Tag Archives: GroundhopUK

Battleground

25 Wednesday Mar 2015

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Saturday 21st March 2015 ko 15.30

Lowland League

SELKIRK 1 (See 58)

THE SPARTANS 1 (Brown 84)

Att 281

Entry £5

Programme £2

With so much riding on this hop I was nervous as the coach left Innerleithen for our middle game of the day. It’s that word “middle” that’s key, on any organised groundhop you tend to see, “Drift” where hoppers find an alternative games for the middle game on a Saturday when the competition for them is at its greatest. The solution is to schedule 4 games so that the hopper has to miss 2 hop games to go elsewhere but the geography and the lack of floodlights at Selkirk’s Yarrow Park made that impossible. Continue reading →

The Game Changer

23 Monday Mar 2015

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Friday 20th March 2015 ko 19.45

Lowland League

EAST KILBRIDE 1 (McLeish 64)

WHITEHILL WELFARE 0

Att 491

Entry £5

Programme £2

Badge £3

In 1992 the Northern League’s Mike Amos invented the organised groundhop, a series of staggered kick-offs with transport between the fixtures. Phil Hiscox took the concept to the South-West and GroundhopUK’s Chris Berezai to Wales, but Scotland had never seen a groundhop. That wasn’t through lack of trying, we at GroundhopUK tried for the Highland League who told us variously that they didn’t need any extra crowds, and that we’ve never bring them, “More than 30 hoppers.” A region of the Juniors even told us we could hold a hop in their leagues but all the games would have to kick-off at 2.30 on a Saturday….

To be honest, we’d given up and when hoppers mentioned the idea we’d trot out one of the stories and shrug our shoulders. A shame, but that was life.

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The legend of Emlyn Wyvern

13 Friday Mar 2015

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Saturday 7th March 2015 ko 19.30

Ceredigion League Division One

NEWCASTLE EMYLN 2 (Almond 33 Jake Harris 67)

NEW QUAY 0

Att 194

Entry £3

Programme £1

Badge £3

The irony of this being the only time that the Ceredigion Hop could stage a Saturday night game with only three games left on the entire 4 year run was not lost on me. The hoppers’ cavalcade travelled south from Aberaeron and encountered a Police speed trap at Ffostrasol.

Twenty or so brake lights flashed in succession, and I was tempted to stop and comment to the sole policeman that if the local constabulary wanted to make money from the groundhop, we at GroundhopUK would have been happy for them to have a stall to sell goodies at any of our games. Perhaps it was our insistence that stall-holders have a full ticket for the entire event that was the problem? Continue reading →

The Blazer Rule

12 Thursday Mar 2015

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Saturday 7th March 2015 ko 13.15

Ceredigion League Division One

FELINFACH 1 (Taylor 63)

BARGOD RANGERS 1 (Terry 14)

Att 245

Entry £3

Programme £1

Badge £3

Many years ago we at GroundhopUK organised a hop, and only one person on the committee of the league turned up to support the event. On one hand it didn’t really matter, the main thing the league does with a groundhop is schedule the fixtures, but it rankled with us to the extent that we didn’t organise another hop in that league. If you don’t have the league firmly behind you, in the long term you don’t have a hop.

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Chapel

09 Monday Mar 2015

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Saturday 7th March 2015 ko 10.15

Ceredigion League Division Two

DEWI STARS 6 (Owens 16 23 29 37 W Williams 74 Thomas 87)

S.D.U.C. 1 (Kennedy 45)

Att 174

Entry £3

Programme £1

Badge £3

When you organise the final hop of a league’s run, you always have the difficulty of putting together a schedule with clubs that aren’t necessarily ideally placed geographically. To add to that we had the necessity to put the Dewi Stars on the Saturday as the playing field is owned by the chapel in Llanddewi Brefi, and they objected to the club playing on a Sunday. Yes, that’s right, Llanddewi Brefi of “Little Britain” fame, and as I demolished an early breakfast in Carmarthen my aim for my visit was to dispel the notion of “Only Gay in the village” however funny Matt Lucas’ sketches were.

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The Loneliness Of The Long Distance Organiser

09 Monday Mar 2015

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Friday 6th March 2015 ko 19.30

Welsh League Division One

BRITON FERRY LLANSAWEL 3 (Cockings 10 Jones 60 D Hudson 73)

GARDEN VILLAGE 0 Vickers sent off 85 (2nd booking)

Att 258

Special GroundhopUK package (Entry, buffet, programme and talk on club) £10

Normal Entry £4

Programme £1

The very worst bit of being a groundhop organiser is the trip down to your base for the weekend, in this case Carmarthen. You know you’ve done all the preparation, the league is 100% behind you, the host clubs are ready, and the gazebos are being erected as you drive along the M4. You know that local journalist Chris Harte has all the programmes and badges for the event stored in his library. You’ve covered every base you can, but still the nagging doubt is always there, what could go wrong, and what will go wrong, yes something will, you are dealing with people not robots after all. Yes, its a lonely drive down, even if you’ve got (as I did) passengers. Continue reading →

Looking Back

31 Wednesday Dec 2014

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Hindsight is a wonderful thing, so with 2015 nearly upon us let’s cast a final glance on 2014, after all some exceptional places did get a visit! If you’d like to see more of the places featured, the links with take you to the original articles.

January saw a week’s visit to Malta, and between avoiding nervous British pensioners, and my attempts to source the biggest full English breakfast on the Island, we did manage to watch 9 games. For me there were two highlights, the games on Gozo, where there seemed to be more capacity in the Catholic Churches than residents!

SONY DSC

Of Continue reading →

Jethro

22 Monday Sep 2014

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Saturday 20th September 2014 ko 10.00

North Berkshire League Division One

CROWMARSH GIFFORD 0

WALLINGFORD TOWN 1 (Searle 54)

Att 215

Entry & Programme £4

Beer; Loddon Brewery

Food: Breakfast baps, pizza

Off the top of my head this was the earliest time we at GroundhopUK have ever asked a club to kick-off, due entirely to getting 4 games on in a day, and giving people enough time to get through security at the MOD base later on.

I rather took to the town where Jethro Tull invented the seed drill when I visited them over a year ago report here, then again when they were the opponents at Long Wittenham in the final game of last year’s hop. Whilst the Recreation Ground isn’t the easiest to find, tucked as is behind a new housing development, there was plenty of space to work with. Continue reading →

The Welsh Lourdes

04 Thursday Sep 2014

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Monday 25th August 2014 ko 11.00

Welsh Alliance Division One

HOLYWELL TOWN 3 (Lloyd 4 Tyson 40 G Williams 69)

LLANDYRNOG UNITED 0

Att 377

Entry £4

Programme £1

Badge £3

Back at the University of Chester my alarm sounded, and I dashed over to the window and peeked through the curtains. My heart sank as I watched the rivulets chase each other down the pane. 3 games left, including one we were worried about, but as I stepped into a shower (the portent of things to come?) I consoled myself that at least there would be nothing to worry about at Holywell, there is, after all, plenty of cover at Halkyn Road. Continue reading →

Slate

31 Sunday Aug 2014

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Sunday 24th August 2014 ko 11.00 am

Welsh Alliance Division Two

BLAENAU AMATEURS 4 (Roberts 24 Williams 51p Copsley 90 Bradley 90p)

PENMAENMAWR PHOENIX 2 (S Williams 32 Prince 38)

Att 320

Entry £3

Programme £1

Badge £3

We’d shaved a few minutes off the start time to Blaenau Ffestiniog from Chester University. After the difficulties of the previous day, a little time less in our beds was a fair price for breakfast! Of course on the action-reaction principle we got to Blaenau ahead of time. That was no bad thing, as the town is the sort of place you’d want to linger in, even if for one or two that added up to a frantic search for a newsagent that had the “Non League Paper” in stock!

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