Tag Archives: groundhoppers

The Famous Shed

05 Friday Dec 2025

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Monday 25th August 2025 ko 14:00

West Lancashire League Premier Division

TEMPEST UNITED 3 (Firth 19secs Pendlebury 29 Monson 86)

ROSSENDALE 2 (Wylie 9 Foster 21)

Att 470

Entry £3

Programme £2

From CMB it was both unusual and gratifying to see so many people walk the quarter-of-a-mile through Lostock to Tempest United. The is named after the road the ground is in but with there being little or no parking at The Famous Shed, it solved what could have been an logistical nightmare. That said we did walk past a pub on the way; it was closed and would undoubtedly done a roaring trade if they’d have known who was walking past. Still, their loss was the football club’s gain…

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Cee Em Bee

01 Monday Dec 2025

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Monday 25th August 2025 ko 11:00

West Lancashire League Premier Division

C.M.B. FC 1 (Winstanley 1)

EAGLEY FC 3 (Stafford 7p 90+ 2 Waterhouse 90+5)

Att 392

Entry £3

Programme £2

I had mixed feelings as we bought some seaside rock on Blackpool seafront. I do like the place, even if it is tripperish to the extreme and getting run-down to the point where at short notice we were able to find cheap hotel rooms at a major seaside resort, in high season.

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Bird Watching

06 Thursday Nov 2025

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Friday 22nd August 2025 ko 18:45

West Lancashire League Premier Division

BLACKPOOL WREN ROVERS 2 (King 58 68)

POULTON 1 (Hallan 55)

Scammell sent off (serious foul play) 72

Att 388

Entry £3

Programme £2

For groundhoppers of a certain age August Bank Holiday always added up to multiple games in Wales. The Welsh Hop lasted from 2002 to 2022 and we all missed the epic events they always were. Any replacement had to be good, and we even ran events without anything on August Bank Holiday for two years. The irony is that you could say the solution to it was in house…

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Peppermint

27 Tuesday May 2025

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Thursday 17th April 2025 ko 19:45

South West Peninsula League Premier West

NEWQUAY AFC 5 (Price 18 31 MacConie 81 Cole 90+2)

WENDRON UNITED 0

Att 1,854

Advance Ticket for all games on the hop £55

Entry £6

Programme £3

This year’s South West Peninsula League Hop was especially interesting on a few levels. The first was that the hop wasn’t just in the Peninsula League, organiser Phil Hiscox had decided to take in clubs in both the National League South and the St Piran Leagues. It certainly added more colour to an always excellent event.

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If You Want Bloods You Got It

30 Sunday Mar 2025

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Sunday 2nd March 2025 ko 14:30

North West Counties League Division One North

DROYLSDEN 3 (Kasali 11 Kattah 27 Van 49)

DARWEN 2 (Bailey 3 Severino 49)

Att 1,184

Entry £6

Programme £2

On one level it was fairly predictable that this game, the last of this year’s North West Counties League Hop would see a huge crowd but perhaps not this large! You could easily argue it was caused by a former National League Premier side facing off against a former Football League one. There were a few nuances though.

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The Shawcross Redemption

18 Tuesday Mar 2025

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Saturday 1st March 2025 ko 16:45

North West Counties League First Division South

NEW MILLS AFC 2 (Woods 13 Pavley 19)

Shawcross penalty saved 7

CHEADLE HEATH NOMADS 0

Att 558

Entry £6

Programme £2.50

We moved from Manchester’s environs for the last two games of Saturday’s North West Counties Hop. The scene moved from the urban to the countryside of the Derbyshire High Peak, as we approached New Mills.

The town was built around coal, spinning and calico printing, and was also a centre for Methodism. That fact partly explains why sweet manufacturer Swizzels Matlow are based here, taking over an old mill in 1940 and sweet treats such as Refreshers and Parma Violets are still produced in New Mills today. Confectionery and Methodism do seem to go hand in hand, Fry Club in Keynsham and Cadbury Athletic in Bourneville are other examples.

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The Transformation

07 Thursday Nov 2024

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Friday 4th October 2024 ko 19:45

Southern Counties East League Premier Division

SNODLAND TOWN 0

RUSTHALL 3 (Barton 5 Clover 60 Bissett 76)

Att 395

Entry £8

Programme £2

In GroundhopUK terms October added up to 12 games at 12 grounds in south-eastern England. The games were split over 2 weekends 3 weeks apart between the SCEFL and Southern Combination. In my terms that added up to 11 revisits, so I approached the two events as part organiser, part social event, and part seeing how some of the clubs and their facilities had changed. And nowhere across those twelve games saw more of a transformation than at Snodland’s Potyn’s Field.

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Down By The Riverside

12 Friday Apr 2024

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Saturday 16th March 2024 ko 16:45

East of Scotland League Premier Division

JEANFIELD SWIFTS 1 (F Smith 5)

DUNBAR UNITED 1 (Hendry 90+2)

Att 385

Entry £7

Programme £2.50

We stayed in Perth for the third game of the day, and arguably the club I was anticipating visiting the most. The reason for that was pretty arcane, I’d been very taken by them being willing to help the event back in 2019 by playing on a Saturday evening at Linlithgow Rose. It felt like a major undertalking on their part; I was and am grateful, and their fans did add a new beverage to the groundhop lexicon, namely “Dragon Soop!”

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More Than

24 Sunday Mar 2024

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Sunday 3rd March 2024 ko 14:30

North West Counties League Premier Division

CHARNOCK RICHARD 7 (Power 6 Bibby 33 Nickeas 45 57 64 Davies 74p Spinelli 87)

SKELMERSDALE UNITED 1 (Rodrigues 89)

Att 534

Entry £6

Programme £2

I’m sure my regular reader is aware of how my version of groundhoppers’ O.C.D. shows itself, I tend to make a beeline for clubs I regularly see on road signs. Well, that must go double for a motorway service station mustn’t it? Clearly, I’m not the only one who’s thought that, as virtually the first thing I saw as I walked into Mossie Park was a banner with the legend,” Charnock Richard, more than a service station!”

Quite right, and I hope the hop visit helped in that way. Certainly the club’s hosting helped!

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Ex

19 Tuesday Mar 2024

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Sunday 3rd March 2024 ko 11:45

North West Counties League Division One North

EUXTON VILLA 3 (Singleton 24 63 Briggs 37)

DARWEN 0

Att 618

Entry £5

Programme £2

Sunday dawned in Blackpool and I had two reasons to marvel. The first was the Savoy Hotel’s ability to shift legions of the various coach parties staying there through a buffet breakfast, whilst maintaining the piles of bacon, sausages and so on. The second was relevant only to the GroundhopUK party- we still had two matches to watch.

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