Tag Archives: groundhop

Adur

30 Wednesday Jan 2019

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Tuesday 8th January 2019 ko 19.45

Southern Combination Division One

SOUTHWICK 0 

SELSEY 2 (Coates 55 Miller 77) Jefkins sent off 38 (2nd booking)

Att 35

Entry £5

Programme £1

I’m not sure how I managed to miss this place. 35 years ago I regularly used to visit my aunt in Hove (actually) and since she owned a beach hut in Shoreham we regularly took the train from Hove and given that the line runs behind Old Barn Way, I must have passed here many many times. Somehow I managed to contrive to miss Southwick’s home, but I can assure you, that wouldn’t happen on a train now! Continue reading →

The Pocket Borough

26 Wednesday Sep 2018

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Tuesday 14th August 2018 ko 19.45

Wessex League Division One

DOWNTON 2 (Hooper 67 Prentice 78)

TOTTON & ELING 1 (Gain 58)

Att 78

Entry & Programme £5

There are no end of settlements called Downton, in fact there are at least two in the Wessex League’s footprint. This Downton is a pretty as a picture village in South Wiltshire, the nearest city is Salisbury and you pass by several military bases, to get here, Porton Down being probably the most well-known. Downton is also remembered as being the village that managed to elect an MP without the candidate knowing! Continue reading →

Patterns

16 Wednesday May 2018

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Saturday 14th April 2018 ko 11.00

FA Premier U18 League

SWANSEA CITY 0

LEICESTER CITY 0

Att 113 @ Landore Training Centre

Entry FREE

Teamsheet FREE

With the Welsh Spring Hop almost completely rejigged we left our hotel at Carmarthen a little earlier than usual. With the loss of the Carmarthenshire League’s fixtures I found myself feeling a pang of regret as the coach turned left out of the hotel and headed towards Pont Abraham and the M4. I remembered our 4 year stint in the Ceredigion League where we turned right and headed north; I don’t remember a club on those hops who didn’t host beautifully. It’s a shame we’ve completed the league and there’s no new grounds to visit. But that’s in the past sadly, and there was a trip to Swansea City’s training ground to ponder. Continue reading →

Milestone

11 Friday May 2018

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Wednesday 11th April 2018 ko 18.00

Oxford City FA League

HEADINGTON BUTCHERS 1 (Rowbotham 80)

DORCHESTER 3 (Kay 18 Brown 46 J Lyne 58)

Att 5 at Sandy Lane Sports Ground, Oxford

Free Entry

By far the most common question about groundhopping I get asked is how many grounds I’ve done. It’s an obvious one, but it’s also one with little meaning, after all it’s a figure that is only really relevant to myself. There is no award, thank God, to the groundhopper with the most grounds visited.  I used to celebrate each hundredth  ground I visited, 900 was the Cardiff City Stadium, and the thousandth was Newbridge (on Wye) Town.

Since then those milestones have felt less and less important, but there was an unintended consequence of Honiton Town’s game on the Easter Hop being moved to Exwick Villa, a ground I’d visited before. Continue reading →

The Hammer of Tours

30 Monday Apr 2018

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Saturday 31st March 2018 ko 11.00

South West Peninsula League Division One East

ST MARTINS 4 (Watson 5 90 Davies 62 Richards 81)

ALPHINGTON 0

Att 383

Entry £4

Programme £1

Finally, an organised hop in the UK in 2018 saw a day with pleasant weather. It seemed an almost entirely different journey from Paignton to Exeter than it had been during the rain-soaked preceding two days. Robyn and I headed to Exeter’s southernmost suburbs, to the almost subsumed village of Exminster, with the austere-looking form of the former Devon Mental Hospital overlooking proceedings. The building was designed by Charles Fowler who also designed the main Covent Garden market building, and is converted to housing, but the feeling of unease still persists about the place.  Continue reading →

Head Above Water

23 Monday Apr 2018

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Friday 30th March 2018 ko 15.00

South West Peninsula League Division One East

HONITON TOWN 0

ILFRACOMBE TOWN 1 (Montague 55)

Att 227 at Exwick Villa FC

Hop Ticket £25 (no programmes included)

Entry £3

Programme £1

On any organised hop there’s always a “Highlight” game, it’s the game that as organiser you know that your patrons will look at the hop’s fixtures, and think “That’s the one I really want.” It doesn’t have to be the best appointed ground, just the one that grabs people’s attention, and for this hop it was Honiton’s Mountbatten Park, if for no other reason than it’s Honiton’s first season in the Peninsula League and so the fewest number of hoppers would have visited before. Continue reading →

Dengie Fever

22 Thursday Feb 2018

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Tuesday 21st February 2018 ko 19.55

Essex Senior League

BURNHAM RAMBLERS 1 (Hughes 10)

SAWBRIDGEWORTH TOWN 2 (Mays 52 Thomas 90)

Att 16

Entry £6

Programme £1

“Huh, because I’m happy
Clap along if you feel like a room without a roof
Because I’m happy
Clap along if you feel like happiness is the truth”

Pharrell Williams “Happy” 2013

My car came to rest in the Leslie Field’s car park. It was a cold, dank evening; even the operatives in the “Hand Car Wash” operating here had gone home. But Pharrell Williams’ hit could be heard from within the football ground, and all felt well with the world, sadly the song served only to mask the club’s problems.  Continue reading →

Onwards & Upwards

10 Wednesday May 2017

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Sunday 16th April 2017 ko 14.30

North West Counties League Division One

ASHTON TOWN 0

STOCKPORT TOWN 2 (Hinchliffe 29p 57)

Att 315

Entry £5

Programme £1.50

If any future host club at a groundhop wants a piece of advice on how best to endear themselves to the organiser I suggest having someone waiting to guide in the coach when we arrive at the ground. It sets the tone for the visit, in confirming competence and in the case of Ashton Town I’m not sure we’d have found the parking spot without help. You couldn’t help but like Ashton Town, tucked away as they are between the houses in the middle of Ashton-in-Makerfield but we all knew they had their own problems over and above coping with a crowd up to 10 times normal. Continue reading →

The Compromise

06 Saturday May 2017

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Saturday 15th April 2017 ko 15.00

Northern Counties East League Premier Division

ARMTHORPE WELFARE 1 (Pearce 88)

HEMSWORTH MINERS WELFARE 6 (Connolly 4 Law 31 Collier 34 63 82 90)

Att 231

Entry £5

Programme £1.50

I’d started worrying the week before, and those worries were accentuated when counting the crowd at Rossington Main. We’d set this hop up on a “3 games in a day” basis, as we’d thought that 13 games in 4 and a bit days was enough football even for me! That format does come with a risk though and we’d just encountered the perfect storm as an organiser.

Continue reading →

Liking it Beside

23 Thursday Mar 2017

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Saturday 11th March 2017 ko 16.00

Carmarthenshire League Premier Division

SEASIDE 2 (Rogers 31 66)

CARMARTHEN STARS 0 Howells sent off (dangerous play) 86

Att 175

Entry & Programme £3

As any groundhop organiser will tell you the psychology is that you look to the clubs that have the best plans. Chris Berezai and I both knew that Evans & Williams our previous hosts simply hadn’t had the time to host as either they or we would have liked, so we looked to a club with absolutely rock-solid plans, and Seaside certainly came up trumps. Continue reading →