Diary of a newfound groundhopper

Bexhill United 0 Steyning Town 1, Southern County Football League Division One, Saturday 24 th November 2018 Not for the first time this season, the destination for my latest fix of groundhopping action was determined by the outcome of a Twitter poll. In fairness, my initial intention had always been to go to the game that would go onto win the vote anyway – Bexhill United vs Steyning Town. My attention had first been alerted to the fact that there was a top-of-the-table clash going on in the second tier of the Southern Combination Football League this weekend by my Saturday morning coaching colleague (and Steyning player) Joe Fitzpatrick seven days ago. However, by Wednesday evening I still hadn’t 100 per cent settled on making Bexhill’s Polegrove Ground the venue for my upcoming Saturday outing. The fact that I’d already seen both teams in action at various points this season, while there are still a number of number of teams with which I’m yet to have the pleasure o...

Hailsham Town 9 St Francis Rangers 0, Southern Combination Football League Division One, Saturday 17 th November 2018 It’s funny the way things turn out. Just earlier this week, I’d been talking to someone about the first few months of my inaugural groundhopping season. During this conversation I happened to mention that about the only thing I’d yet to see so far this season was a team get a real tonking.   I’d seen a goalless draw; several high-scoring thrillers; score draws; comeback victories; an unsuccessful comeback; penalty shoot-out drama; last minute winners; red cards aplenty… you name it, I’d seen it. Yet aside from a few 4-0 scorelines, which in my book counts as a comprehensive victory/defeat (depending on which side of the score you’re on) rather than a total thrashing, a trouncing had so far eluded me. Little would I know that just a few days later, this would change. 9-0 is an absolute hiding in anyone’s book. Not that I’d set out to intentionally...

Newhaven 2 Saltdean United 2 AET, Saltdean win 6-5 on penalties, Peter Bentley Cup quarter final, Tuesday 14 th November Having, for a variety of reasons, been able to attend a Tuesday night match for the past three weeks, I was keen for that run to continue into a fourth week. However, with my eldest son now back training with his Brighton-based team on Tuesday evenings, and with my taxi services being required there, the logistics of doing so have become somewhat trickier. Yet noticing my home-town team of Newhaven were due to be at home last night, and in a quarter final cup clash with local rivals Saltdean United, I decided that the time was right to pay a revisit to Fort Road. (Sorry, I know it’s technically known as The Trafalgar Ground in these overly-commercialised times, but it’ll always be known as Fort Road to me). Growing up literally a stone’s throw away from the ground, Fort Road became something of a home away from home for me during my childhood. I have fo...

Little Common 2 Shoreham FC 2, Southern Combination Premier League, Saturday 10 th November 2018 To go to a game or not to go to a game? That was the question that confronted me on Saturday morning, with my venue (and indeed my attendance at all) still very much up in the air. From the moment my mind turned towards which game I should attend this weekend, I had been unable to make a firm decision regarding where to go. Initially, I had planned to attend either the Dorking or Lewes matches in the FA Trophy. Yet as the week dragged slowly towards the weekend, the appeal of the trophy failed to grab me (not sure why). Instead I decided that I would wait for league games to visit these grounds (or revisit in Lewes’s case). I then resolved to continue my unofficial, and entirely self-imposed, mission to have visited all the grounds in the Southern Combination Premier League by the end of this season. With my Saturday morning football coaching commitments once again restrict...

Bashley FC 4 Colden Common Development 1, Southampton Senior Cup Round 2, Tuesday 6 th November 2018 On a Tuesday back in late July, long before I decided to start this blog (well, a few weeks before), I was on holiday in the New Forest with my family at my in-law’s park holiday home. Faced with yet another long evening spent watching the dreaded Cyril and Cybil Squirrel show at the site’s clubhouse, I’d decided enough was enough. I needed of a way out. I simply couldn’t take any more of those damn squirrels! It was just getting too much for me. I’d even started to find myself humming the songs the squirrel’s (and of course their good friend Pat the Pony – yes, really) sang at random points throughout the day. In public. And loudly. Surely I was only one step away from full-blown madness! Thankfully – and to my surprise – when I suggested to my wife that I might go and watch a local football match that Tuesday evening, rather than spend another couple of hours surrounded by...

Crowborough Athletic 0 Eastbourne Town 4, FA Vase 2 nd Round, Saturday 3 rd November 2018   After a Saturday off from groundhopping last weekend, normal service was resumed this weekend with a tip up the A26 to Crowborough. It was the lure of an East Sussex derby in the second round of the FA Vase – between Crowborough Athletic and Eastbourne Town – which ultimately tempted me to the Crowborough Community Stadium ahead of any of the other Vase games featuring Sussex teams. Yet while both of these clubs may hail from the same county, and play at the same level on the Non-League pyramid, they are not actually league rivals. Bafflingly, for reasons that I don’t fully understand – and haven’t been bothered to find out due to my allergy to doing any research – Crowborough Athletic play in the largely Kent-dominated Southern Counties East Football League, as opposed to the Sussex-oriented Southern Combination Football League to which Eastbourne belong. This factor, however...