Tag Archives: Sport

The Marches

17 Tuesday Mar 2026

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Tuesday 16th December 2025 ko 19:45

North West Counties League Division One South

SHAWBURY UNITED 1 (Sowe 76)

TELFORD TOWN 3 (Greer 53 70 Hesson 55)

Att 162

Entry £6

Programme £1.50

In all walks of life it pays to be adaptable, and that goes double if you’re trying to watch non league football in December in the wet! Oddly I was fortunate, I was heading to Allscott Heath near Wolverhampton but got caught in traffic. Since I was stationary I checked Twitter and soon found my choice of game had fallen to a waterlogged pitch. No matter, I had plan B….

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Hope for Capricorns

09 Monday Mar 2026

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Saturday 6th December ko 14:00

Bristol Premier Combination Division One

LION 0

AFC MANGOTSFIELD 3 (Mansfield 9 Rice 23 Douglas 49)

Dorrington sent off 90 (violent conduct)

Att 2 at Little Stoke Park, Bristol

Free Entry

Red sun go down way over dirty town
Starlings are sweeping around crazy shoals
Yes and a girl is there high heeling across the square
Wind it blows around in her hair and the flags upon the poles
Waiting in the crowd to cross at the light
She looks around to find a face she can like.

Church bell clinging on just a trying to get a crowd for Evensong
Nobody cares to depend upon the chime it plays
They’re all in the station praying for trains
Congregation late again
It’s getting darker all the time these flagpole days
Drunk old soldier he give her a fright
He’s a crazy lion he’s a-howling for a fight

“Lions” Dire Straits 1978

On one hand it isn’t usually difficult to find a game in Bristol on a Saturday afternoon. I’d organised to drop Robyn off at a friend’s birthday celebration in town, and the idea was to pick her up as soon as it was over. That meant that I wouldn’t be able to travel far, but that wasn’t going to be a problem was it?

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Enter The Dragon

08 Sunday Mar 2026

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Saturday 29th November 2025 ko 14:00

European U19 Women’s Championship Qualifying League A Group A7

CYMRU 3 (Bowen 63 Selan Yarayan 67og Em Cole 86)

TÜRKIYE 1 (Yaran Ersan 53)

Att c200 at Dragon Park, Newport

Entry FREE but you do have to be on a guest list

Sometimes you see somewhere that piques your interest, and Dragon Park certainly did that for me! Based in Newport it’s the national football development centre intended to develop the Welsh under-21, Women’s and age-based squads. . The centre also provides an based for the Welsh Football Trust, the game’s development body, so the main building also includes facilities for sports science and education too.

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Stairway

04 Wednesday Mar 2026

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Saturday 15th November 2025 ko 14:00

Cymru South

TREOWEN STARS 3 (C Davies 24 Meachan 35 43)

YNYSHIR ALBIONS 0

Att 85

Entry £6

Programme £2

When you’ve spent most of the last 25 years groundhopping, it isn’t the simple statistics of how many and where that do it for me. When people ask I tell them, then add the tagline “Which shows I need to get out more” when the exact opposite is the case! These days, it’s the connections you make that drive me on, and Treowen was a classic case of this.

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La Grange

21 Wednesday Jan 2026

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Tuesday 21st October 2025 ko 19:45

Northern Premier League Division One Midlands

LONG EATON UNITED 1 (Taylor 11)

ANSTEY NOMADS 2 (Thomas 18 53)

Att 144

Entry £11

Programme £2

With Swedish Hop organiser Kim Hedwall still visiting us, I picked a game as much for who the host club’s media officer is than anything else. GroundhopUK’s Chris Berezai is originally from Bridgend but has lived in Long Eaton for well over 20 years. And other than organising more groundhops than anyone else, he’s also media team manager at Long Eaton United. Add Dan Bishop, the self-styled Poundland Peter Ustinov into the mix- he also is doing his “92” by rejection letter- he applies for every manager’s job going, and you have possibly the club least likely to ditch the printed programme!

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Changes

18 Sunday Jan 2026

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Monday 20th October 2025 ko 19:45

Southern League Premier Central

REDDITCH UNITED 1 (Loughlan 52)

Fowler (manager) sent off 58 (foul & abusive)

ALVECHURCH 0

Hamilton sent off 55 (2nd booking)

Att 777

Entry £12

Programme- online only, non downloadable

The downside of the “Everywhere Once” groundhopping culture is that you seldom see how a ground develops over time. I’d visited Redditch United’s Valley Stadium back in August 2007 for a pre-season friendly against Bromsgrove Rovers. I liked the place, who couldn’t love that main stand, the terracing and that massive club shop? But I’d ticked the place, so why go back?

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Connections

16 Friday Jan 2026

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Saturday 11th October 2025 ko 14:00

Oxfordshire Senior League Division 4

OXFORD PHOENIX 3 (Abdalla 4 EL Bardhdadi 15 Sikod 18)

BICESTER PARK 0

Match abandoned due to safety pins on the pitch.

Att 15 at Greyfriars Catholic School, Cricket Road, Oxford

Free Entry

It’s not massively unusual for me to be invited to games, although it’s always humbling to be asked. This one was a little unusual. Around 15 years ago I was watching a Sunday league game on a little used pitch in the suburb of Botley to the north of Oxford. As a club White Horse Abingdon have long since folded but recently I was sent a message by one of their former players.

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The Hollandites

16 Friday Jan 2026

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Sunday 5th October 2025 ko 14:00

Southern Counties East League Premier

HOLLANDS & BLAIR 2 (Rowlands 35p Gray 73)

SNODLAND TOWN 2 (Shoderu 37 Lee 90+1)

Att 372

Entry £7

Programme £2

Whatever happened prior to our trip to Gillingham I just wanted to GroundhopUK’s stint with the Southern Counties East to end well. We’d enjoyed the morning with Hythe Town, and as the coach pulled into the Star Meadow Social Club I fully expected to find the place looking similar to what I’d seen roughly 10 years earlier. The truth was, I couldn’t have been more wrong.

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Ting Ting

07 Wednesday Jan 2026

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Saturday 4th October 2025 ko 11:00

Southern Counties East League-Division One

CROYDON 6 (Asafu 2 25 87 Cormack 4 Barton 8 Ward 15)

HALLS ATHLETIC 0

Att 266

Entry £7

Programme £2

In so many ways it was obvious that this was the final SCEFL Hop. The main thing was the teams we were visiting seemed to consist of clubs relegated into the league being paired with others whose levels of enthusiasm at hosting were, at best lukewarm. As organisers you manage to the red lines, and hope for best.

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Saxon Times

06 Tuesday Jan 2026

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Tuesday 30th September 2025 ko 19:45

Notts Saturday Senior Cup First Round

STAPLEFORD TOWN 3 (Harrison 23 Phillips 48 Hughes 87)

DUNKIRK 2 (Walsh 68 Wilson 81)

Att 78

In the nicest possible way it was a shame this game was taking place. Two weeks earlier the game had been abandoned, due to a serious injury to Stapleford defender Mitchell Robinson, but I happened to be working in Nottingham on the day of this re-arranged tie. Whatever the opposite of serendipity is- this was it!

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