Tag Archives: soccer

Sliding Doors

11 Friday Sep 2026

Posted by in L

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , ,

Saturday 8th August 2026 ko 15:00

EFL Cup 1st Round

LEYTON ORIENT 2 (Mitchell 85 El Mizouni 88)

OXFORD UNITED 0

Att 3,783 (979 away)

Hospitality in Justin Edinburgh Stand £45 (entry, programme, teamsheet, lounge, 2 course meal)

Back in the early 90’s I was at university in North London within easy reach of Arsenal’s Highbury Stadium. I didn’t go very often, preferring to head home to Oxford whenever United had a home game and if they weren’t at home I’d try and visit every Football League ground in the capital. 35 years ago all you needed to do was turn up and pay, tickets were cheap and easily bought- how times change!

Continue reading →

Sphinx

10 Thursday Sep 2026

Posted by in C

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , ,

Sunday 26th July 2026 ko 15:00

United Counties League Premier South

COVENTRY SPHINX 1 (Parker 64)

DESBOROUGH TOWN 2 (Blaikie 2 Bradshaw 18)

Att 422

Entry £8

Programme £2

In a hop that was, for me, made up entirely of revisits, a trip back Coventry Sphinx was intriguing. For those not in the know the club was formed in 1946 as the works team of Hawker Siddley which immediately made me think back to the Hawker YMCA ground in Kingston-on-Thames I’d visited a week or two earlier. The firm, now swallowed up by Rolls Royce made aircraft, and luxury cars, with one the Sphinx giving the football club an interesting name change in 1993 with the Coventry prefix being added in 1995.

Continue reading →

Adders

10 Thursday Sep 2026

Posted by in A

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , ,

Saturday 25th July 2026 ko 18:00

United Counties League Premier South

ATHERSTONE TOWN 7 (Harkin 7 Edwards 31 Collins 51 Steele 79p Smith 82 Wood 89 Newey 90+1)

HIGHGATE UNITED 0

Att 558

Entry £9

Programme £3

If you’d have approached this year’s UCL hop on the basis that you knew nothing of any of the 6 grounds, they my advice would have been that Atherstone’s Sheepy Road, was by far the best of the bunch, and I don’t think that’s a controversial view.

Continue reading →

Fazeley

03 Thursday Sep 2026

Posted by in C

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Saturday 25th July 2026 ko 14:30

United Counties League Premier South

COTON GREEN 3 (Evans 24 Letford 35 80)

O’Connor sent off 66 (2nd booking)

DAVENTRY TOWN 1 (Jackson 57)

Att 333

Entry £8

Programme £2

There were a few issues with this season’s UCL Hop. The main one was administrative, we had the coach and accomodation ready to go, but FA allocations, and appeals to those allocations made getting the fixtures for the event late- very late to be truthful. On a personal level I knew it would add up to an all-revisit weekend, I completed the league last season. You can still find plenty to enjoy over and above the social side of things, some of the grounds we visited I hadn’t visited in years and have changed quite a bit, and Coton Green was a case in point.

Continue reading →

Hawker

03 Thursday Sep 2026

Posted by in K

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , ,

Saturday 11th July 2026 ko 14:00

Pre-season Friendly

KINGSTON 1 (45+2)

RICHMOND & KEW 1 (87)

Att 53 at Hawker YMCA Centre, Lower Ham Rd, Kingston upon Thames

Free Entry

One advantage of pre-season is you do occasionally get the chance to see a newly formed club play their first ever game. Kington will play in the Surrey South Eastern Division Two and were set up by resident Adam Smith to provide grassroots football for Kingston-on-Thames, in part a reaction to Kingstonian FC having moved out of the borough to groundshare at Ashford Town (Middx)

Continue reading →

A Fine Coal Miner

02 Wednesday Sep 2026

Posted by in R

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , ,

Saturday 4th July 2026 ko 14:00

Pre-Season Friendly

RHOSTYLLEN 4 (31 37 41 45)

CORWEN 0

Att 26

Free Entry

The calendar may have flipped over into July but there didn’t seem to be of much of interest. I knew I didn’t want to travel too far from our home in Oxford, and I couldn’t raise any enthusiasm for games switched to 3G cages. But then I spotted that Rhostyllen were at home. I checked the village is in the outskirts of Wrexham- well the staying local didn’t last long!

Continue reading →

The Palace

26 Wednesday Aug 2026

Posted by in S

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Saturday 27th June 2026 ko 14:00

Pre-season Friendly

SEVEN SISTERS ONLLYWN 1 (71)

PENLAN AFC 1 (66)

Att 27 at the Welfare Ground

Free Entry

Back in the day the Swedish Hop at the start of June used to bookend my season, and in England that would be the case now, but you are now seeing the occasional friendly pop up at the end of June, even though technically it is still forbidden by the FA. In Wales, you do see a few more driven by the FAW’s clubs early entry in to European competitions but in both cases check and check again that the game is still on.

Continue reading →

Returns

12 Wednesday Aug 2026

Posted by in U

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Saturday 6th June 2026 ko 17:15

Division 3 Norra Svealand

IFK UPPSALA 1 (Vahedi 86)

ÖSTERÅKER UNITED 1 (Bechtel 65p)

Att 69 at Lötens IP

Entry & Programme 60 sek

The Swedish Hop cost £360 which included all transport from and to Arlanda Airport and between games, 2 nights bed and breakfast, and any admission fees.

If there’s one road we’ve seen the most of during the 19 years of the Swedish Hop it’s the E4. It runs north from Stockholm passing by Arlanda Airport then heading on to the far north, eventually reaching the border with Finland at Haparanda. But we were heading to the first major city north of the capital – Uppsala.

It’s a place of learning with Uppsala University dating back to 1477, and a place of antiquity- Old Uppsala was the main pagan centre of Sweden in Viking times. The Swedish Hop was based in Uppsala back in 2015 and we stayed very close to Lötens IP, and I’m sure we all wondered when we’d ever take in a game there? Just the 11 years then….

Continue reading →

Robin

29 Wednesday Jul 2026

Posted by in W

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , ,

Saturday 30th May 2026 ko 14:00

West Wales Tier 5 Playoffs Game 3

WAUNARLWYDD GALAXY 2 (Pritchard 71 89)

Fowler sent off 37 (serious foul play)

GLYNNEATH TOWN 0

Att 348

Entry, Programme & Raffle ticket £3

The season was in its last knockings, but non league in Wales does tend to produce some interesting play-offs. The issue has long been the same, there are more league winners than there are places in the leagues above. Who could forget the playoffs to get into the South Wales Alliance ?

Continue reading →

Friends

22 Wednesday Jul 2026

Posted by in B, C, N

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Saturday 16th May 2026 ko 18:30

North Berkshire Cup Final

BERINSFIELD 3 (Holdsworth 33p Palmer 49 Hinkin 64)

COMPTON 0

Att 215 at Abingdon United FC

Entry & Programme £5

I can’t pretend I couldn’t see the demise of the North Berkshire League coming. When I left the league’s committee 2 years ago the league was down to 2 divisions from 5 when the league was at its peak. Like just about everyone involved in football in the Shire, I’d heard the rumours about a mass exodus to the Oxon Senior League, but hoped that it was either an exaggeration or that the league might find replacement clubs.

Continue reading →