Steve B the Groundhopper

6.30pm  24 June 2017 League of Ireland, Premier Division Limerick 2 St Patrick's Athletic 2 (att 1,470) I finished my 2016/17 football season, after a two week hiatus that's likely to be longer than my close season, with a yet another visit to Limerick ... Markets Field being the fifth different home ground I've seen them play on. This time, more than any of the previous visits, they feel like a club on the up. The first two Limerick home games I saw, at Rathbane in 1997 and at Pike Rovers in 2004, each attracted less than 200 spectators to very basic venues. Markets Field is a return to the ground they used before Rathbane, and having been spruced up into an impressive League of Ireland venue it was good to see a large and noisy crowd inside. I last saw Limerick away to Dublin-based Cabinteely in October (last season in League of Ireland terms) when they were rounding off a successful division one campaign that saw them return to top flight football. They'...

6pm  11 June 2017 Stewartry Sunday Amateur League, Clive Harris Memorial Cup, Quarter Final Birchtree 10 Twynholm 1 (att 18) I don't usually watch Sunday league football, but the Stewartry League meets my criteria by having a summer season, and south west Scotland is a nice place to spend a Sunday. This cup tie's 6pm kick off was a curiosity, with two other matches scheduled for the afternoon, but it fitted in well on the back of a weekend in Cumbria, and gave us time to visit some bookshops in Wigtown before heading to Dalbeattie. The Birchtree is a Dalbeattie hotel, and its football team plays at Colliston Park. It's a pleasant park with a war memorial, bandstand, boating lake and children's playground, as well as a football pitch and adjacent changing rooms. It's next door to Dalbeattie Star's impressive Islecroft Stadium. The evening was a stroll in the park for the home side, who scored five times in each half for a very easy win. Twynholm's ...

2pm  4 June 2017 Moray and District Welfare League Rothes Amateurs 9 Macduff 0 (att 29) Macduff are new to Moray Welfare football this year, and after a tough start to the summer season things were never likely to get any easier when they visited one of the league's strongest sides. Rothes scored five in the first half and four in the second, but the visitors never gave up and it was a shame they their efforts weren't rewarded with a goal. That said they rarely looked like scoring, and the home side could have got well into double figures. Macduff's plight hasn't been helped by the league shrinking to a single division this year, meaning they have to face sides, like Rothes, who would have been a division higher. I think the format includes a mid-season split into two tiers, so hopefully they have some more even contests as the season goes on. Rothes Amateurs play in a pleasant park next door to Highland League Rothes FC. There's a single pitch with a pav...

1pm  3 June 2017 Highland Amateur Cup, Second Round Hill Rovers 6 Ness 6 aet, 3-2 on penalties (att 65) The Highland Amateur Cup has long been among my favourite competitions, bringing together teams from a wide area of the north of Scotland including Orkney, Shetland and the Hebrides. Ness are based on the isle of Lewis and set off at 5.30am to make it to Inverness, via a lengthy ferry journey, for a 1pm kick off timed to allow them time to catch the return crossing back to Stornoway. They brought quite a few fans with them and they, like me, probably expected a routine win against opponents from the lowest of the Inverness and District League's three divisions. An early Ness goal looked to have put them on the road to a place in the last 16, but Hill fought back and equalised. Twice more Ness went in front, but each time the hosts fought back to level. The tie looked to have swung in Hill Rovers' favour when they edged 4-3 in front late on, but despite heroic def...