Tag Archives: Football

Onwards & Upwards

10 Wednesday May 2017

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Sunday 16th April 2017 ko 14.30

North West Counties League Division One

ASHTON TOWN 0

STOCKPORT TOWN 2 (Hinchliffe 29p 57)

Att 315

Entry £5

Programme £1.50

If any future host club at a groundhop wants a piece of advice on how best to endear themselves to the organiser I suggest having someone waiting to guide in the coach when we arrive at the ground. It sets the tone for the visit, in confirming competence and in the case of Ashton Town I’m not sure we’d have found the parking spot without help. You couldn’t help but like Ashton Town, tucked away as they are between the houses in the middle of Ashton-in-Makerfield but we all knew they had their own problems over and above coping with a crowd up to 10 times normal. Continue reading →

Rock On Selby

08 Monday May 2017

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Saturday 15th April 2017 ko 18.30

Northern Counties East League Division One

SELBY TOWN 1 (Mortimer 34)

PENISTONE CHURCH 1 (Whittington 68)

Att 386

Entry £5

Programme £1.50

It was good to see that all the supporters that had gone missing had made it back for this game, as the coach parked near Flaxley Road it felt close to being the end of an era. I remembered Chris meeting with the league before a hastily rearranged precursor game before a Central Midlands League hop as I did all the normal GroundhopUK duties. I remember our first game at Yorkshire Amateur where the club marvelled at just how many pints of real ale a coachload of hoppers could drink, and many rather took to the female PCSO who turned up wondering why there was a crowd at Bracken Edge? Continue reading →

A Fine Coal Miner For the NCB That Was

03 Wednesday May 2017

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Saturday 15th April 2017 ko 11.00

Northern Counties East League Division One

ROSSINGTON MAIN 0 

HALL ROAD RANGERS 1 (Spinks 37p)

Att 323

Entry £5

Programme £1.50

The procedure was well-worn. The alarm sounded and I immediately dashed to the hotel window to check it wasn’t raining. Whilst the weather wasn’t quite so much of an issue here as it was in, say the Carmarthenshire League it doesn’t half make your life easier when it’s dry. After the daily attempt to decimate Yorkshire’s pig population through bacon consumption we set our course for Doncaster which evoked memories of the Central Midlands League Hop. Continue reading →

Hear My Train A’ Comin’

30 Sunday Apr 2017

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Friday 14th April 2017 ko 14.30

Northern Counties East League Premier Division

HARROGATE RAILWAY ATHLETIC 0 Morris sent off 22 (DOGSO)

PICKERING TOWN 5 (Taylor 23 Thompson 34 Birch 45 Bissett 51 Blott 60)

Att 353

Entry £5

Programme £2

We were grateful to the folk at Garforth Town for suggest we didn’t use the A1(M). The road was choked with Bank Holiday traffic, so the travelling circus travelled north on the old road glancing to the right to see the stationary traffic on the A1 and to the left as we passed Aberford Albion! The tip saved us quite a bit of time, and we reached Harrogate, well Starbeck in plenty of time.  Continue reading →

The Floating Roof

30 Sunday Apr 2017

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Friday 14th April 2017 ko 11.00

Northern Counties East League Premier Division

GARFORTH TOWN 0

STAVELEY MINERS WELFARE 0

Att 324

Entry £5

Programme £1.50

It all felt like a well-oiled routine. The 4 star Cedar Court Hotel in Wakefield, GroundhopUK’s base for the entire hop, the mountains of bacon consumed in a buffet breakfast, but this time our party had company. There were 3 coachloads of pensioners staying there too, on a coach tour of Yorkshire. We only really saw them at breakfast, and they seemed rather fascinated with us. I actually got asked whether we were playing or watching football? Well, I’m 46 and overweight, I don’t think I’m up to playing! Continue reading →

Evenlode

27 Thursday Apr 2017

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Tuesday 11th April 2017 ko 18.15

Witney & District League Premier Division

COMBE 1 (C Ibbitson 12)

HANBOROUGH 2 (Morton 5 77)

Att 45

Entry FREE

No programme

The great joy of unfloodlit midweek games is the chance to engage with the game at grassroots, and yes I am amused when I hear professional pundits refer to the National League as grassroots! Little do they know… The Witney League reminds me in many ways of a league I’m proud to serve- the North Berkshire League in that they both are off-pyramid village football competitions and are all the stronger for playing to their strengths.  Continue reading →

Athletic On The Road

24 Monday Apr 2017

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Saturday 8th April 2017 ko 14.30

Welsh League Division 3

TREHARRIS ATHLETIC WESTERN 1 (Mitchell 55) Mitchell missed penalty 86

TREFELIN B.G.C. 1 (Latham 23) Monks-Landeg sent off 65 (dangerous play)

Att c25 at Welfare Ground, Fochriw

Entry £3

Programme £1

In the lexicon of great South Wales non-league grounds three places stand out. There’s Blaenrhondda, Garw and until recently Treharris Athletic Western’s Athletic Ground home. Those in the know knew it was on borrowed time, if for no other reason than the pitch being too small for Welsh League requirements, but the club’s abrupt departure earlier this year took many by surprise. Continue reading →

Unease

20 Thursday Apr 2017

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Sunday 2nd April 2017 ko 14.30

Football League Trophy Final

COVENTRY CITY 2 (Bigirimana 11 Thomas 55)

OXFORD UNITED 1 (Sercombe 75)

Att 74,434

Entry £60

Programme £5

A trip to Wembley is an experience to be savoured isn’t it? It ought to be the pinnacle of your club’s ambition, and an experience where you take in every moment as if it were your last. So why did I come very close to not going, or even watching it on television? Continue reading →

Risk

10 Monday Apr 2017

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Saturday 25th March 2017 ko 15.00

East of Scotland League

COLDSTREAM 0

TYNECASTLE 2 (Mayer 14 Crabbe 19)

Att 267

Entry £5

Programme £2

I’ll admit it, as hop organisers Chris Berezai and I took a bit of a gamble with this one. Here’s the dilemna we had, on one hand we listened to the hoppers and they often tell us that scheduling 4 games is too much. Scheduling three isn’t an issue in itself but the risk is that if you put a game at around 3pm you run the risk of some of the hoppers doing “Off piste” and taking in another game.

Continue reading →

Aye

09 Sunday Apr 2017

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Saturday 25th March 2017 ko 11.00

East of Scotland League

EYEMOUTH UNITED 0

LOTHIAN THISTLE 3 (Brown 10 Delvin 30 Guy 87)

Att 227

Entry £4

Programme £1

From the moment GroundhopUK and the Lowland League agreed 3 years ago to launch the Scottish Hop it was inevitable that we’d end up in the East of Scotland League. The league, along with the South of Scotland feeds the Lowland, and the two leagues share a fixture secretary too! Just as inevitably Chris Berezai and I knew that we’d get the odd hopper who’d decide the East of Scotland League was too low a level for them and decide to head elsewhere, but there seemed to me some who’d come to their conclusion had done so without ever having seen an EoSL game first! Surely a game a 11am with no simultaneous kick-offs would be a risk-free way of finding out?

Continue reading →