Tag Archives: GroundhopUK

Silkmore

04 Tuesday Apr 2023

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Sunday 5th March 2023 ko 11:45

North West Counties League Division One South

BROCTON 1 (Smith 61)

STOCKPORT GEORGIANS 0

Curbishley sent off 76 (2nd booking)

Att 457

Entry £6

Programme £2

Sunday on the hop dawned, and as a coachload of hoppers kept a Stafford hotel’s staff busy replenishing the bacon at the breakfast bar. I contemplated the day’s football, two Stafford-based teams, or in purely personal terms two revisits! Brocton is a village to the south east of Stafford but the club bearing their game play at the former Staffordshire Police Ground in Silkmore Lane, in Stafford itself. Continue reading →

Pershall

31 Friday Mar 2023

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Saturday 4th March 2023 ko 19:45

North West Counties League Division One South

ECCLESHALL 2 (Pickup 82 Stanton 90)

Lewis sent off 86 (violent conduct)

BARNTON 1 (T Turkington 72)

T Turkington sent 86 (violent conduct)

Att 314

Entry £6

Programme £2

Memory is an oddity- I’d visited Eccleshall back in September 2008 and remembered it being far closer to the Stoke interchange on the M6 than this. Perhaps the difference was we were on our fourth game of the day… and that it was bitingly cold. In fact you’re a good deal closer to Stafford to Stoke, and you will pass by HMP Prison Drake Hall on the way there! Continue reading →

Hulton

29 Wednesday Mar 2023

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Saturday 4th March 2023 ko 16:45

North West Counties League Division One South

ABBEY HULTON UNITED 0

CHEADLE HEATH NOMADS 0

Att 367

Entry £5

Programme £2

As the sun set so the temperature fell. It didn’t take long for us to reach the car park at Birches Head Road from Foley Meir. That was a task made easier by some well thought out traffic marshalling by the Abbey Hulton volunteers . But I was aware the coach was struggling, picking its way along narrow lanes and we were getting concerned we might have to delay kick-off slightly. Craig and I dashed into the ground, expecting to have to make ourselves useful.  We didn’t, the club were completely in control and the coach arrived well before kick-off. Continue reading →

Foley

27 Monday Mar 2023

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Saturday 4th March 2023 ko 13:00

North-West Counties League Division One South

FOLEY MEIR 0 

MAINE ROAD 1 (Keyworth 68)

Livesey (gk) sent off 13 (foul & abusive)

Att 303

Entry £6

Programme £1

For Saturday’s second game we headed to Stoke-on-Trent, for what was, for me at least, the most surprising visit on the hop. I’d visited Whitcombe Road back in 2010 when the club were still just Foley FC for a Staffordshire County League game. The ground was just as basic as it gets, albeit with a wonderful vista of Stoke from behind the near goal. I just couldn’t imagine that the club could get the place fit for pyramid football. I am wrong on occasion…. just ask my wife Robyn! Continue reading →

Gilbert

23 Thursday Mar 2023

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Saturday 4th March 2023 ko 11:00

North West Counties League Division One South

ROCESTER 0

SANDBACH UNITED 4 (Tatters 22 Fitzpatrick 44 Cope 48 Barton 85)

Att 356

Entry £6

Programme £1

I should start by answering the two most frequent questions asked about Rocester; it’s near Uttoxeter and its pronounced Roaster! We set off from Stafford knowing that we had 4 completely different grounds to visit. On a personal note, I knew 3 of them, and I fully expected Rocester’s to be my highlight, at least on architectural grounds. Continue reading →

Borders

22 Wednesday Mar 2023

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Friday 3rd March 2023 ko 19:45

North-West Counties League- Division One South

ELLESMERE RANGERS 2 (Harris 62 Rogers 79)

ALSAGER TOWN 1 (Bebbington 34)

Att 272

Entry £5

Programme £1

It would be so easy to paint this as Robyn and I’s return to GroundhopUK duty, but in reality we hadn’t stopped, even after the final games in the SCEFL Hop. Robyn gradually took over social media duties, and you really couldn’t have failed to see her efforts on the @NWCLHop2023 account. That really helped us both to tease the hop, but also to update people too. Continue reading →

Lads

09 Thursday Feb 2023

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Monday 27th December 2022 ko 15:00

Hellenic League Premier Division

HEREFORD LADS CLUB 0

WESTFIELDS 6 (Pitman 15 Hunt 23 McDonald 34 Muirhead 41 Edwards 65 Newbury 82p)

Att 460

Entry £7

Programme £1

I remember the phone calls last Easter all too well, with Lads Club being on the previous Hellenic Hop why as GroundhopUK’s deputy organiser wasn’t I there ? After all, I hadn’t missed an organised hop in years! The truth was that finally Robyn and I managed to get on the honeymoon in Austria that the pandemic had delayed by 2 years. That said, it didn’t stop me taking calls asking what was going on with the Worcester Raiders game? The catch was that I was watching FC Balzers of Liechtenstein at the time! Continue reading →

Furlong

26 Thursday Jan 2023

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Saturday 10th December 2022 ko 15:00

Combined Counties League- Premier Division North

ASCOT UNITED 2 (Matthew 32p A Grant 74)

Bouwers sent off 27 (dangerous play)

EGHAM TOWN 0

Att 161

Entry £7

Programme online only 

In my groundhopping life I’m used to having a backup plan. In simple terms it means having an alternate game to go and watch if something happens at my intended destination. I’m far less used however, to having to find another game when I’m on season ticket duty at Oxford United. That said, I did have notice, the frost was bitter and the game was called off early. All I had to do was pick an interesting ground to show my wife Robyn. Continue reading →

Making It Work

08 Thursday Dec 2022

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Sunday 9th October 2022 

11:00 Southern Counties East League- Premier Division

RUSTHALL 4 (Fares 9 Clark 16 Gitiba 60 Baldwin78)

K SPORTS 2 (Holliday 27 Lewins 48)

Att 344

Entry £8

Programme £2

14:00 Southern Counties East League- Premier Division

TUNBRIDGE WELLS 1 (McCreadie 58)

LORDSWOOD 1 (Reid 32)

Att 518

Entry £8

Programme £2

Without a massive amount of evidence I felt supremely confident about the SCEFL Hop’s Sunday schedule. Part of it was that I felt I knew the clubs a little, I’s seen what a go-ahead club Rusthall are when I’d visited 9 years ago, and my visit to Tunbridge Wells  a year later gave me the impression that they were an Isthmian League club in waiting. Normally my internalised challenge to clubs I revisit on hops is to change my perception of them., here I wanted them to reinforce my view. There were a couple of snags with that though. Continue reading →

Men of Kent

01 Thursday Dec 2022

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Saturday 8th October 2022

11:00 Southern Counties East League Division One

STAPLEHURST MONARCHS 1 (Osagie 74)

ROCHESTER UNITED 0

Att 331

Entry £6

Programme £2

15:00 Southern Counties East League Premier Division

BEARSTED 2 (Freeman 18 52)

FISHER 1 (Kationa 52)

Att 229

Entry/ Parking/ Programme £8

17.45 Southern Counties East League Division One

LARKFIELD & NEW HYTHE 2 (Burdon 13 West 30)

GREENWAYS 1 (Saxton 49)

Att 243

Entry £5

Programme £1

There could be no doubt as to how important the SCEFL saw the groundhop; they did as the South Wales Alliance did and placed an official on the coach, mainly to help with directions but to troubleshoot where needed. Having Barry Fenn around was a godsend, not just for what he was mandated to do, but for the little nuggets of knowledge he imparted on the way. Continue reading →