Tag Archives: Park

Aye

09 Sunday Apr 2017

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Saturday 25th March 2017 ko 11.00

East of Scotland League

EYEMOUTH UNITED 0

LOTHIAN THISTLE 3 (Brown 10 Delvin 30 Guy 87)

Att 227

Entry £4

Programme £1

From the moment GroundhopUK and the Lowland League agreed 3 years ago to launch the Scottish Hop it was inevitable that we’d end up in the East of Scotland League. The league, along with the South of Scotland feeds the Lowland, and the two leagues share a fixture secretary too! Just as inevitably Chris Berezai and I knew that we’d get the odd hopper who’d decide the East of Scotland League was too low a level for them and decide to head elsewhere, but there seemed to me some who’d come to their conclusion had done so without ever having seen an EoSL game first! Surely a game a 11am with no simultaneous kick-offs would be a risk-free way of finding out?

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Deuce

09 Sunday Apr 2017

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Friday 24th March 2017 ko 19.45

Lowland League

PRESTON ATHLETIC 0 Cowan sent off (DOGSO) 53

CUMBERNAULD COLTS 2 (Brown 25 82)

Att 263

Entry £5

Programme £2

If there was ever a game I wanted to take place it was this one. On last year’s Scottish Hop Preston had seen their game called off late in the day due to a supposedly waterlogged pitch. My abiding memory of the piece was the gap in the car park where once the referee’s car once stood, he’d made a sharp exit, and club secretary Lesley Birrell in tears. We eventually ran the coaches to Civil Service Strollers (We’re still waiting for the programmes from them!) but that was no consolation to the Prestonpans club.

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Ynysangharad

15 Monday Feb 2016

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Wednesday 10th February 2016 ko 19.15

Welsh League Division 3

PONTYPRIDD TOWN 3 (Gullick 25p 61 90)

CAERLEON 0

Att c30

Entry £3

Programme £1

If you want to know where my love affair with Welsh non-league football football started, it was here. It was August 2005 I’d signed up for my first Welsh hop, and the Friday night game was at the (to English ears anyway) the almost unpronounceable Ynysangharad Park. Pontypridd beat the soon-to-fold Gwynfi United 4-0 but the evening wasn’t remembered for that. Continue reading →

The Auld Fem Derby

03 Thursday Apr 2014

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Sunday 30th March 2014 ko 12.00

Scottish Women’s Premier League

RANGERS 2 (Sneddon 20p Mulvey 55)

CELTIC 1 (Jones 11)

Att 79 at Petershill Park, Glasgow (Petershill JFC)

Entry £4

No Programme

To be honest, I wasn’t entirely sure how to approach this game. On one hand it was a women’s game, not known for being high profile in the UK, but it did involve Celtic and Rangers with all the sectarian idiocy that fixtures between the two clubs attracts. I pondered my attire, would that red Neilston scarf bought the previous day attract unwanted attention, would my SLR camera be allowed in, and would there be a sizeable police presence?

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UFO

16 Thursday Jan 2014

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Tuesday 14th January 2014 ko 19.45

Cambridgeshire Invitation Cup Quarter-Final

WISBECH TOWN 1 (White 45)

CAMBRIDGE REGIONAL COLLEGE 2 (Hogan 28 Hurst 87)

Att 101

Entry £5

Programme FREE

Sausage & Chips £1.50

Tea £1

It’s odd how everything changes at Peterborough. The lands flatten and for the most part the roads become single carriageway. You’re now in East Anglia, this is arable country, and a lot of it reclaimed land at that. Continue reading →

Sing about the Six Blade

27 Sunday Oct 2013

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Friday 25th October 2013 ko 19.30

Wearside League

SILKSWORTH COLLIERY WELFARE 2 (Gill 58 77)

RYHOPE COLLIERY WELFARE 6 (O’Neill 30p Butler 54 Hall 56 Winn 65 Pounder 74 Yip 90)

Att 168

Entry, Programme, and 60th Anniversary Shipowners’ Cup Final Programme £4

Sometimes, coincidence can be a wonderful thing. With the Northern League staging a 4-game groundhop in Newcastle the next day, any club staging a game in the area the evening before was always likely to see a glut of southern-based hoppers. 4 clubs did; in the Northern League there were games at Shildon and Spennymoor, and a few saw Middlesbrough beat Doncaster in the Championship, but for me the most intriguing was Silksworth CW.

Silksworth is a district of Sunderland, and I passed the Stadium of Light on my way to the Bobby Gurney Memorial Park. Gurney was born in Silksworth as his father worked at the local pit, now where the local leisure centre. Bobby was spotted playing for Bishop Auckland in 1925 and signed for Continue reading →

Elevation

13 Thursday Oct 2011

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Tuesday 11th October 2011 ko 7.45pm

Spartan South Midlands League Premier Division

HATFIELD TOWN 0

ROYSTON TOWN 6 (Lockett 20 Young 39 Feumi 43p Robins 67 Standen 81 90)

Att 87

Entry £6

Programme £1

Tea 50p  (in a University of Chester paper cup!)

Until last season Hatfield groundshared at Welwyn Garden City FC. Sharing somewhere other than your home town is seldom ideal, but Hatfield now at least have a home to call their own. The problem is that its still in Welwyn Garden City! Moreover the Gosling Sports Park, doesn’t just contain a 6 lane running track but a velodrome too, making the football spectator extremely distant from the pitch. That said the velodrome is perhaps the ground’s saving grace, as the banking does provide elevation, ameliorating some of the distance. Its helped further by a balcony the height of which I’ve never enountered anywhere other than Wembley Stadium. The panorama shot is from there and it does give a Subbuteo feel to wtching a game.

With 3 distinct viewing areas, the terrace, seating and balcony, the ground is certainly different, and I’ve heard descriptions of Stalinist, and East German, neither of which I’d necessarily disagree with. For me it simply felt municipal, nothing wrong with that, but I wouldn’t want to watch football somewhere like this all the time. I should add that the club has had to work hard to get the ground usable for football. Gates have to be locked at specific times, and a huge players tunnel built, which if it were in Kent would have the anti-polytunnel brigade up in arm!

Hatfield have signed a 7-year lease, but I got the impression that their tenure may well be a lot shorter than that. The bottom line is that they want to be in Hatfield, and they think they’ve found a suitable location. What happens next is anyone’s guess, but I’d get to Gosling Sports Park soon to avoid disappointment.

On the pitch there were 2 sides with radically different agenda. Hatfield are building for the future, in both senses of the word, while Royston simply wish to return to the Isthmian League. After watching one of the biggest away drubbings I’ve ever seen I’m not sure which club will achieve their ambitions. Yes, Hatfield’s defence was appalling, but they looked a young side, and an older, better remunerated team, ran riot. Are Hatfield relegation fodder? On this outing yes, but they’re not in a relegation spot, and are there better teams than Royston in the league? You suspect quite possibly.

Definately one to keep an eye on.

Win a holiday in Jura

09 Sunday Oct 2011

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Saturday 8th October 2011 ko 6.30pm

Hellenic League Premier Division

KIDLINGTON 3 (Coyle 34 Curtin 47 73)

ARDLEY UNITED 4 (D Beckett 5p 84 Thorne 24 Bryan 43)

Att 158 (h/c)

Entry £5

Programme £1

Bacon Roll & Cheesy Chips £3.10

So, the final game of this mini-hop was at Yarnton Road, and unlike poor old Witney, this club are right at the heart of the local community. The facilities, are nowhere near as good as at Downs Road just two squat “Arena” stands, but the clubhosue does a roaring trade seven days a week, and that allows the football team to thrive. On this occasion they were bested by a resurgent Ardley United managed by former Oxford United and Banbury United legend Kevin Brock. Ardley have a strong ex Banbury United flavour, in fact at times I felt I was watching the Banbury side I enjoyed around 7 years ago when I’d moved to the town. It seems such a long time ago now….

One of the throng watching was Pete Hack. Pete reminds me of a bluesman, in that the restrictions put upon him has made him groundhop in a really interesting way. He runs the Whisky shop in Oxford’s historic Covered Market, which means he works every single Saturday afternoon. So he watches student football, the Sunday game, anything he can. A bluesman restricts himself to 3 chords, Pete’s restricted to non-Saturday afternoons. His hopping CV is, as a result, highly unusual and interesting. With the late kick off he was able to attend and brought a bit of a bonus. The Jura distillery have a competition to win a trip to the island, but Pete’s customers couldn’t be bothered to fill out the postcards to enter. So, at half time we had the sight of hoppers frantically filling in postcards, wondering whether there’s any football played on Jura! Anyone know?

That shouldn’t detract from the game which was excellent, and in my opinion the best two teams of the day. I always felt that Ardley were the better team, but the result was in doubt for the full 90 minutes, and that whether you’re a spectator, official, or groundhop organiser is all you’re looking for.

The all important strip of astroturf

04 Tuesday Oct 2011

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Monday 3rd October 2011 ko 7.45

Hellenic League Floodlit Cup 2nd Round

HIGHMOOR-IBIS 4 (Campbell 23 Small-King 45 Brown 61 Stargatt 71)

SHRIVENHAM 1 (Maximen 71)

Att 78 (h/c)

Entry & Programme £4

Coffee 60p

Palmer Park, Reading is somewhere I have, perhaps more connections to than you’d expect for a bloke from Oxford. That’s mainly because my ex-wife is from nearby Henley-on-Thames, and this trip saw me drive through the town for the first time for a while on the way. Not much has changed, but then not much ever does.

I’d actually played 5-a-side at Palmer Park many moons and stones ago, and far more recently used to enjoy delicious, and gargantuan Sunday lunches at Colley’s Supper Rooms on the corner of nearby St Bartholemew’s  Avenue. Sadly Colley’s closed and is being refitted as a bar and grill. It won’t be the same… Continue reading →

3, 2, 1!

30 Friday Sep 2011

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Wednesday 28th September 2011 ko 7.30pm

Gloucestershire Northern Senior League Reg Davis Cup Final

GALA WILTON 3 (Hoskins 2 Hemming Bolton 27og)

STAR FC 2 (Gluyas 33 Conway 44)

Att 165 (h/c)

Entry & Programme £2 (but see below)

Match played at Glevum Park, Gloucester (Tuffley Rovers FC)

Consider if you will, a League Cup competition so well organised that it’s completed from start to finsh in September. Consider also, that this is a league where the top division sits a full 8 promotions from the football league. For this was one of the best organised cup finals I’ve ever attended, perhaps only surpassed by the Japanese Students Prime Minister’s Cup. The programme was excellent, it was easy to get the line ups and any piece of information was either in the programme or a simple question away. In fact the only thing that a few days after the event that still puzzles me is exactly how much was it to get in?

The front of the programme says £3, I was charged £2, but Lee West behind me was handed his programme and told he owed me a pound! Work that one out!

Glevum Park saw Hellenic Premier action comparatively recently, and it shows. Spick span, albeit with a lack of a bar area, it would quicky fall into the “bog standard step 5” category if isn’t wasn’t for that stand. I’ve never seen on of those before! In fact that only other ground I’ve seen seats like that were at North Leigh and they’ve long since been ripped out. I believe they call that “Progress.”

And what a game it was! After half an hour it looked like it would be a case of how may Gala could get but then the club formerly known as Eagle Star, found their feet. Yes they scored just the two, but hit the crossbar and missed when it looked a good deal easier to score, and don’t be fooled by the lack of goals in the second half either, this was a cracker from start to finish.