Diary of a newfound groundhopper

East Preston 2 Pagham 2, SCFL Premier Division, 29 th December 2018 And so to my last groundhopping match of 2018. Having spent much of Christmas week unable to decide whether to take a step closer to completing my target of visiting every ground in the SCFL Premier or to attend a game at a higher level, I ultimately turned to Twitter (again) to determine my destination. With only one SCFL Premier team whose ground I haven’t previously visited scheduled to be at home this weekend, East Preston were the obvious choice to be one of my Twitter poll’s options. A quick scan of the fixtures in the higher Bostik leagues led me to pick Three Bridges as the other option (I thought I’d go for a straight shoot-out this time out, rather than having multiple options). Ultimately, it was East Preston’s match with Pagham which comfortably won the poll. This meant not only would another SCFL Prem ground get ticked off my metaphorical list (only five more to go), but I would get to see...

Chichester City 3 Hassocks FC 3, SCFL Premier League, Saturday 22 nd December 2018 I'll be honest. I've been putting my visits to Chichester on the backburner. On numerous occasions this season I've glanced at the fixture list and considered a visit to one of the city's two SCFL Premier teams – Chichester City and Pagham. However, each time I've decided instead to attend a game elsewhere. Now this is nothing against Chichester. It's a perfectly pleasant picturesque city. One I’ve been to plenty of times before. Partly my reason for not going and watching a game there so far this season has been purely down to logistics. On a normal Saturday I don't finish coaching in Brighton until 12:45, so by the time I get home (Newhaven), shower and get changed there's no guarantee that I’d make it to Chi in time for kick-off. Largely, though, my hesitancy to attend a game in the city boils down to one overriding factor. The A27. More specificall...

Loxwood 1 AFC Uckfield 3, SCFL Premier Division, Saturday 15 th December 2018 Perfect football weather. That’s undoubtedly how my late Dad would have described the hammering rain that began to fall from unrelenting grey skies across much of Sussex at around 10am on Saturday morning. When I was a young boy, no matter how heavy the rain was or how much of the pitch was covered by mud or puddles, my Dad would always insist that it was “perfect football weather.” He used to say it so often that I actually started to believe him when he said it. I relished playing football in the rain. Absolutely loved it. The cold never used to bother me that much either. There was no under armour, t-shirts or vests worn under my shirt when I was a nipper. If I ran around enough then I’d keep warm, that was the old man’s point of view. It worked too. Throughout my football ‘career’ (I use that term very loosely) I never used to wear anything under my shirt – at least not until I started playi...

Broadbridge Heath 6 Langney Wanderers 0, SCFL Premier Division, Saturday 8 th December 2018 A couple of weeks ago, a Broadbridge Heath game was one of the match choices I gave on a Twitter poll to decide where I should go and watch a game that Saturday. While on that occasion Twitter decreed that I go and watch Bexhill vs Steyning , three different people actually contacted me directly during the duration of that poll to suggest I head to Broadbridge Heath as they are due to move into a new ground in the very near future.  However, not wanting to go against the wishes of the majority (insert your own satirical voting joke here) I ultimately decided that I would indeed go to Bexhill that week, as the majority had requested, but would go to Broadbridge Heath at the next possible opportunity. That next possible opportunity came this weekend, as The Bear’s took on Langney Wanderers (a team I was yet to see so far this season) in a SCFL Premier Division clash. On ...

Whitehawk 1 AFC Hornchurch 1, Bostik Premier League, Saturday 1 st December 2018 'There's no way the game will be on this afternoon,' I thought to myself, as I stood cold and wet watching similarly soaked children chase a football around a pitch. As the rain continued to plummet from the heavily leaden sky, I could see no possible way that the pitch at Whitehawk's Terrapura ground, located just a few miles away from where I was at that moment coaching, could possibly survive the drenching. It was so wet that I expected an Ark to float by at any moment. You can imagine my surprise, then, when upon checking my phone during an impromptu hot chocolate break, The Hawks official Twitter feed proclaimed the game to be on. Believe it or not, this news came as a welcome relief. Okay, so I faced a further soaking, but the alternative was to stay at home and help the wife and kids decorate the Christmas tree. Don’t get me wrong, I’m no scrooge. I love Christ...