Diary of a newfound groundhopper

Leatherhead 2 Haringey Borough 3, BetVictor Isthmian Premier League, Tuesday 13 th August 2019 Having crossed the Sussex border to go and watch a match in Surrey only once during my entire maiden groundhopping campaign ( and even then,barely ), just over a week into my second non-league watching season I find myself heading up the M23 for my third visit to the county in seven days. In truth, there were a plethora of games for me to choose from, with a full Isthmian League schedule and a smattering of FA Cup replays being played throughout my regular hunting (hopping?) grounds of Sussex, Kent and, increasingly, Surrey. However, it was the match between Leatherhead and Haringey Borough in the newly (controversially) named BetVictor Isthmian Premier League (formerly the Bostik Premier League), which I ultimately settled upon. Leatherhead’s Fetcham Grove was a ground that I’d planned to visit last season, but never quite got round to doing so. With my Saturday morning co...

Burgess Hill Town 1 Brightlingsea Regent 1, Bostik Premier League, Saturday 13 th April 2019 It may have taken the best part of eight months, and almost the entire duration of my inaugural groundhopping season but, 44 games into my journey, I have finally become organised. After spending months not knowing where I’d be from one week to the next, I entered April having all of my upcoming fixtures already mapped out for me. I’d even written them down on a scrap of paper and pinned it to a cork board in my office. Height of efficiency! What’s more, I’d had this week’s game – Burgess Hill vs Brightlingsea Regent in the Bostik Premier League – pencilled into my (hypothetical) diary for weeks. Having noticed a fair while ago that there were no matches scheduled in the SCFL Premier for this particular weekend, I immediately checked to see whether the Hillians (the only Sussex-based Bostik Premier League team whose ground I’d yet to visit this season) were due to be at home....

Three Bridges 1 VCD Athletic 2, Bostik League South East Division, Saturday 12 th January 2019 Having not been to a game for 12 days (my longest gap between matches so far this season) this Saturday’s round of matches couldn’t come round soon enough as far as I was concerned. I’d started pining for some much-needed non-league football action. After spending much of the week umming and ahing over where to resume my groundhopping travels, I eventually plumped for Three Bridges’ Jubilee Field for their Bostik League South East Division match against VCD Athletic. I had previously visited the ground once before… albeit not as a spectator. Or even as a player. In fact, Jubilee Field was the venue for the highlight of my coaching career to date. It was where I led my then Withdean Youth Under 14s to the final of the Mid Sussex Youth League’s Shield Competition. A final which we went on to win 1-0. Yes, I know coaching children is all about aiding their development rather...

Lewes 0 Burgess Hill 3, Bostik Premier League, Tuesday 1 st January 2019 I’m not a great believer in making New Year’s resolutions. I’m just no good at sticking them. Like, I'm sure, practically everybody else who makes them, ambitions that are entered into with the greatest of intentions at the start of January are already starting to waver by the end of the month before being completely forgotten about by February. They’re simply pointless.   I do, however, subscribe to the idea of starting the year as you mean to go on. Therefore, on the first day of 2019, there was no way that I wouldn’t be attending a football match somewhere. And following a quick scroll through the local fixtures I knew that there was only ever one place I would be heading this New Years’ Day – Lewes’s Dripping Pan for the Sussex derby between promotion-chasing Lewes and relegation-battling Burgess Hill in the Bostik Premier League.   Now at this point I should mention that this is...

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...

Hastings United 4 Greenwich Borough 0, Bostik League One South East, Tuesday 31 st October 2018 On Saturday, at 3pm, while hundreds of thousands of people the length and breadth of the UK were standing and sitting at football grounds, eagerly anticipating the 90 minutes ahead, I was getting ready to spend the next hour bouncing around an inflatable theme park with my wife and kids. I’m not complaining. Well… not much. After all, it was the first Saturday afternoon this season that I wasn’t at a game, and it had been my idea to spend some family time together. Sort of. And anyway, the inflatable theme park was quite good fun (if not extremely knackering – for me and the wife, at least; the kids were fine). Yet I can’t deny that there was a part of me that was pining for a lost Saturday afternoon at the football. I think I may be becoming worryingly addicted to this groundhopping lark. Thankfully, due to Brighton council’s somewhat baffling decision to have a two-week ha...