Steve B the Groundhopper

5pm 11 July  2026 League of Ireland, Premier Division Galway United 3 Sligo Rovers 2 (att 3,076) Like Derry City , Galway United are another club faced with finding an alternative venue for handful of home matches due to work going on at their regular ground. Also like Derry City, Galway have made it a bonus for groundhoppers by borrowing the local GAA Stadium. Pearse Stadium, in a Salthill area of Galway, has a capacity of more than 26,000, making it far larger than United's Terryland Park home and more than big enough for League of Ireland football. Just the seated stand was open to home supporters, with Sligo's travelling fans accommodated on part of the open terracing on the far side. The rest of the far side, and both ends, also consist of open terracing but were closed off for this match. For most of the match this looked like being an unremarkable home win. Sligo began the game bottom of the table, and it was no surprise that they trailed 1-0 at half time. Early in the s...

3pm 4 July  2026 Pre-season friendly Cranfield United 3 Stotfold 1 (att 73) Like the day's earlier match at Newport Pagnell, this was a return to a club I visited many years ago to see a pre-season game on an adjacent 3G pitch. I ticked off Cranfield United in January 1992. This game was at Cranfield Pavilion, a Bedfordshire FA facility that has its own entrance, car park and pitch-side building. That building, which I assume includes changing rooms, wasn't in use. But the pitch is close enough to United's main ground for the players to change there. The 3G pitch has a spectator area on one side and dugouts opposite.   This friendly was slow to get going, which was no surprise on a very warm afternoon. Cranfield United are the lower ranked side, but that means little early in pre-season, and they scored the first half's only goal. Both teams made mass substitutions at half time, before Cranfield extended their lead in the second period. Stotfold got a goal back, but a t...

12noon 4 July  2026 Pre-season friendly Newport Pagnell Town 2 Northampton Sileby Rangers 3 (att 48) Not for the first time I began a new season by watching a pre-season friendly played on an unusual ground. The Leah Williamson pitch, named after the Arsenal and England player, is a 3G at the Willen Road Sports Ground, where Newport Pagnell Town are based. I visited the main ground back in 1989, long before Leah was even born. The pitch that bears her name is just beyond Town's regular ground. It's a typical facility, with a spectator area that runs about three-quarters of one side. Friendlies are rarely games I'll travel far for. This lunchtime kick off at least allowed me to combine it with a nearby afternoon game, and was a relatively short detour from a journey between Manchester and Surrey that I was making anyway. The home side scored inside the first ten seconds, for what is probably the quickest opening goal to a season that I've ever seen. They looked the bette...

10.30am 27 June  2026 Saturday Morning Summer Cup at Hembrigg Park, Leeds Old Farnley 3 Drighlington Juniors 2 (att 16) Pre-season friendlies are already underway but this game, in a competition that runs through the summer, marked the end of my 2025/26 season. Despite it geographically indistinct name, the Saturday Morning Summer Cup is for teams in West Yorkshire. All games are at neutral venues in Leeds, and the eight teams are drawn from the local Saturday Morning League and the Leeds Community League. All eight play each other in a league format, ahead of semi-finals and a final.  According to the fixture list there should have been two games at Hembrigg Park, in the Morley area of Leeds, but only this one took place. This season (or last season depending how you look at it) Old Farnley and Drighlington Juniors were  rivals in the Saturday Morning League, with Old Farnley finishing higher. They got off to a good start, scoring after just two minutes. Drighlington qui...

7.30pm 19 June  2026 Moray and District Welfare League Royal Air Force Lossiemouth 1 Aberlour Villa 6 (att 19) I was last at RAF Lossiemouth in 2010, when they played winter football in the Scottish Juniors. These days they play more locally in a summer league, and on a different pitch. I passed the site of the former ground, now built over, as I headed from the guardroom to the playing field. Unsurprisingly, getting into an RAF base to watch a football match takes pre-planning, and formalities have to be completed before you're allowed beyond the gate. The playing field is to the north of the camp. As well as football it's also home to rugby and cricket. Players change in a small pavilion on the edge of the field. With Aberlour Villa top of the league, and RAF Lossiemouth in contention with games in hand, I expected a close game. It started off that way, and the home side were unlucky in the opening minutes when a shot from distance hit the underside of the crossbar. Both side...

7.15pm 15 June  2026 Llandyrnog and District Village Clubs Summer League Llangynhafal 8 Henllan 1 (att 76) While other long-established summer leagues are struggling to survive, the Llandyrnog and District League, in North Wales, has been relatively stable for years. Occasionally clubs come and go, but the last time I had a new ground to visit was in 2008. That was until this year, when Llangynhafal made a welcome return to their home village, or at least to a hamlet very close by. I'd seen them play in a field in the village in 1997. Some time after that they moved out, and for the last two decades or so they've shared a pitch in nearby Rhewl. They've now developed a pitch in Hendrerwydd. The sloping pitch looks well maintained and there's plenty of space for parking. Like many grounds in the north of Wales, it's a scenic setting. The match programme was an unexpected bonus, apparently produced by another groundhopper on behalf of the club. Llangynhafal are battlin...