24 Saturday Oct 2015
Posted in C
Saturday 17th October 2015 ko 16.30
Western League Premier Division
CADBURY HEATH 0
CRIBBS 0
Att 185
Entry £5
Programme £1
Once again another lean forward to check the coach driver’s sat-nav revealed another mile’s journey between games. And just like between the first two games we spotted someone who was walking between the games, so we offered him a lift to Keynsham after this one but he declined, perhaps he foresaw the score here!
20 Tuesday Oct 2015
Posted in Uncategorized
Saturday 17th October 2015 ko 11.00
Western League Premier Division
BITTON AFC 3 (Bryan 15 47 Tong 71)
STREET 3 (Murray 10 21 Hunt 22)
Att 217
Entry £5
Programme £1
Even with the amount of events GroundhopUK now runs, the chance to run a hop in a completely new league is still relatively unusual. So the chance to approach the project with a blank sheet of paper was no bad thing. We have a tried and tested way of doing things for Step 5 and 6 leagues but there is always both room for improvement, and a sense of new light through old windows was a thought worth pursuing. Continue reading
19 Monday Oct 2015
Posted in C
Friday 16th October 2015 ko 19.45
Western League Division One
CORSHAM TOWN 1 (Lardner 82)
CALNE TOWN 2 (Windsor 12 Beasley 54)
Att 293
Entry £5
Programme £1
If you metaphorically scratch the surface of the Western League Hop, you get League General Secretary Mark Edmonds. It was him who put the idea in as part of his successful application to the role, and it was him who first put the idea to his clubs. From GroundhopUK’s perspective we’d had an abortive attempt at the project a decade or so earlier, so we hadn’t even considered the idea. But all kinds of coincidences happened to make this happen. Continue reading
21 Monday Sep 2015
Posted in E
Tags
East Hendred, GroundhopUK, James Rennie, Long Wittenham Athletic, North Berkshire Groundhop, North Berkshire League
Saturday 19th September 2015 ko 16.30
North Berkshire League Division One/ James Rennie Memorial Trophy
EAST HENDRED AFC 1 (Rowe 48)
LONG WITTENHAM ATHLETIC 1 (Cheong 24)
Att 204
Entry & Programme £4
Badge £3
“They dined on mince, and slices of quince,
Which they ate with a runcible spoon;
And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand,
They danced by the light of the moon,
The moon,
The moon,
They danced by the light of the moon.”
Except from “The Owl and the Pussycat” by Edward Lear
For someone who had only ever seen one game previously at Mill Lane, I seem to have visited this place a lot! The most abiding memory is the the series of meetings I attended in 2010 to get the North Berkshire Hop up and running. I met a third of the clubs across three meetings, and one of those was here. I remember one comment especially, Continue reading
21 Monday Sep 2015
Tags
Benson Lions, GroundhopUK, Grove Rangers, North Berkshire hop, North Berkshire League, Wasbrough Field
Saturday 19th September 2015 ko 13.30
North Berkshire League Division 3
GROVE RANGERS 4 (Pickering 2 Vaux 18 Cramp 21 22)
BENSON LIONS 1 (Radcliffe 88)
Att 154
Entry & Programme £4
Badge £3
The first clubs on my wish list for this hop were Grove and the Lions. They’d kept us royally entertained at the Defence Academy last time round, so it seemed entirely logical that we’d simply reverse the fixture this time. What I entirely forgot about was the full sized model of the De Havilland Venom nearby, marking the site of RAF Grove which closed in 1974, but also I felt also marking the visitors’ links to the RAF. Continue reading
20 Sunday Sep 2015
Posted in H
Tags
GroundhopUK, Hanney United, MARCHAM, North Berkshire hop, North Berkshire League, War Memorial Hall
Saturday 19th September 2015 ko 10.30
North Berkshire League Division Two
HANNEY UNITED 4 (Bishop 16p 41 Woodside 75 Woodside 88)
MARCHAM 2 (Larman 7 Dobbs 24)
Att 171
Entry & Programme £4
Badge £3
You have to be an enthusiast to organise a groundhop. I mean you wouldn’t subject themselves to the kind of day I had unless you enjoy it. Its not often that you find yourself at Radio Oxford at 7.40 in the morning to publicise the hop one last time, then get a lift to the other side of town to collect the last of our 3 minibuses before pick-ups at Steventon and Didcot Parkway station. Continue reading
20 Sunday Sep 2015
Posted in W
Tags
Abingdon Town, AFC WALLINGFORD, GroundhopUK, Hithercroft, North Berkshire Groundhop, North Berkshire League, Wallingford Town
Friday 18th September 2015 ko 19.45
North Berkshire League Division One
WALLINGFORD TOWN 0
ABINGDON TOWN 1 (Pitson 59)
Att 125
Entry & Programme £4
There are so many tales I could tell of the North Berkshire League. The most important one for me personally is that they invited me on to their/our management committee a few weeks ago. It’s a massive honour, and validation for what Media Officer Phil Annets, GroundhopUK’s Chris Berezai and I have done together for the last 4 years’ worth of hops. What it did do too was imply more pressure on this year’s event, and true to form we ended up having to work far harder for our success than in previous years. Continue reading
13 Sunday Sep 2015
Posted in P
Monday 31st August 2015 ko 18.15
Welsh Alliance Divsion Two
PENMAENMAWR PHOENIX 3 (S Williams 21 Z Davies 44 Paddock 90)
GREENFIELD 4 (Pritchard 38 Beck 56 Henley 58 80)
Att 431 (Welsh Hop record)
Entry £3
Programme £1
Badge £3
Recently I attended a funeral of a mutual friend of my ex-wife and I. Since we split up 5 years ago we’ve only spoken a handful of times and never met. We both knew the other would be present, so the nervous tension built up in the days before. Fortunately we found time for a brief chat before the service, and whilst we’ll never be friends I stood at the back of the chapel and felt the tension slowly dissipate, rather like the valve on a pressure cooker. It wasn’t the first time I’d felt like that in the last few weeks. Continue reading
10 Thursday Sep 2015
Posted in P
Tags
Chester University, Chris Berezai, Gaerwen, GroundhopUK, Pentraeth, Wales, Welsh Alliance, Welsh Groundhop
Monday 31st August 2015 ko 11.30
Welsh Alliance Division 2
PENTRAETH 10 (McGonnigle 1 18 54 55 R Roberts 14 Monument 18 37 C Jones 59 89 D Owen 72)
GAERWEN 2 (McGuiness 21 Leuthwaite 27)
Att 376
Entry £3
Programme £1
Badge £3
As the coach pulled in back at Chester University the previous evening I remember glancing up at the evening sky. It was dark, with nothing to see, but I’d remembered the previous year’s hop at the pouring rain at Kinmel Bay and how disappointed I’d felt that we’d finished the longest hop of the year on a damp squib. That was a feeling enhanced at 2.30am when I woken by the rain lashing down against the window pane. I slept fitfully after that and when it was still raining at breakfast it took driver Jase to laugh, “Don’t worry mate, it’s not raining in Bangor!” to make me smile. Continue reading
07 Monday Sep 2015
Tags
Cae Pel Droed, Chris Berezai, GroundhopUK, Meliden, Mynydd Llandegai, Wales, Welsh Alliance, Welsh Groundhop
Sunday 30th August 2015 ko 18.00
Welsh Alliance Division 2
MYNYDD LLANDEGAI 3 (M Smith 6 M Hughes 70p Whitmore 74)
MELIDEN 2 (Buckley 15 Szabo 78)
Att 305
Entry £3
Programme £1
Badge £3
We left Llanrug and climbed into the mountains of Snowdonia and then we climbed some more. The roads narrowed, the heather turned purple almost it seemed through oxygen deprivation, and eventually we reached the tiny village of Mynydd (Mountain) Llandegai. Continue reading
Football: Wherever it may be 