Tag Archives: groundhop

Finale

30 Friday Oct 2026

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Monday 31st August 2026 ko 14:00

West Lancashire League Premier Division

ROSSENDALE FC 4 (Wilde 18 26 Mensay 75 90)

MILNTHORPE CORINTHIANS 0

Att 278

Entry £5

Programme £2

The final club on this year’s West Lancashire Hop proved to be a little controversial. Part of it was who Rossendale are, but more was where they play.

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Taking Heed

29 Thursday Oct 2026

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Monday 31st August 2026 ko 11:00

West Lancashire League Premier Division

HASLINGDEN ST MARYS 2 (Anderson 12 Halwey 82)

LOSTOCK ST GERARDS 2 (Gainge 19 Markland 23)

Att 315

Entry £5

Programme £2

Attending a hop game at Haslingden St Marys was a little unusual. For a start there was a question of which club we were watching. It wasn’t the Haslingden that were a North West Counties League team from 1993 to 1998 at Ewood Bridge, in Rossendale a ground later used by Stand Athletic and now derelict.

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Eldest

26 Monday Oct 2026

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Sunday 30th August ko 17:00

West Lancashire League Division One

TURTON 0

CARNFORTH RANGERS 3 (Holmes 11 44 Johnson 44)

Att 314

Entry £5

Programme £2

In just about every groundhop that’s ever been organised there’s always one club that proves to be a problem. Normally it’s a failure to communicate so the ideas that make these events successful don’t take root, and so the club runs the risk of failing to make the best of their opportunity. There was little doubt that Turton FC’s staging was always going to create issues, but this is the story of they moved heaven and earth to make their part of the West Lancs Hop work.

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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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