ruskin Drive Sports Ground. As with Lower Breck and Litherland Remyca earlier we’d be visiting a ground new to the league, but here was a club with a long history of membership. Continue reading →

The Magician

27 Wednesday Mar 2019

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Saturday 9th March 2019 ko 16.30

North-West Counties League Division One North

LOWER BRECK 6 (Milne 18 60 90 Moore 31 Colbeck 45 Henders 55)

ASHTON TOWN 1 (Johnson 84)

Att 339

Entry £3

Programme £2

From Litherland the coach picked its way through surprisingly quiet Saturday afternoon traffic. We knew we were close to Goodison Park by the blue banners on every lamp-post until we actually passed by Everton’s famous ground. Then we skirted by Stanley Park until the huge new 20,500 Main Stand at Anfield dominated the view. From there those lamp-post banners changed to red as we travelled a few more hundred yards to the rather more humble Anfield Sports & Community Centre in Lower Breck Road. Liverpool FC may operate on altogether more rarified plane than our hosts, but they did have a massive influence on this hop! Continue reading →

Sefton

24 Sunday Mar 2019

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Saturday 9th March 2019 ko 13.30

North West Counties League Premier Division

LITHERLAND REMYCA 1 (Foy 44p)

CITY OF LIVERPOOL 2 (Dalton 61 Clair 70)

Att 574

Entry £5

Programme £2

It really didn’t take long for the coach to pick its way through the Sefton district of Liverpool to Litherland Sports Park. The district has the distinction of appearing in the Domesday Book while Liverpool didn’t! I was pleased it looked busy at the Litherland Sports Park, even if we did have to exit the bus rather quickly to let others in! Continue reading →

Maritimes

18 Monday Mar 2019

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Saturday 9th March 2019 ko 11.00

North-West Counties League Premier Division

BOOTLE 4 (Peers 10 19 Cox 72 Jones 90)

ASHTON ATHLETIC 2 (Gilchrist 22 Munro 50)

Att 391

Entry £5

Programme £1

I’m not sure why but on organised hops I like my breakfast quietly. Perhaps it’s because I know that for the rest of the day Chris Berezai and I will be in the centre of the maelstrom of everything that’s going on across the 4 games. That and the knowledge that experience without reflection is worthless. We’d had real problems getting this hop at a point where we felt comfortable organising it, but we’d got the event to a point that the day’s four host clubs had everything they needed to do well. I found myself thinking about the four grounds we were visiting. Continue reading →

The Disconnect

14 Thursday Mar 2019

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Friday 8th March 2019 ko 19.45

North West Counties League- Division One South

BARNTON 0 Cobley sent off FT (foul/abusive)

VAUXHALL MOTORS 2 (Webb 35p Hassall 70)

Att 272

Entry £5

Programme £1

I’d met the coach we at GroundhopUK were using at Ellesmere, in Shropshire, and from there we headed north to pick up a cohort of groundhoppers at Crewe station. It gave me rare time to think as Paul picked his way through a series of leafy Cheshire villages. The first North-West Counties League Hop was 6 games over the last 2 days of the 2017 Easter Hop but its roots lie in a phone conversation I’d had with then Atherton Collieries’ programme editor Joe Gibbons in 2013 that lead to the hop party diverting there when a game at AFC Emley on the Northern Counties East Hop had been postponed due to drifting snow. Continue reading →

What A Carry On

12 Tuesday Mar 2019

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Tuesday 5th March 2019 ko 20.00

Southend Charity Shield Section A Quarter-Final

LEIGH TOWN 0

LAINDON ORIENT 1 (Williams 90)

Att 31 at James Hornsby School, Leinster Road (Laindon Orient FC)

Free Entry

Programme £1

It seems to me that if you want a really obscure ground under lights you need to be able to trawl the obscure cup competitions. That’s not one of my few talents so I’m indebted to Southend-based hopper Peter Miles’ observation skills. It could have been even more obscure, the fixture was originally scheduled for the Stambridge Memorial Ground a week earlier, and Stambridge exited the Essex Senior League in 1992 and folded altogether in 2016. The ground is currently used by Essex Olympian League outfit Corinthians.

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Habeus Corpus

04 Monday Mar 2019

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Saturday 5th December 2009 ko 10.00

Oxford University Middle Common Room League- Cuppers Group A

CORPUS/LINACRE 13 (Beresford 46 85 Tyler 48 67 75 79 88 Lewis 58 Hunter 70 86 89 90 Brown 83)
UNIVERSITY 1 (Winning 77)

Att 1

Tonight’s tale is, in part, a retort to those who absolutely have to see a stand, or a rail, or whatever at any ground they visit. The corollary for that is that anything that doesn’t fit their requirements tends to be written off as “A Field.” For dear reader this the story of the ground that actually did become a field!
Continue reading →

Progression

01 Friday Mar 2019

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Tuesday 26th February 2019 ko 19.45

Hellenic League Division One East

WALLINGFORD TOWN 2 (Williams 81 Silkstone 90) Silkstone missed penalty 90

ABINGDON TOWN 2 (James 40 Smith 51)

Att 45

Entry & Programme £5

If you’re from my part of the world a trip to Wally is one of life’s pleasures, even down to childhood trips passing by here and seeing the sign for adjacent Crowmarsh Gifford “amended” to Crowmarsh McGiffordish- don’t ask me why, I don’t know either! Wallingford is a pretty market town in that part of North Berkshire than since 1974 is now in Oxfordshire. The town was one of the last Royalist bastions to fall at the end of the English Civil War, with Oliver Cromwell taking revenge for their resistance by having the castle slighted in 1652 Continue reading →

Esh, winning

28 Thursday Feb 2019

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Saturday 23rd February 2019 ko 15.00

Northern League Division 2

ESH WINNING 5 (Donaldson 4 Arnott 32 Marley 35 63 Mole 67)

EASINGTON COLLIERY 2 (Pounder 14 71)

Att 64

Entry £5

Programme £1

It had been an odd way to visit. I’d dropped off the other 3 members of my party at West Auckland Working Men’s Club, for some Thomas Lipton Trophy history before they headed to West’s FA Vase game. I’d met the Northern League committee there, and it was lovely to catch up with Mike Amos, the inventor of the organised groundhop, and Harvey Harris the organiser of the league’s re-union hops a couple of years ago. The sense of anticipation there was obvious, so did seem a little counter-intuitive as I headed north, further into the North Pennines in County Durham. There was method in my madness though. Continue reading →

Making plans for Nigel

21 Thursday Feb 2019

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Tuesday 19th February 2019 ko 19.30

Argonaut Trophy

ARTHURIAN LEAGUE 3 (Hiscox 74 Beddows 79p Hornby 80)

HERTFORDSHIRE SENIOR COUNTY LEAGUE 0

Att 12 at Club des Sports, East Acton Lane, London

Entry & Programme FREE

Parking £4.50

WhatsApp can be a wonderful thing, I’d drawn something of a blank as to where to head. On one hand Wick in Sussex were at home but the holdups on the M25 were beyond even the normal delays you’d expect. But then “The Itinerant Football Watcher” Peter Miles made a discovery…. Continue reading →