Tag Archives: groundhop

Paddy

23 Wednesday Mar 2022

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Saturday 5th March 2022 ko 13:00

North West Counties League Premier Division

PADIHAM 1 (Hoskin 45p)

ASHTON ATHLETIC 5 (McDermott 16 Carr 23 53 73 Morton 49og)

Att 378

Entry £8

Programme £2

It must have been around twenty years ago that Dean, a Blackburn-based groundhopper told me I simply had to visit the Arbories. Sadly Dean was lost to the groundhopping world a few years ago, and for no sensible reason it took me until now to finally visit. My way of looking at it, is that at least now I could bring Robyn too! Continue reading →

Back-Up

21 Monday Mar 2022

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Saturday 5th March 2022 ko 11:00

North West Counties League Division One North

BACUP BOROUGH 6 (Sherriff 7 Mellor 25 45 Hall K Siddle 77 Fallon 90)

ST HELENS TOWN AFC 1 (Korie-Butler 15p)

Clarke sent off 34 (foul & abusive)

Att 460

Entry £5

Programme £2

If Friday’s game at Golcar felt like we were in Northern Counties East then Saturday morning felt we’d crossed over the border into what I’d call traditional North West Counties territory. Bacup lies on the Lancashire side of the tripartite boundary of Yorkshire, Lancashire and Greater Manchester. As the advance party we had the all-important pre-booked programmes and advanced tickets to distribute- not everyone went to the Golcar game. Continue reading →

Travelling Without Moving

09 Wednesday Mar 2022

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Tuesday 1st March 2022 ko 19:45

Spartan South Midlands League Premier Division

RISBOROUGH RANGERS 5 (Enver-Marum 27 69 Osborne 41 80 Lamboh 90)

LONDON COLNEY 1 (Igriya 84)

Att 88

Entry £7

Programme FREE, 4 page printed, remainder downloadable 

I think it was in 2003 when I first visited Windsors. The oddity was that I’d just started a new job based in Amersham and on my first day day there I decided I needed a new work shirt. I finished early and headed for Aylesbury where in the local shopping centre’s department store a pleasant young man served me, and a couple of hours later I ended up watching him play for Risborough Rangers! Continue reading →

The Rail

02 Wednesday Feb 2022

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Saturday 29th January 2022 ko 15:00

Northern Counties East League- Division One

RETFORD FC 3 (Scott 37 45 L White 39)

CLIPSTONE FC 2 (Bennett 51og Finnernan 70)

Att 137

Entry £5

Programme £1

A quirk of my groundhopping past is that somehow I’d visited neither of the two Retford clubs. A lot of the reason for that is that the older club Retford United somehow managed to evade both the Central Midlands League’s and the Northern Counties East’s organised hops. Given the length of time those two hops ran that is an achievement of sorts. But Retford FC’s reason for never having featured on an organised hop is more straightforward- they didn’t exist until 2015! Continue reading →

Home and the Heart

19 Wednesday Jan 2022

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Saturday 15th January 2022 ko 15:00

EFL League 1

AFC WIMBLEDON 0

MORECAMBE 0

Att 7,128 (317 away)

Entry £26

Programme £3

On one hand you could see this as a means to an end. I needed to tick off AFC Wimbledon’s new ground for my 91st of the current EFL/Premier League grounds, and Robyn for a few less than that. Completionism isn’t really my thing, it tends to happen by accident! The “92” comes close to being an exception, partly because its completion was what started me groundhopping- I finished at Doncaster Rovers’ old home Belle Vue in 2006, and partly because I’m no fan of hard and fast rules! Continue reading →

More Than A Feeling

10 Monday Jan 2022

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Tuesday 28th December 2022 ko 15:00

National League North

BOSTON UNITED 1 (Elliott 72p)

BRACKLEY TOWN 3 (Ndlovu 20 90 Armson 31)

Armston penalty saved 69

Att 2,138 (46 away)

Entry £16 (seat-main stand)

Programme £3 (superb)

Teamsheet/raffle £1

Boston United and I go back a little way. As an Oxford United fan York Street seemed to be where our failing club seemed to send players that didn’t quite fit in. There was Simon Weatherstone who did well for the Pilgrims, his brother Ross who didn’t and aging striker Phil Gray who manager Steve Evans commented “He (Gray) had an ambition to play for Boston, I however had an ambition to send him back to Oxford”

Continue reading →

Family Ties

05 Wednesday Jan 2022

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Monday 27th December 2021 ko 14:00

Somerset County League-Premier Division

CLUTTON 0

MENDIP BROADWALK 9 (Hickery 8 37 Whittle 23 39 Caton 55p 80 Haggett 70 Biggins 82 Lutwama 85)

Att 85

Free Entry

After Chilcompton Sports there was absolutely no question as to where Robyn and I were heading. For one thing just about every other game in and around the Mendips had fallen foul of waterlogged pitches, and for another I had for the first time ever in my time groundhopping a family interest in who I’d be watching. Continue reading →

In Defence Of the Atcost

31 Friday Dec 2021

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Tuesday 21st December 2021 ko 19:45

Cymru Premier

FLINT TOWN UNITED 3 (Roberts 27 Cadwallader 75p 76)

Weaver sent off 87 (2nd Booking) 

CAERNARFON TOWN 4 (Hayes 21 Hughes 22 Edwards 41 Donohue 45p)

Simpson sent off 62 (Serious Foul Play)

Att 453

Entry £8

Programme £1 (re-issue from postponed game- cover price £2)

Teamsheet FREE

There are always those grounds that somehow evade your attention, and perhaps top of my list was Flint Town United’s Cae-Y-Castell. A lot of that was due to the pandemic and before that it slipped through the net despite a mixture of the Welsh Alliance Hops and a concerted effort around 15 years ago to visit as much as I could along the North Wales coast. So with both Robyn and I having finished work for Christmas and Robyn never having visited North Wales before, we took advantage of the Cymru Football App’s accuracy, and a twice postponed fixture. Continue reading →

Undercliff

08 Wednesday Dec 2021

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Tuesday 30th November 2021 ko 19:45

Southern Combination “Peter Bentley” Cup 2nd Round

SALTDEAN UNITED 3 (Pamment 2 Allen 6 Shelley 43)

ALFOLD 0

Att 62

Entry £5

Programme £1

It seems that I’m destined to complete the Southern Combination with a combination of the RUR Cup and the Peter Bentley Cup through those competitions’ midweek fixtures and yes, my ability to reach the grounds in 2 hours after work in Oxford. Continue reading →

Oh, my dear friend. How I’ve missed you.

07 Tuesday Dec 2021

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Sunday 21st November 2021 ko 11:00

Bridgend & District Sunday League

LITCHARD PARK 1 (Randall 41)

GARTH VADER 1 (Horrigan 74)

Roberts sent off FT (Foul & Abusive)

Att 5 at Pitch 4, Newbridge Fields, Bridgend.

Free Entry

I still have a theory that everyone who follows a big club ought to go and watch a game on a park pitch once in a while. I find it oddly cathartic to breathe cold Sunday morning air, to feel the grass give beneath my feet and even to watch the leaves fall like oversized rain drops from autumnal trees. So when my wife Robyn wanted to be in Bristol to see her former workmates on a Sunday morning I knew immediately what I wanted to do.

Continue reading →