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Football: Wherever it may be

~ Laurence's football travels

Football: Wherever it may be

Tag Archives: Football

The Bible Club

04 Monday Jan 2021

Posted by laurencereade in Q

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Dumfries, Football, groundhopping, Only club in the bible, Palmerston Park, Queen of the South, Scotland, SPFL

Saturday 24th January 2009 ko 15.00

Scottish League Division One

QUEEN OF THE SOUTH 2 (Dobbie 10 Tosh 56p)

PARTICK THISTLE 2 (Doolan 17 Chaplain 77)

Att 2,811

Entry £15

Programme £2

Iain and I go back a mighty long way, back to the late 1990’s working for a high street bank with a CEO without a “Shred” of dignity, I met him once!. We didn’t meet in the most auspicious of ways, a 2 week business banking course at a golfing hotel just outside of Tewkesbury. I don’t play golf, and Iain couldn’t take his clubs on the plane down from Dumfries each week. We were bored, the hotel isolated, with an expensive bar, and the fruit machine was seeming set against us. We passed (somehow) despite another delegate having his room completely emptied by a burgler (save for a pair of underpants) on the final night, but we kept in contact.

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The Secret Santa

29 Tuesday Dec 2020

Posted by laurencereade in L, O

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Court Place Farm, Football, groundhopping, hellenic league, Long Crendon, Non League, Oxford, Oxford City, Wallingford Town

Saturday 19th December 2020 ko 15.00

Hellenic League Division One East

LONG CRENDON 1 (Warwick 54)

WALLINGFORD TOWN 2 (Dean 43 Silkstone 85)

Att 36 at Oxford City FC

Entry £5

No Programme

You could say I was at this game because of Santa Claus! As you may know I’m part of a pub quiz team based at the Masons Arms in Oxford. Each Christmas we have a meal out at a local gastro-pub and exchange gifts in a “Secret Santa” arrangement. Covid of course had meant that meal out was impossible, but we decided to do the Secret Santa gift exchange, and I offered to play Santa for the afternoon and do the collections and deliveries from the doorsteps of our homes. The idea was afterwards to go and watch either of two Oxfordshire Senior League games. The first was Bicester-based Bure Park with Oxford Irish (based at Rose Hill Community Centre) as back-up. Both were 2pm kickoffs. 

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Portmanteau

27 Sunday Dec 2020

Posted by laurencereade in F

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Athletic Newham, Eastern Counties League, Eastern Senior League, Fire United, Football, Frenford, Frenford Senior, groundhopping, Ilford, London, Lopes Tavares, Non League, The Drive

Monday 14th December 2020 ko 19.45

Eastern Counties League Division One South

FRENFORD 2 (Forbes 4 Fairhead 88)

Heatley penalty saved 52

ATHLETIC NEWHAM 2 (Idemudia 9 Kone 90p)

Kone sent off 90 (2nd booking)

Att 87

Entry £4

Programme £1

Monday night football will always attract the groundhoppers, and a club new to Step 6 will do so still further. Here though there was the added thought of exactly which league I was watching. In 2018 the Eastern Senior was created as a Step 6 league to feed the Essex Senior as a joint venture between that league and the Eastern Counties. It seemed to me that the league became rapidly swallowed up by the Eastern Counties League, and has become their Division One South. Now I’m not that worried by the nomenclature, but does anyone have a definitive answer? Continue reading →

Returning Heroes

18 Friday Dec 2020

Posted by laurencereade in P

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

East Beach Cafe, England, Football, groundhopping, Littlehampton, Non League, Peacehaven and Telscombe, Piddinghoe Avenue, Southern Combination, Steyning Town, Sussex, Sussex County League

Saturday 12th December 2020 ko 15.00

Southern Combination Premier Division

PEACEHAVEN & TELSCOMBE 2 (Benson 50 Webber 78)

STEYNING TOWN COMMUNITY 1 (Cousins 10)

Att 153

Entry £7

Programme online only

Lockdown #2 ended up lasting a couple of weeks longer than either Robyn or I planned, and the irony of both of us contracting Coronavirus during a lockdown isn’t lost on me. We were fortunate, very fortunate to contract only a mild strain of the disease and although we were pretty wiped out for a few days we quickly recovered, with fatigue being the last symptom to fade away. But that fact did influence where we went. I wanted to break up the driving a little, I wasn’t comfortable with the marathon stints I’ve taken on in the past. That brought an idea from the past into my head…. Continue reading →

The Alternative Groundshare

04 Friday Dec 2020

Posted by laurencereade in W

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

Bexley, Bexley United, Erith and Belvedere, Football, groundhopping, park view Road, Welling United

Thursday 16th November 2006 ko 19.45

London Senior Cup 2nd Round

WELLING UNITED 1 (Cunha 13)

TOOTING & MITCHAM UNITED 2 ( Gibbs 55 Green 68)

Att c150

Entry & Teamsheet £6

On the face of it there are no end of clubs in groundshares; you really don’t need me to give examples! Suffice it to say the rule amongst groundhoppers is to tick off the ground for either the landlords, or of there isn’t one, then the primary tenant. But in a hobby that attracts those who like their rules to be both hard and fast there are a few exceptions! Continue reading →

The Cold Wind

29 Sunday Nov 2020

Posted by laurencereade in N

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Balderton, Bolsover Town, C. B Collier NK Limited, Central Midlands League, Football, groundhopping, Newark FC, Newark Flowserve, Non League

Saturday 22nd March 2008 ko 10.30

Central Midlands League – Premier Division

NEWARK FLOWSERVE 1 (Sharpe 20)

BOLSOVER TOWN 1 (Robb 50)

Humphries sent off 44 (violent conduct)

Att 260

Entry £2

Programme £1

Sometimes organised groundhops get remembered for certain characteristics. One Welsh Hop got remembered as the “Dog Shag” hop after two dogs misunderstood the excitement on the pitch at Carnetown, and the 2018 South West Peninsula Hop was the “Wet Hop” as organiser Phil Hiscox had to switch one game on to Exwick Villa’s 3G to get the game played. But without question the 2008 Easter Hop in the Central Midlands League was the cold hop! Continue reading →

The 3rd Ground

25 Wednesday Nov 2020

Posted by laurencereade in D

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Central Midlands League, Dunkirk, East Midlands Counties League, Football, groundhopping, Heanor Town, Lenton Lane, Non League, Nottingham, Ron Steel Ground

Friday 26th September 2008 ko 19.45

East Midlands Counties League

DUNKIRK 2 (Senko 51 Smith 78)

HEANOR TOWN 1 (Wells 81)

Att 113 at Ron Steel Sports Ground, Lenton Lane, Nottingham

Entry £4

Programme £1

When I wrote about Stockwood Wanderers a few weeks ago, I compared the 3 clubs cheek by jowl in southern Bristol as akin to the Lenton Lane treble of Bilborough Pelican, Dunkirk and Greenwood Meadows in Nottingham.  In terms of this blog there is a catch- if you’ve clicked the Dunkirk link you’d have spotted that that game was on Dunkirk’s second pitch. Since there’s time with 2 weeks worth of lockdown left, let’s put that right! Continue reading →

The Palace

23 Monday Nov 2020

Posted by laurencereade in W

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Beaumont Street, Football, groundhopping, Middle Common Room League, Non League, Oxford University, Sports Ground, Worcester College

Saturday 31st October 2009 ko 10.30

Oxford University Middle Common Room League Division One

NUFFIELD COLLEGE 3 (Gallo 16 55 Strang 73)

WOLFSON ST CROSS 1 (Cockfield 22)

Att 7 at Worcester College, Oxford

Free Entry

So with another dose of lockdown, I’m both up-to-date with this blog and at a loose end. So while I can’t watch anything live, I’ll dip back into my photo archive and tell the tales from back when. To start with here’s one that involves a bone fide legend. Continue reading →

Fade To Black

19 Thursday Nov 2020

Posted by laurencereade in D

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Daventry Town, Daventry United, Elderstubbs, Football, Ford Sports Daventry, groundhopping, Non League, Southern League, United Counties League

Wednesday 4th November 2020 ko 19.45

Southern League Division One Central

DAVENTRY TOWN 3 (Hayward 18og Bowen 40p Orosz 68)

Jackson sent off 46 (2nd booking)

DIDCOT TOWN 0

Att 120

Entry £10

Programme- Online

With England’s second month-long lockdown due to start at midnight, Robyn and I knew we weren’t the only ones planning what was going to be at best our only live game in November and possibly longer. Continue reading →

The Kett Rebellion

12 Thursday Nov 2020

Posted by laurencereade in W

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

Anglian Combination, Football, Kett Rebellion, Kings Head Meadow, Non League, norwich united, Wymondham abbey, wymondham town

Saturday 31st October 2020 ko 14.00

Anglian Combination Division One

WYMONDHAM TOWN 3 (Tuttle 62p 71 Woodcock 90)

NORWICH UNITED 2 (Diggens 57 Middleton 85)

Att 42

Free Entry

Just like in March I could feel the walls closing in, Oxford had just moved to the more restrictive Tier 2 Covid restrictions, and I ended up taking advice on firstly whether I could make this trip, and then whether I ought to. I ended up picking a game, like those that had gone before, that was in an area of low infection, and somewhere I could easily maintain social distancing. I also wanted a game without floodlights; with clocks now on GMT a 2pm kick-off would get Robyn and I  back to Oxford early enough to spend time with friends wrapped up against the cold, outside in the pub garden, for a beer or two . As the landlord put it at the time, with all the new restrictions it seemed easier to lock down altogether. 

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Blogroll

  • Damage In The Box Chris Powell’s travels across the UK and Europe. The artist must frequently seen in the pub 0
  • Emma's Ground Guide Emma and Max are a groundhopping couple based in Newark, exploring grounds in the area. 0
  • FA Cup Factfile Phil Annets on all things to do with the World’s greatest cup competition 10
  • Football Club History Database Want to know where a club finished in what league and in what year? Richard Rundle’s site is a veritable goldmine! 0
  • Football Hopper “Fast” Eddie McGeown’s erudite perambulations around the nation’s football grounds 0
  • Groundhopping.se Per-Gunnar Nilsson’s trips around his native Sweden, and into Europe 0
  • Grounds for concern The late Mishi Morath’s picture blog. Obviously no longer updated but still a wonderful archive. 0
  • Modus Hopper Random Graham Yapp’s travels 0
  • Swedish Football History & Statistics Mats Nyström’s curates this site, which does exactly what you’d expect 0
  • The 100 Grounds Club Shaun Smith’s groundhopping football blog. The original internet ground logging website. 0
  • The Football Traveller The bible for every groundhopper. Non-League fixtures magazine delivered weekly. Published and edited by Chris Bedford 0
  • The Itinerant Football Watcher Peter finds the grounds other hoppers cannot reach. Top bloke too! 0
  • The66POW Rob Waite’s travels 0

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