Tag Archives: Scotland

Turning the Bull

11 Tuesday Apr 2017

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Saturday 25th March 2017 ko 19.00

Lowland League

HAWICK ROYAL ALBERT 2 (Hunter 14 Mitchell 58) Jack sent off 80 (2nd booking)

EAST STIRLINGSHIRE 4 (Rodgers 36 80 Glasgow 76 Sludden 90)

Att 287

Entry £5

Programme £1

After 2 highly enjoyable games at Eyemouth and Coldstream my warm forehead told me I’d caught the sun. I quietly gave thanks for the fine weather, but making our way via Kelso I was amazed to see a gritting lorry coming the other way! Now I know the temperature can drop rapidly north of the border, and in the end I was glad I retrieved my coat from the boot. Continue reading →

Risk

10 Monday Apr 2017

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Saturday 25th March 2017 ko 15.00

East of Scotland League

COLDSTREAM 0

TYNECASTLE 2 (Mayer 14 Crabbe 19)

Att 267

Entry £5

Programme £2

I’ll admit it, as hop organisers Chris Berezai and I took a bit of a gamble with this one. Here’s the dilemna we had, on one hand we listened to the hoppers and they often tell us that scheduling 4 games is too much. Scheduling three isn’t an issue in itself but the risk is that if you put a game at around 3pm you run the risk of some of the hoppers doing “Off piste” and taking in another game.

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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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Sweet Emotion

08 Wednesday Jun 2016

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Sunday 29th May 2016 ko 16.05

Scottish Junior Cup Final

BEITH JUNIORS 1 (Christie 61)

POLLOK 1 (R. Winters 72)

No extra time, Beith won 4-3 on penalties

Att 4,877 at Rugby Park, Kilmarnock (Kilmarnock FC)

Entry £10

Programme £3

Odd isn’t it? A football match that coincides with virtually nothing, is televised and south of Scotland you’d have had to know what you were looking for to find out about it. There’s really no good reason for it, do the rest of the UK really mistake Junior for Juvenile, surely nearly 5,000 wouldn’t turn out for a youth game? The truth of the matter is that the Scots’ Junior scene is vibrant and for a few reasons its main cup competition is especially gripping. Continue reading →

Contraction

07 Tuesday Jun 2016

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Saturday 28th May 2016 ko 14.30

SJFA East of Scotland Cup Semi-Final

BO’NESS UNITED 4 (Donnelly 9 Snowdon 37 Wright 61 Walker 90)

FORFAR WEST END 0

Att c450

Entry £5

No Programme

You really don’t need a map to find out where you are in Bo’ness. To the south Falkirk and the Grangemouth Oil Refinery looms large, and the town lies on the southern banks of the Firth of Forth, and as such was a site for ship-breaking businesses until the 1970’s. There’s a heritage railway, the Bo’ness and Kinneil Railway that runs for 5 miles from the town. But the obvious quirk here is the name, how did that apostrophe find its way in? Continue reading →

Strive

20 Sunday Mar 2016

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Sunday 13th March 2016 ko 12.00

Lowland League

EDINBURGH UNIVERSITY 3 (Evans 7 89 Guthrie 14)

SELKIRK 2 (King 19 O’Connor 86)

Att 294

Entry £5

Programme £2

One thing to appreciate about the hop hotel in East Kilbride is that after 2 years they’d learned to cope with two coachloads of hoppers. At breakfast the plates were piled high, as we ate in anticipation of a long trip south after this game. Soon enough, it was time to head east back to Edinburgh and with all due respect to our hosts, probably the least anticipated venue on the hop. Of course, as ever, I’d got it all completely wrong! Continue reading →

Regain

17 Thursday Mar 2016

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Saturday 12th March 2016 ko 20.00

Lowland League

EDINBURGH CITY 1 (Paterson 68)

EAST KILBRIDE 1 (Hastings 24)

Att 418

Entry £5

Programme £2

Of the six grounds on this years Lowland League Hop, this one was the one I was looking forward to the most. That sense was heightened when we travelled the short distance from Ainslie Park, and as the sun set, and we travelled slowly along the A1 London Road, the towering floodlights seemed to beckon us in. The sense of history seeped from the concrete buttresses too…. Continue reading →

Decisions On The Hoof

15 Tuesday Mar 2016

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Saturday 12th March 2016 ko 14.00

Lowland League

PRESTON ATHLETIC P

THREAVE ROVERS P

Match postponed- waterlogged pitch

Saturday 12th March 2016 ko 14.30

East of Scotland League

CIVIL SERVICE STROLLERS 2 (Bogey 31 65) Neils sent off 65 (DOGSO)

LEITH ATHLETIC 3 (Glynn 2 Lowson 15 Masson 45p)

Att 165

Entry £5

Programme To be posted

The first inkling I had that something was wrong was the stream of people glumly leaving Pennypit Park, as our two coaches pulled into the ground in Prestonpans. The reason became clear as I dashed over to the club’s offices, the departing Threave team let me know that one small patch of pitch was deemed too soft by the referee as the teams had warmed up. I normally see the word “No” as an invitation to negotiate, but I was soon to discover that was impossible. Continue reading →

Reading Matters

14 Monday Mar 2016

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Saturday 12th March 2016 ko 11.00

Lowland League

WHITEHILL WELFARE 3 (Muir 17 Connolly 28 Devlin 76) Williams missed penalty 81

GALA FAIRYDEAN ROVERS 0 Gibson sent off 47 (violent conduct)

Att 324

Entry £5

Programme £2

If there was one club I’d wanted to visit on the Lowland Hop’s run it was Rosewell’s Whitehill Welfare. The roots of this hop, and the organised hop in Scotland lie with a tip I’d had at a Camelon Juniors game, and a subsequent phone call with Welfare’s Jamie McQueen. He put the idea to his committee who then got the league committee involved, and the rest is history! So if there was one club I really didn’t want to have a problem it was Whitehill…… Continue reading →