Diary of a newfound groundhopper

Oakwood 0 Hailsham Town 7, Southern Combination Football League Division One, Saturday 16 th November 2019 The inclement weather has become something of a recurring theme in this blog over the past five or six weeks. So, to cut a long (and frankly rather repetitive) story short, it’s still raining. And it’s still playing havoc with my groundhopping plans! In a rare fit of decisiveness, I'd actually decided fairly on Monday that my match for this weekend would be Roffey vs Mile Oak in the SCFL Division One. After a relatively dry start to the week (especially by recent standards) I was confident that all was looking good for this weekend. Then, on Friday afternoon, it started raining. Hard. By Friday evening, Roffey had announced that there would be a pitch inspection at 9am on Saturday morning. After checking the club’s Twitter feed at 11am whilst coaching at 5Ways Soccer in Brighton, there was still no news. It was obviously one heck of an intense pitch in...

Godalming Town 2 British Airways FC 1, Combined Counties Football League Division 1, Saturday 9 th November 2019 It was always going to happen eventually, I suppose. Especially given the awful weather we’ve been having lately. Yes, following an hour-and-a-bit-long drive to reach the small Surrey village of Alfold yesterday afternoon, I arrived at their pitch only to hear the two words that all football spectators simply dread: Match off. Just 15 minutes before the match was due to kick-off, with players from both teams changed and ready for action, the referee decided that the rapidly deteriorating condition of the pitch combined with the torrential rain that was forecast to carry on falling until long after the game was due to finish, meant that the game was unlikely to reach a conclusion. The players and managers were clearly not happy with the decision (I wasn’t overly thrilled, to be honest). Yet it’s hard not to have a degree of sympathy with match officials in...

Steyning Town 0 Horsham YMCA 0, Southern Combination Football League Premier Division, Saturday 2 nd November 2019 I won’t lie. There are some days when I wonder why I’m doing what I’m doing. Not many. But some all the same. This morning was certainly one of those days. As I sat at home, listening to the rain lashing against the window panes whilst watching tree branches being blown at quite unnatural angles by the gusty wind, I must admit that I did consider swerving attending a match this weekend. The radiator was on, the house was warm and Soccer Saturday had just started on the TV. The nine games that I had been potentially thinking of going to watch had all fallen foul of the weather and the clear temptation was to spend a rare Saturday afternoon at home in front of the box. Sounds bliss, doesn’t it? However, no sooner had I settled down into my chair, coffee in hand, to listen to Jeff Stelling and the gang, did I suddenly remember something. Something important. Fan...

Storrington 0 Littlehampton Town 6, Southern Combination Football League Division One Cup Round One, Saturday 26 th October 2019 As with last week, my match selection for this weekend was made with more than half an eye on the weather. Having endured on-and-off outbursts of rain for much of the past seven days, and with an absolute deluge forecast for Saturday afternoon, the obvious – and safe – choice would have been to go and watch a match being played on a 3G surface… Again. However, having already visited all the local 3G surfaces, I was reticent to pay yet another visit to a ground that I’d already been to. After all, the whole point of being a ‘groundhopper’ is to visit as many different grounds as possible. It was only seven days ago that I revisited Lancing’s Culver Road ground, so I really didn’t want to spend a second consecutive Saturday at a ground I’d already been to. Plans to head to an all-weather surface a little further afield were scuppered by wif...

Lancing FC 1 Loxwood 0, Southern Combination Football League Premier Division, Saturday 19 th October 2019 After a week of heavy, at times unrelenting, rain, the choice of venue for this weekend’s match was made with half-an-eye on the weather. With Saturday morning pitch inspections being scheduled throughout Sussex, there was simply no way I wanted to risk arriving at a ground only to discover the game had been called off. Therefore, a re-visit to Lancing’s 3G surfaced Culver Road Stadium – the home of the Sussex County Football Association HQ – was ultimately decided upon, for the SCFL Premier match between high-flying Lancing and bottom-of-the-table Loxwood. In truth, the weather wasn’t the only factor behind my decision. Had it not been for the fact that wifey was attending a course of some description (she did tell me what it was about, but I wasn’t listening) meaning I had our two boys for the afternoon, then I probably would have looked to attend an FA Cup qu...