Tag Archives: England

Bird Watching

06 Thursday Nov 2025

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Friday 22nd August 2025 ko 18:45

West Lancashire League Premier Division

BLACKPOOL WREN ROVERS 2 (King 58 68)

POULTON 1 (Hallan 55)

Scammell sent off (serious foul play) 72

Att 388

Entry £3

Programme £2

For groundhoppers of a certain age August Bank Holiday always added up to multiple games in Wales. The Welsh Hop lasted from 2002 to 2022 and we all missed the epic events they always were. Any replacement had to be good, and we even ran events without anything on August Bank Holiday for two years. The irony is that you could say the solution to it was in house…

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The Rockets

26 Friday Sep 2025

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Saturday 19th July 2025 ko 15:00

Friendly

RAYLEIGH TOWN 2 (Acheampong 44 Philbrick 70)

missed penalty 10

FRENFORD 1 (13)

Att 58 at Rayleigh Sports & Social Club, London Road

Free Entry

To a groundhopper, one benefit of pre-season is that clubs who groundshare during the regular season tend to play “at home”. You may recall me visiting Benfleet well before they got Woodside up to Step 6 standards and you hope Rayleigh can do the same for their London Road home.

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The Knockin Shop

08 Friday Aug 2025

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Saturday 30th May 2025 ko 14:30

Montgomeryshire Amateur League

TREFONEN 2 (C Jones 4 L Davies 32)

LLANGEDWYN 1 (Buckley 36)

Att 72

Free Entry

With the season in England and Wales in its last couple of days it was a case of leagues squeezing in their final fixtures. I decided to do something specific and that is to mine the seam that is the narrow strip of territory in Shropshire, that’s still English but the place names are Welsh.

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Locality

28 Sunday Apr 2024

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Saturday 23rd March 2024 ko 15:00

Northern Premier League- Division One West

CLITHEROE 1 (Baker 72)

RUNCORN LINNETS 1 (Molloy 40)

Att 938

Entry £10

Programme £2

It had been a busy few weeks. There’d been Belfast, then a week at home, then the North West Counties Hop, then a week at home, then the Scottish Hop then this, a week off before the South West Peninsula League Hop over Easter. My thought was to stay reasonably local to Oxford, which I did reflect upon sat on the M6 for hours on end!!

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Gifford

21 Tuesday Mar 2023

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Tuesday 28th February 2023 ko 19:45

Gloucestershire County League

STOKE GIFFORD UNITED 7 (McInevery 34 43 72 Weaver 38 72 90 Barry 45)

HARDWICKE 0

Att 39

Entry FREE

Programme £1

It does pay to keep an eye on the Gloucestershire County League. I tend to see it as a quasi-Step 6 league, the mandatory programme rule, and the reasonably stringent ground gradings to make for an experience unlike most at the level. It was though, an odd evening to be in Bristol.

On one hand Bristol City were at home to Manchester City that night in the FA Cup, but that only meant that the southern half of the city would be having cup fever. Stoke Gifford is in the northern suburbs, and well and truly in Bristol Rovers territory, so I expected and got studied indifference to the goings on at Ashton Gate. 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 →

Surprises

07 Thursday Apr 2022

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Tuesday 15th March 2022 ko 19:45

Combined Counties League Division One

HILLINGDON BOROUGH 1 (Bustard 59)

Robb penalty saved 76

LONDON SAMURAI ROVERS 3 (Hashii 8 Yoshida 28 Reis 50og)

Att c10

Free Entry

Ever had a ground you know you’ve been to, but can’t work out when? For years my mystery ground was the Middlesex Stadium in Ruislip. I know I watched Hillingdon Borough around 15 years ago on a Saturday because my girlfriend of the time insisted I got home by 6:30 as we had guests. I was a very different hopper then, these days I were given that constraint, I’d take in a non-floodlit game locally. Floodlit grounds are a finite resource to a groundhopper! Continue reading →

Levver’ead

04 Monday Apr 2022

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Tuesday 8th March 2022 ko 19.45

Isthmian League Premier Division

LEATHERHEAD 0

LEWES 1 (Taylor 52p)

Att 335

Entry £12

Programme £2 (re-issue from postponed game with insert)

It is of course a fact of life that groundhopping adds up to visiting a lot of grounds once, and in my case there are plenty of grounds that when I leave, there is a twinge of regret that odds are I’ll never return. But Robyn arrived in my life six years ago, so the “Robyn Revisit” is a wonderful reason to revisit some classic grounds. And let’s face it if you haven’t been to Fetcham Grove, then I’d suggest it ought to go straight on to your bucket list! Continue reading →

A Tale of Ian & Nicky

24 Thursday Feb 2022

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Tuesday 22nd February 2022 ko 19.45

Hellenic League Division One

STUDLEY 3 (Brain 11 46 Donnelly 18)

FC STRATFORD 0

Att 87

Entry £6

Programme £1

There were a couple of reasons why I was a little hesitant about attending this one. Firstly I’d visited Studley Sports & Social Club a number of times, and wasn’t aware they’d moved, albeit the shortest distance possible. Then there was the fact GroundhopUK are organising this year’s Easter Hop with Studley scheduled to host on Bank Holiday 11am. Robyn and I won’t be on the event, we’re finally going to have our honeymoon, just the two years after our wedding- and while we have had to wait, if Covid had arrived a few weeks earlier, we’d have had real problems! But Studley and I go back to 2002, and its all to do with a footballing friendship. Continue reading →

The Golden Triangle

28 Friday Jan 2022

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Tuesday 25th January 2022 ko 19:45

Eastern Counties League Division One South

BUCKHURST HILL 9 (N. Sollosi 1 10 34 Falola 32 79 90 Zuhdu 43 75 S Sollosi 87)

WORMLEY ROVERS 1 (Clark 24)

Allen sent off (DOGSO) 70

Att 151

Entry & Programme £6

The very mention of Essex does run the risk of painting pejorative thoughts in your head. You might think of girls in white stilettos dancing round their handbags, shows of conspicuous consumption, and the TV show that enforced the cliche, “The Only Way Is Essex.”  Of course all of that is just a cliché, and Buckhurst Hill certainly doesn’t fit the image. Continue reading →