Steve B the Groundhopper

3pm  27 December 2016 Spartan South Midlands League, Division One Codicote 0 Baldock Town 1 (att 106) Football was an added bonus on a day when I had to ferry my in-laws back from Manchester to their Hertfordshire home. Despite the worst a traffic-clogged A1 could throw at me I made it to the John Clements Memorial Ground in good time for kick off. The club only returned to their village at the start of the season, having spent a few years in exile borrowing venues that complied with ground grading requirements. They've now back, having added a seated stand, a proper walkway and floodlights to their own home. It's a three-sided venue, with the touchline adjacent to a cricket square merely roped off and, with the exception of those in the dugouts, out of bounds. In a feisty local derby, promotion-chasing Baldock won all three points thanks to a free kick about 10 minutes from time, and about 20 minutes after they'd been reduced to 10 men when a player got a second

2.30pm  17 December 2017 Lancashire and Cheshire Amateur League, Division One Signol Athletic 3 Trafford United 4 (att 6) A thoroughly entertaining 90 minutes ended in a surprise defeat for division leaders Signol, only their second loss of the season in the league. It looked likely to be a routine home win when a well-struck shot put Signol ahead after just two minutes, but a sign of what was to come followed very soon after, as Trafford United equalised before the game had reached its fifth minute. Both sides played some decent football, making good use of the artificial surface, and Signol got back in front only to concede again just before half time. The second period picked up where the first had ended, with more goals quickly flowing. It was Trafford's turn to go in front, after 46 minutes, but three minutes later a penalty for Signol levelled the score at 3-3. Signol Athletic may have been the fancied team but it was Trafford who scored next, for what turned out

1.30pm  10 December 2016 Lancashire Amateur Cup, Quarter Final Howe Bridge Mills 2 Hurlston Hall 3 (att 60) This wasn't the cup tie I'd set out to watch. Another of the quarter finals, at Southport and Ainsdale Amateurs, had a midday kick off, opening up the possibility of watching two games, on two new grounds, in a single afternoon. But I arrived to find it had been switched to an alternative venue, and learnt via Twitter that my potential second game, at Burscough Dynamo, had failed a morning pitch inspection. So I headed back towards Manchester and to a cup tie that more than made up for the earlier disappointment. Howe Bridge Mills, struggling in the top division of the Lancashire Amateur League, and Wigan Leaguers Hurlston Hall were surprising quarter-finalists. It was the visitors who took an early grip on the game, scoring two very well taken first half goals that looked to be sending them into the last four. But slack defending gave Howe Bridge Mills a goal

2pm  3 December 2016 Lancashire and Cheshire Amateur League, Division One Oldham Victoria 3 Bury Amateur 2 (att 4) I had planned a trip slightly further afield but non-football matters meant I needed to be back home early so a visit to Oldham Victoria's new ground suited me well. The last time I saw the club play a home game they were little more than a long goal kick away at Broadhurst Park. After a short spell in nearby Failsworth they've returned to the area and now play on an artificial pitch at St Matthews RC High School in Nuthurst Road. The venue is entirely as you'd expect for a 3G pitch in the grounds of a school. It's a floodlit pitch enclosed by a high fence, and totally lacking any facilities for spectators, not that you'd expect any at this level of course, and not that any are needed when a generous headcount of the crowd was lower than the number of goals scored. All four of us watching, or certainly the two of us watching closely, had to w