• About this humble little website

Football: Wherever it may be

~ Laurence's football travels

Football: Wherever it may be

Tag Archives: North Berkshire Groundhop

Intrigue

05 Thursday Oct 2017

Posted by laurencereade in M

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

berks and bucks fa, Football, GroundhopUK, Hellenic, League, Milton Heights, Milton United, North Berkshire Groundhop, North Berkshire League, Potash Lane, The Heights

Friday 15th September 2017 ko 19.30

Berks & Bucks Senior Trophy First Round

MILTON UNITED 2 (Morgan 23 Davies 75)

STANFORD-IN-THE-VALE 0

Att 91

Entry £5

Programme £1

It seems that part of the ritual of the North Berkshire League Hop is a precursor game. The tradition started in 2014 when I wanted to do something to help Abingdon Town, and despite the lack of floodlights in the league, just Uffington United this season we’ve managed to stage one every year since. Who could forget the Wally Bus? Continue reading →

51.614638 -1.304484

Second Servings

01 Sunday May 2016

Posted by laurencereade in U

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Fawler Road, Grove Rangers, North Berkshire Groundhop, North Berkshire League, Uffington United

Wednesday 20th April 2016 ko 18.30

North Berkshire League Division 3

UFFINGTON UNITED 2 (Masterlez 19 Byrne 33)

GROVE RANGERS 2 (Cramp 31 Chalmers 46)

Att 7

Entry FREE

No Programme

For many groundhoppers the village of Uffington means one thing. It’s where in 2012 188 of us watched a NBFL Division 5 game. It was quite an evening, Uffington beat the now defunct Appleton 12-0, one player scored 8 and another scorer made the Chilli con Carne that sold in quite gargantuan quantities!  Continue reading →

Real Ales, Real Owls, Real Football

21 Monday Sep 2015

Posted by laurencereade in E

≈ 4 Comments

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 →

51.597523 -1.342859

All Aboard

20 Sunday Sep 2015

Posted by laurencereade in W

≈ 6 Comments

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 →

51.592926 -1.167890

I.D.

24 Wednesday Sep 2014

Posted by laurencereade in B

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Benson Lions, Defence Academy, Grove Rangers, Jon Radcliffe, MOD Shrivenham, North Berkshire Groundhop, North Berkshire League, raf benson, Shrivenham, Watchfield

Saturday 20th September 2014 ko 19.45

North Berkshire League Division Three

BENSON LIONS 1 (Papa 47)

GROVE RANGERS 1 (Reid 59)

Att 172 at Defence Academy of the United Kingdom, Faringdon Road, Shrivenham

Entry & Programme £4

Badge £3

Catering: Beef and Veggie Burritos and Tacos

Beer: Chiltern brewery Flanders Pale Ale, Lord Lieutenants Porter

On the 2013 North Berkshire Hop we paid a highly enjoyable visit to see Benson Lions at their home ground at RAF Benson, report here. The base required an ID check, and we worked hard with Lions’ chairman Jon Radcliffe to ensure the event went smoothly.

In all groundhop games you have to have a good club and good officials to work with and that counts double for a game on an MOD base, and in Jon there’s a man who I could confidently hand the staging over to him in the knowledge it would be done beautifully. So when last year’s hop was over I phoned Jon with a proposal. Continue reading →

51.613133 -1.633749

Hicks’ Law

24 Wednesday Sep 2014

Posted by laurencereade in M

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

AFC, Ansons field, East Hendred, James Hicks, MARCHAM, North Berkshire Groundhop, North Berkshire League, Phil Annets

Saturday 20th September 2014 ko 16.00

North Berkshire League Division Two

MARCHAM 1 (Armstrong 82)

EAST HENDRED AFC 7 (Moss 18 29p Sutton 26 Hummel 32 Doig 42 Wise 56 Hicks 86)

Att 201

Entry & Programme £4

Badge £3

Catering: Baked Potatoes with various fillings. Cakes

Beer: Loose Cannon

When we put together these hops one of the many things we co-ordinate is catering. On reflection we should have added another item to the menu, on top of the baked potatoes with a myriad of fillings, curry included, and that was celery soup. Why, I hear you ask, well the March in Marcham is derived from the old English word, merece meaning a place where celery grows! Ham means settlement so we visited the village where celery grows! Continue reading →

51.670038 -1.337849

Jethro

22 Monday Sep 2014

Posted by laurencereade in C

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

AFC WALLINGFORD, CROWMARSH GIFFORD, Crowmarsh Gifford Reserves, GroundhopUK, Jethro Tull, nbfl, North Berkshire Groundhop, North Berkshire League, Wallingford, Wallingford Town

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 →

51.596782 -1.109711

Precursor

21 Sunday Sep 2014

Posted by laurencereade in A

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Abingdon Town, Culham Road, Eastern Counties League, North Berkshire Groundhop, North Berkshire League, Saxton Rovers, South West Peninsula League

Friday 19th September 2014 ko 19.30

North Berkshire League Division One

ABINGDON TOWN 3 (Barroso 28 Lightfoot 83 Sutton 90og)

SAXTON ROVERS 0

Att 192

Entry & Programme £4

The North Berkshire League has held 3 annual groundhops, but for this year’s event I was handed a couple of dilemnas that weren’t of my own making. Firstly, I’ve spent each of the last 3 years bemoaning the lack of floodlights in the league, so I ought to have been pleased when Abingdon Town dropped into the league. That was due to a landlord charging a rent the club could ill-afford when they’d been flooded for 3 months at a time for each of the last 2 years. The trouble was that the club had been on a Hellenic hop back in the day, which normally would mean that they wouldn’t get another game. However I wanted to help the club and chairman Tom Larman, so we decided to stage the game as a Friday night precursor to the main event. The other problem though, had the potential to be altogether more serious. Continue reading →

51.653955 -1.220916

The Charm Offensive

23 Monday Sep 2013

Posted by laurencereade in B

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

Berinsfield, David Murphy, Faringdon Town, Jackie Cullen, Lay Avenue, Mark Ingram, North Berkshire Groundhop, North Berkshire League, Stephen Masterson

Saturday 21st September 2013 ko 14.00

North Berkshire League Division One

BERINSFIELD 4 (D Murphy 34 45 46 Curtis 80)

FARINGDON TOWN 0 Quegan sent off (2nd Booking)

Att 251

Entry & Programme £4

Badge £3

Chicken Curry & Baked Potato £3

All the way back on the very first North Berkshire League groundhop, we’d reached Sutton Courtenay and the game was just about to kick off. Me being me, I’d gone for an extra cup of tea so was a little late in walking over from the clubhouse. I was rushing over, when someone tapped me on the shoulder. It was a young lady, and she half asked, and half demanded, Continue reading →

51.660855 -1.173971

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 6,521 other subscribers

Look for stuff here folks!

Blogroll

  • Damage In The Box Chris Powell’s travels across the UK and Europe. The artist must frequently seen in the pub 0
  • FA Cup Factfile Phil Annets on all things to do with the World’s greatest cup competition 10
  • Football Club History Database Want to know where a club finished in what league and in what year? Richard Rundle’s site is a veritable goldmine! 0
  • Football Hopper “Fast” Eddie McGeown’s erudite perambulations around the nation’s football grounds 0
  • Gibbo's 92 As Atherton Colleries’ programme editor puts it, ” The best trips are random, unplanned and spontaneous.” 0
  • Groundhopping.se Per-Gunnar Nilsson’s trips around his native Sweden, and into Europe 0
  • Grounds for concern The late Mishi Morath’s picture blog. Obviously no longer updated but still a wonderful archive. 0
  • Kate Shrewsday. A thousand thousand stories Not about football, but beautiful writing, Kate can make words dance. 0
  • Modus Hopper Random Graham Yapp’s travels 0
  • Swedish Football History & Statistics Mats Nyström’s curates this site, which does exactly what you’d expect 0
  • The 100 Grounds Club Shaun Smith’s groundhopping football blog. The original internet ground logging website. 0
  • The Football Traveller The bible for every groundhopper. Non-League fixtures magazine delivered weekly. Published and edited by Chris Bedford 0
  • The Intinerant Football Watcher Peter finds the grounds other hoppers cannot reach. Top bloke too! 0
  • The66POW Rob Waite’s travels 0

Your very own calendar!

February 2023
M T W T F S S
 12345
6789101112
13141516171819
20212223242526
2728  
« Jan    

Meta

  • Register
  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.com

Blog at WordPress.com.

  • Follow Following
    • Football: Wherever it may be
    • Join 494 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • Football: Wherever it may be
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar