Tag Archives: groundhop

Mills

16 Friday Oct 2026

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Sunday 30th August 2026 ko 14:00

West Lancashire League Premier Division

EAGLEY 2 (Stafford 41 O’Mahoney 67)

HURST GREEN 2 (J Craven 90+3 Bowlin 90+4)

Att 359

Entry £5

Programme £2

We stayed in Bolton’s environs for our next game, and a steady stream of traffic inched to an industrial estate with a sports ground at the back. That gave a hint as to the background of one of the oldest clubs in Lancashire.

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The English Game

13 Tuesday Oct 2026

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Sunday 30th August 2026 ko 11:00

West Lancashire League Division One

STONECLOUGH 3 (Greenhalgh 14 Howlin 36 80)

Bentley sent off 67 (2nd booking)

CHIPPING 2 (Edmundson 10 Hewitt 74)

Att 324

Entry £5

Programme £1

The third day of the West Lancashire Hop saw us stay in Bolton’s envirions, but of all the games on this year’s event the one I was most looking forward to was Stoneclough, and for the oddest of reasons. Put simply the ground is a star of Netflix!

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The Bride

11 Sunday Oct 2026

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Saturday 29th August 2026 ko 17:00

West Lancashire League Division 2

GALGATE 2 (Moore 45+2 McKeeking 78)

Lewis sent off 62 (DOGSO)

APPLEY BRIDGE 3 (Ray 11 Atkins 64 90+2)

Att 268

Entry & Programme £5

From Storeys to the village of Galgate the heavens opened. I smiled at two ironies, the firest was that the rain would help the rhubarb that grows prolifically here, and was once reckoned to havge been used to dye the silk that once was spun here. The second was that since we were sat in a traffic jam, I knew the hop was causing it, and so the weather wasn’t putting people off.

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At The Heart

06 Tuesday Oct 2026

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Saturday 29th August 2026 ko 11:00

West Lancashire League Division Two

CATON UNITED 1 (Curwen 69)

LANGHO 5 (Clarke 7 McLoughlin 56 Darcy 57 Cumpstey 73 Phelps 90+3)

Att 241

Entry £5

Programme £2

Saturday on the West Lancs Hop was unquestionably Lancaster day, even if the pedants like me would point out that the village of Caton does lie a few miles outside! It is a pretty place, and we did get to see more of it than normal as car parking at the Caton Sports Field is limited, so an overspill car park was organised a 5 minute walk away. It did serve to burn off some off my hotel breakfast!

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Cream

05 Monday Oct 2026

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Friday 28th August 2026 ko 18.30

West Lancashire League Division One

COPPULL UNITED 1 (Richardson 80)

FRECKLETON 3 (Kelsey 43 61 Ako 64og)

Att 353

Entry & Programme £5

You may find this surprising, but I think you see GroundhopUK at its very best when it operates at Step 7 or below. Let me explain; if you understand the organised groundhop as a compromise between the needs of clubs, leagues and groundhoppers, then the needs of the groundhopper- game, programme, and badge you’d think would be mostly easily be satisfied at Steps 5 & 6, or would they?

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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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