Tag Archives: Scotland

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 →

Daedalus

14 Monday Mar 2016

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Friday 11th March 2016 ko 19.00

Lowland League

GRETNA FC 2008 0 Rea sent off 89 (2nd Booking)

DALBEATTIE STAR 0

Att 366

Entry £5

Programme £1

If last year’s Lowland League hop broke new ground in that it was the first hop organised north of the border, it did create one issue for us at GroundhopUK and that was the format. Last year we went for 1 game on the Friday, 3 on the Saturday and 2 on the Sunday, but for a few reasons that couldn’t happen this time round.

Continue reading →

Horizons

29 Monday Feb 2016

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Saturday 27th February 2016 ko 13.00

Scottish Junior FA, West Region Superleague Premier Division

AUCHINLECK TALBOT 2 (Hyslop 17 53)

KIRKINTILLOCH ROB ROY 0

Att c350

Entry £6

Programme £1.50

The day after this I paid a visit to the Scottish Football Museum, in the Main Stand at Hampden Park. It’s a fascinating place, well worth the £8 entry, but its coverage of the Juniors is disappointing. All there is a corner with a video on loop and the display explains the SJFA as being “Junior” in standard to the “Seniors” rather than in terms of age. I wondered if whoever put that display together had ever seen the likes of Auchinleck, or Kirkintilloch play? Continue reading →

Travels with Iain

21 Thursday Jan 2016

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Saturday 16th January 2016 ko 13.45

Scottish Junior FA West Region Superleague First Division

LARGS THISTLE 0

MAYBOLE JUNIORS 1 (Riley 7)

Att c200

Entry £6

Programme £1.50

I’m fortunate that I have friends dotted all over the place, but the downside is the gargantuan driving stints to visit them all! Regular readers will recognise Iain’s name from us visiting a  steady succession of Scots football grounds such as Irvine Meadow and Falkirk. It’s fair to say that whilst the 6 hour drives between our two towns mean we don’t spend as much time as we’d like together, but we’re fortunate that it’s the kind of friendship that we can pick up where we left off.  Continue reading →

Fine Margins

31 Sunday May 2015

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Saturday 30th May 2015 ko 14.00

Scottish Junior FA, West Region Superleague Premier Division

HURLFORD UNTED 2 (C Robertson 59 Donnelly 77)

SHOTTS BON ACCORD 1 (McCrum 90)

Att 144

Entry £5

Programme (reissue from 6/12/14) £1 (original price £1.50)

 In Scotland below the professional ranks there’s two visions of how non-league could look. On one hand there’s the new Scottish pyramid with the Lowland and Highland league champions playing off for the right to play off against the Scottish League’s bottom side for the final place in the league. On the other there’s the Juniors, not aged-based, more an alternative FA, with the North, East and West Regions ploughing their separate furrows, save for the Junior Cup. Continue reading →