Tag Archives: groundhop

Sphinx

10 Thursday Sep 2026

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Sunday 26th July 2026 ko 15:00

United Counties League Premier South

COVENTRY SPHINX 1 (Parker 64)

DESBOROUGH TOWN 2 (Blaikie 2 Bradshaw 18)

Att 422

Entry £8

Programme £2

In a hop that was, for me, made up entirely of revisits, a trip back Coventry Sphinx was intriguing. For those not in the know the club was formed in 1946 as the works team of Hawker Siddley which immediately made me think back to the Hawker YMCA ground in Kingston-on-Thames I’d visited a week or two earlier. The firm, now swallowed up by Rolls Royce made aircraft, and luxury cars, with one the Sphinx giving the football club an interesting name change in 1993 with the Coventry prefix being added in 1995.

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Adders

10 Thursday Sep 2026

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Saturday 25th July 2026 ko 18:00

United Counties League Premier South

ATHERSTONE TOWN 7 (Harkin 7 Edwards 31 Collins 51 Steele 79p Smith 82 Wood 89 Newey 90+1)

HIGHGATE UNITED 0

Att 558

Entry £9

Programme £3

If you’d have approached this year’s UCL hop on the basis that you knew nothing of any of the 6 grounds, they my advice would have been that Atherstone’s Sheepy Road, was by far the best of the bunch, and I don’t think that’s a controversial view.

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Fazeley

03 Thursday Sep 2026

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Saturday 25th July 2026 ko 14:30

United Counties League Premier South

COTON GREEN 3 (Evans 24 Letford 35 80)

O’Connor sent off 66 (2nd booking)

DAVENTRY TOWN 1 (Jackson 57)

Att 333

Entry £8

Programme £2

There were a few issues with this season’s UCL Hop. The main one was administrative, we had the coach and accomodation ready to go, but FA allocations, and appeals to those allocations made getting the fixtures for the event late- very late to be truthful. On a personal level I knew it would add up to an all-revisit weekend, I completed the league last season. You can still find plenty to enjoy over and above the social side of things, some of the grounds we visited I hadn’t visited in years and have changed quite a bit, and Coton Green was a case in point.

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The Bridge

20 Thursday Aug 2026

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Sunday 7th June 2026 ko 15:00

Division 6B Stockholm

BRO IK 3 (Tayeb 68 Zhao 80 84)

VÄLLINGBY AIK 0

Att 45 at Bro IP

Free Entry

The Swedish Hop cost £360 which included all transport from and to Arlanda Airport and between games, 2 nights bed and breakfast, and any admission fees.

They say always end on a good note, and leaving them wanting more. I tend to look at all the grounds we’re visiting well in advance, I do like to plan! I’d expected the opening ground on this year’s Swedish Hop to be wonderful, and Häradsvallen didn’t disappoint. I certainly didn’t expect Bro (pronounced “Brew”) to be another gem, clearly the photos I’d seen didn’t do the place justice!

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Winner Takes It All

14 Friday Aug 2026

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Sunday 7th June 2026 ko 13:00

Division 4 Norra Stockholm

SPÅNGA IS FF 8 (Falsen 3 Bergtoft 33 Callebro 38 46 54 Aga 55 73 Hussein 75p)

DANDERYDS SK FF 0

Att 77 at Spånga IP

Entry & Programme Free

The Swedish Hop cost £360 which included all transport from and to Arlanda Airport and between games, 2 nights bed and breakfast, and any admission fees.

There was time when I found the final day of the Swedish Hop hard work. I know how much gets invested in 3 days and 2 nights so when I sense it all ending there was always a sense of melancholy. In recent years, I’ve dealt with it by simply extending my stay, and organiser Kim Hedwall seems to have kept us all busy in any case!

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Friends

22 Wednesday Jul 2026

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Saturday 16th May 2026 ko 18:30

North Berkshire Cup Final

BERINSFIELD 3 (Holdsworth 33p Palmer 49 Hinkin 64)

COMPTON 0

Att 215 at Abingdon United FC

Entry & Programme £5

I can’t pretend I couldn’t see the demise of the North Berkshire League coming. When I left the league’s committee 2 years ago the league was down to 2 divisions from 5 when the league was at its peak. Like just about everyone involved in football in the Shire, I’d heard the rumours about a mass exodus to the Oxon Senior League, but hoped that it was either an exaggeration or that the league might find replacement clubs.

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The Oldest Club in… well….

17 Friday Jul 2026

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Saturday 2nd May 2026 ko 15:00

Shropshire County League Premier Division

LLANYMYNECH 1 (Thomas 46)

WHITCHURCH ALPORT 1946 5 (Jones 24 Milburn 25 Hailes 48 Owen 66 Cadman 87)

Att 21

Free Entry

Back in medieval times the border between modern day English Shropshire and Welsh Montgomeryshire must have been fairly porous. Even hundreds of years later there are still towns with Welsh names in England such as Trefonen and vice versa. But none managed to be quite as odd as Llanmynech the village that manages to be both English and Welsh!

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Coleridge

16 Thursday Jul 2026

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Saturday 18th April 2026 ko 15:00

Somerset County League Premier Division

CLEVEDON UNITED 1 (Morgan 63p)

CLEVEDON AFC 1 (Wilcox 5)

Att 327

Entry, Badge and Ticket (in advance) £7

I’d been impressed by the organisation at Congresbury but I also knew a hop game at Clevedon United came witb its own challenges. The ground at Coleridge (of Rime of the Ancient Mariner fame) Vale is both open, there is no boundary fence or wall, and the football pitch is adjacent to a rugby ground, and there would be a game taking place there at the same time as the football! It certainly looked a challenge!

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Zumerzet

13 Monday Jul 2026

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Saturday 18th April 2026 ko 11:30

Somerset County League Premier Division

CONGRESBURY 0

WORLE 0

Att 211

Entry, Programme, Bacon Roll, Badge £10 (if bought in advance)

On the day entry £4, Programme £2

From pretty much the moment that Bristolian Robyn and I became an item 10 years ago the Somerset County League has been a favourite destination on my regular visits west. There’s no secret that I’d like to see more organised groundhops at Step 7 and below, variety is the spice of life after all. GroundhopUK did speak with the league about an event for Somerset, but organising an eighth event in a season would have been too much for us. Our offering ended up being the West Lancashire League Hop in August, and the Somerset County League opted to organise their event for themselves.

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North West

08 Wednesday Jul 2026

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Monday 6th April 2026 ko 14:30

Northern League Division Two

SUNDERLAND WEST END 2 (Benali 14 30)

SUNDERLAND RYHOPE COMMUNITY ASSOCIATION 4 (Forster 7og Knight 74 79 Dumba 90+8)

Att 475 at Ford Quarry Sports Hub

Entry £5

Programme £2

When the Northern League emailed over the line-up for the Easter Hop over to GroundhopUK, I did what many other groundhoppers would do, and that is to see how many new ground “ticks” I’d be clocking up. And if that is the limit of your emotional involvement you’ll have an enjoyable weekend, but as organiser you’ll never be that divorced from it all.

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