Tag Archives: Wales

Gorge

27 Monday Jul 2015

Posted by in C

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , ,

Saturday 25th July 2015 ko 14.30

Pre-Season Friendly

CLYDACH WASPS 0

NEWPORT YMCA 5 (28, 32, 66, 78, 81)

Att 24

Entry FREE

No Programme

If I were to scroll back through my football watching, 10 years ago I simply wouldn’t have watched this. It seems to me the lot of the new groundhopper is that the potential enormity of the hobby leads to the pursuer making rules to limit the sheer volume of possibilities on any given Saturday. Some of the popular ones include, “I don’t do fields,” ” I must have a programme,” and ” I won’t do below (names a division)”

Now the trouble with any hard-and-fast rule is that as soon as you make it, someone will immediate find an equally hard-and-fast exception to it. And the Clydach Wasps are a classic example of this. Continue reading →

Together, Stronger

22 Monday Jun 2015

Posted by in C

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , , , ,

Saturday 13th June 2015 ko 15.00

South Wales FA Play-Off Final

STM SPORTS 4 (Reffell 12 Graham 48 Worsley 57 84)

PONTLOTTYN AFC 1 (Colbourne 32)

Att c600 at Cardiff City Stadium

Entry £3

Programme £1

Groundhopping and the amateur game go back a long way, back to the days of 4-game Saturdays in the South Wales Amateur League, and those hops only ended when we finally ran of clubs to visit! Back then we all wondered why there was the odd position of two leagues, the Amateur Leaguer and the Senior League occupying the same footprint and the same level, the fifth tier? Continue reading →

The Point

14 Saturday Mar 2015

Posted by in L

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

, , , , , ,

Sunday 8th March 2015 ko 14.30

Ceredigion League Division One

LLANBOIDY 3 (James 25 33 37)

MAESGLAS 3 (Roche 17 Harman 43 75p)

Att 219

Entry £3

Programme £1

Badge £3

The great advantage of being stood next door to league secretary Aled Davies at Pencader was that he’d been in near constant contact with Llanboidy, and confirmed there were no issues with the weather, in fact it was blue skies all around! It had stopped raining for the last ten minutes at Pencader, but when I returned to the car and put the postcode for Cae Dandre into the satnav I wondered if I’d got the correct address!

There are no lack of Carmarthenshire clubs in the Ceredigion League, but Llanboidy is right on the border with Pembrokeshire! The village lies on the Welsh side but close to the Landsker Line, where supposedly the first language spoken changes from Welsh to English. Continue reading →

The legend of Emlyn Wyvern

13 Friday Mar 2015

Posted by in N

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , ,

Saturday 7th March 2015 ko 19.30

Ceredigion League Division One

NEWCASTLE EMYLN 2 (Almond 33 Jake Harris 67)

NEW QUAY 0

Att 194

Entry £3

Programme £1

Badge £3

The irony of this being the only time that the Ceredigion Hop could stage a Saturday night game with only three games left on the entire 4 year run was not lost on me. The hoppers’ cavalcade travelled south from Aberaeron and encountered a Police speed trap at Ffostrasol.

Twenty or so brake lights flashed in succession, and I was tempted to stop and comment to the sole policeman that if the local constabulary wanted to make money from the groundhop, we at GroundhopUK would have been happy for them to have a stall to sell goodies at any of our games. Perhaps it was our insistence that stall-holders have a full ticket for the entire event that was the problem? Continue reading →

Second Helpings

12 Thursday Mar 2015

Posted by in A

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , , ,

Saturday 7th March 2015 ko 16.00

Mid Wales League Division One

ABERAERON TOWN 1 (James 43)

PENRHYNCOCH 1 (Nyhus 7 James 17)

Att 240

Entry £4

Programme £1

Of course the roots of the Ceredigion Hop lie with the August Hop’s 3-year stint in the Mid-Wales League. After it was all over we had 2 sides that couldn’t play on August Bank Holiday so to visit U.W.A. and Aberaeron  a “Hop-up” was organised to visit them. We wanted a Friday evening fixture so we approached Lampeter, and then the late Dai Davies at the league offered us New Quay too! We enjoyed the two Ceredigion League games so much we returned for the next 3 years!

Continue reading →

The Blazer Rule

12 Thursday Mar 2015

Posted by in F

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

, , , , ,

Saturday 7th March 2015 ko 13.15

Ceredigion League Division One

FELINFACH 1 (Taylor 63)

BARGOD RANGERS 1 (Terry 14)

Att 245

Entry £3

Programme £1

Badge £3

Many years ago we at GroundhopUK organised a hop, and only one person on the committee of the league turned up to support the event. On one hand it didn’t really matter, the main thing the league does with a groundhop is schedule the fixtures, but it rankled with us to the extent that we didn’t organise another hop in that league. If you don’t have the league firmly behind you, in the long term you don’t have a hop.

Continue reading →

Chapel

09 Monday Mar 2015

Posted by in L

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

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

Saturday 7th March 2015 ko 10.15

Ceredigion League Division Two

DEWI STARS 6 (Owens 16 23 29 37 W Williams 74 Thomas 87)

S.D.U.C. 1 (Kennedy 45)

Att 174

Entry £3

Programme £1

Badge £3

When you organise the final hop of a league’s run, you always have the difficulty of putting together a schedule with clubs that aren’t necessarily ideally placed geographically. To add to that we had the necessity to put the Dewi Stars on the Saturday as the playing field is owned by the chapel in Llanddewi Brefi, and they objected to the club playing on a Sunday. Yes, that’s right, Llanddewi Brefi of “Little Britain” fame, and as I demolished an early breakfast in Carmarthen my aim for my visit was to dispel the notion of “Only Gay in the village” however funny Matt Lucas’ sketches were.

Continue reading →

The Loneliness Of The Long Distance Organiser

09 Monday Mar 2015

Posted by in B

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , , ,

Friday 6th March 2015 ko 19.30

Welsh League Division One

BRITON FERRY LLANSAWEL 3 (Cockings 10 Jones 60 D Hudson 73)

GARDEN VILLAGE 0 Vickers sent off 85 (2nd booking)

Att 258

Special GroundhopUK package (Entry, buffet, programme and talk on club) £10

Normal Entry £4

Programme £1

The very worst bit of being a groundhop organiser is the trip down to your base for the weekend, in this case Carmarthen. You know you’ve done all the preparation, the league is 100% behind you, the host clubs are ready, and the gazebos are being erected as you drive along the M4. You know that local journalist Chris Harte has all the programmes and badges for the event stored in his library. You’ve covered every base you can, but still the nagging doubt is always there, what could go wrong, and what will go wrong, yes something will, you are dealing with people not robots after all. Yes, its a lonely drive down, even if you’ve got (as I did) passengers. Continue reading →

Without Prejudice

14 Saturday Feb 2015

Posted by in A, Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , ,

Wednesday 11th February 2015 ko 19.30

Welsh League Division Two

ABERBARGOED BUDS 1 (McCarthy 50)

CWMBRAN CELTIC 1 (Thomas 7)

Att c60

Entry £5

Programme £1

I wish there were more teams with lights in the Welsh League, I could enjoy mid-week fixtures here a lot more often. It takes my mind back to happy days when the Welsh Groundhop dealt in the cards of the Welsh League and the South Wales Amateur league. We tried to pronounce the likes of Ynysddu, and Blaenrhondda, and quaffed pint after pint in the Otley Arms in Trefforest. As one half of GroundhopUK, we will return to the Valleys one day, and the imminent merger of the Amateur and Senior Leagues will help that process.

Continue reading →

The Golden Lion

04 Thursday Dec 2014

Posted by in U

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

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

Sunday 30th November 2014 ko 13.30

Welsh Cup 3rd Round

UNDY AFC 2 (Cullimore 10 Hooper 45)

CARMARTHEN TOWN 4 (Harling 37 Belle 62p Hartland 76 White 90)

Att 331

Entry £5

Programme £2

When Carmarthen Town’s historian and press man Chris Harte emailed to alert me to the unusual day for this fixture I knew I had background in this part of the world. If you travel into Wales on the M4 using the second Severn Bridge the first village you see is Magor and its service station. Adjacent to Magor is Undy, and for years I travelled here to see Bethan, a friend of my ex-wife’s. Continue reading →