Tag Archives: Football

Start Spreading The News

08 Sunday Jan 2017

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Saturday 7th January 2016 ko 15.00

FA Cup 3rd Round

ROTHERHAM UNITED 2 (Ward 51 Adeyemi 90)

OXFORD UNITED 3 (Taylor 41 Edwards 80 Hemmings 88) Maguire missed penalty 36

Att 5,618 (1,292 away)

Entry £13

Programme £2

It’s a tradition that families gather round the radio or television to listen to the FA Cup draw. Everyone has their list of clubs they’d love to see they’re team play, but top of my list was, perhaps, a slightly unusual one. I wanted my side to play Rotherham away.
My reasoning was entirely selfish, the New York Stadium (it lies on an island called New York, would you believe), was the only stadium I needed to re-complete the 92 Football League and Premier League grounds. It would have been reasonably straightforward to blast up the M1 to get it done one midweek, but the story of Rotherham United’s homes is a tale that requires telling with attention to detail.

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Can’t touch Diss

08 Sunday Jan 2017

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Monday 2nd January 2017 ko 15.00

Eastern Counties League – Division One

DISS TOWN 2 (Blakely 34 Webb 74)

DEBENHAM LEISURE CENTRE 1 (Dixon 68)

Att 151

Entry £6

Programme £1

It was regular travel companion Chris Garner that suggested this one. I was scanning the fixtures without success when he pointed out that since the last Eastern Counties League club we’d visited was the Ghosts of Fakenham Town, the next really ought to be Diss Town. He was of course entirely correct, even if you do need to be aware of the music of the The Specials to understand his joke! Continue reading →

An F Please Bob

05 Thursday Jan 2017

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Friday 30th December 2016 ko 19.46

Hellenic League Premier Division

FLACKWELL HEATH 7 (Rapley 3 37 71p Bayliss 33 Thompson-Wheeler 55 Blount 60 72)

HENLEY TOWN 1 (Gardner 12) Griffiths sent off 72 (2nd booking)

Att 98

Entry £6

Programme £1

It had been years since my last visit to Wilks Park, in fact I think the last visit was during a Hellenic Hop game vs Oxford City Nomads. The league had spent our entire stint on its patch telling everyone that the Nomads weren’t Oxford City’s reserves, but City manager Mike Ford was at the game so a hopper sidled over and asked him. “These guys?” he replied, “Well basically they’re our reserves!” You can fool some of the people… Continue reading →

Ghost Train

04 Wednesday Jan 2017

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Wednesday 28th December 2016 ko 19.45

Eastern Counties League Premier Division

FAKENHAM TOWN 3 (Glover 21 Cary 24 Jarvis 52)

KIRKLEY & PAKEFIELD 4 (Eagleton 42 King 51 Lopez 66p Stone 79)

Att 45

Entry £5

Programme £1

It has to be said that the Norfolk town does have an intriguing nickname, there can’t be many, if any places who answer to, “The Ghosts!” The name references a poem by Robert Bloomfield, “The Fakenham Ghost,” but this was no ordinary apparition, it was the ghost of a donkey! Talk about “Drop the dead donkey!” Continue reading →

Understanding

01 Sunday Jan 2017

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Tuesday 27th December 2016 ko 11.00

Southern Combination Division One

BILLINGSHURST 3 (Hawkes 25 O’Sullivan 74 Barber 90)

MIDHURST & EASEBOURNE 0

Att 83

Entry £5

Programme £1

The nature of groundhopping can be inherently selfish, it is your own count of grounds visited after all, but just occasionally you see an opportunity where you can help. The more grounds you clock up you realise that other people will read a set of fixtures the same way. Here there were no end of opportunities to clock up 3 games in day, but when you looked at it a little closer you could see that the majority would start their day at Billingshurst. Continue reading →

The Strawberry Line

30 Friday Dec 2016

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Saturday 24th December 2016 ko 14.00

Somerset County League Premier Division

YATTON ATHLETIC 3 (Copeland 8 Morris 42p Walters 65)

MIDDLEZOY ROVERS 4 (Conway 9p Temlett 10 Wright 16 Williams 48) Turner sent off 42

Att 42

Entry FREE

No Programme

From Banwell I struck north and traced the route of the embankments of a long abandoned railway. The Cheddar Valley Line ran from Yatton to Cheddar and Wells until its closure in 1963, and became known as the “The Strawberry Line” due to the large quantities of the fruit it carried, bound for markets in London.  Continue reading →

Camp Banwell

29 Thursday Dec 2016

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Saturday 24th December 2016 ko 11.30

Somerset County League Division Two West

BANWELL 6 (Evans 2 M White 20 53 57 61 Bobruk 37)

1610 TAUNTON UNITED 1 (Barrance 6) Elsley sent off (Foul & Abusive Language) 87

Att 32

Entry FREE

No Programme

Free Coffee!!

Yes, I know it was Christmas Eve, but it was also Saturday, and there weren’t anywhere enough football matches on. There was Stokenchurch in the Hellenic but I was promised to Bristol in the morning, so my attentions turned to the Somerset County League. Continue reading →

Shafted

07 Wednesday Dec 2016

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Saturday 3rd December 2016 ko 14.00

Hellenic League Division One East

HEADINGTON AMATEURS 1 (L Cuff 65)

SANDHURST TOWN 2 (Bryce 24 41)

Att 16

Entry & Programme £2

This season there’s been a steady stream of clubs finding a way to return home. The likes of Hadley and Slough have got new grounds, but one return has rather sailed under the radar. Headington Amateurs have returned home, but unlike the other clubs this has been far from a happy ending.

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Relationships

04 Sunday Dec 2016

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Sunday 27th November 2016 ko 14.00

FA Women’s Premier League- Midlands Division 1

LOUGHBOROUGH STUDENTS WOMEN 1 (Colledge 68)

LONG EATON UNITED LADIES 4 (Newton 2 62 Moulton 40 Pashley 74)

Att 12 at Holywell Pitch 4, Loughborough University

Entry FREE

No Programme

For somewhere a two-hour drive from Oxford I don’t half see a lot of Loughborough University! It is of course entirely logical that a football enthusiast should see a lot of Britain’s leading university for sport, starting with the Paddock Pitch for Loughborough Students’ game with the now sadly defunct Woodbourne Sports. Then there was the more straightforward visit to the Holywell Stadium for Longborough University’s match with Heanor Town. Last time I discussed the relationship between town and university, but those games, and this visit hints at another relationship altogether. Continue reading →

Sunday Morning Coming Down

01 Thursday Dec 2016

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Sunday 27th November 2016 ko 10.30

Long Eaton Sunday League Premier Division

ATTENBOROUGH CAV’S 4 (Brady 22 Beaton 41 Ford 66 73)

LONG EATON T.N.I. 2 (17, 86p)

Att 15 at Beeston Fields Recreation Ground

Entry FREE

I completely understand why some groundhoppers won’t watch Sunday League football, it is a slightly different animal to the normal Saturday league action. The pace of life is more relaxed, you’re unlikely to see a stand or even a rail, and the variance of players’ talent is often huge across a team. But once you accept that there’s so much to enjoy. Continue reading →