Steve B the Groundhopper

2pm 24 January  2026 West of Scotland League, Division Four Giffnock Soccer Centre 1 Irvine Victoria 0 (att 57) It's almost two years since I last went to a Giffnock home game. My return was because in that time they've moved their first team games to a new home ground. GSC Auldhouse isn't far from Eastwood Park, where they played up to the end of last season. That was always a temporary venue, used while they brought the facilities at Auldhouse up to scratch. They've done a good job. There's a pair of floodlit 3G pitches, each with a spectator area running the full length of one side, and a number of grass pitches. A centrally-located clubhouse includes a snack bar as well as changing rooms. There's also ample car parking, which was good because, as well as my West of Scotland League fixture - played on 'pitch one' - Auldhouse was very busy with youth matches. Two years ago I was treated to a 10-goal thriller between Giffnock and East Kilbride Thistle ....

11.15am 24 January  2026 Saturday Morning Amateur League, Division One Wishaw Wycombe Wanderers 8 Dean Park 0 (att 13) It took a Google search to discover why an amateur team based in Lanarkshire shares two-thirds of its name with a club hundreds of miles away in south east England. Apparently one of the co-founders spoke to a youth officer at the Buckinghamshire club in the mid 1990s, and at a time when the 'world wide web' was becoming a thing they decided the initials, WWW, was a neat fit. The Wishaw side has grown into a major community-based amateur set up, with many youth teams as well as it's senior side. Until recently Wishaw Wycombe Wanderers had a Saturday afternoon team. Amateur Saturday afternoon football is in serious decline in Scotland, while morning leagues are expanding, and Wishaw have joined the ranks. They're in the third of the Saturday Morning AFA's four divisions, but appear too good for that division. This easy win maintained their 100 per ce...

2pm 17 January  2026 Gloucestershire County League Ruardean Hill Rangers 1 Hanham Athletic 4 (att 34) I had various options for an afternoon game, but on a day of many postponements I settled on this once the club confirmed, via social media, that their grass pitch was playable. The Gloucestershire County League is one of the better competitions to have 'regional feeder league' status from the FA, and clubs based in the Forest of Dean are always interesting to visit. Ruardean Hill is apparently the highest point in the forest, and there are good views from the the village recreation ground. It caters for football and cricket, and the adjacent Ruardean Hill Sports Club provides changing rooms and clubhouse facilities. The sloping football pitch is beyond the cricket square. It's railed off, and on the far side a pair of dugouts are positioned either side of a small covered area for spectators. A few advertising boards complete a neat football ground. This was a crucial fixtu...

10.30am 17 January  2026 West Midlands Christian League Living Hope Church 0 Dudley Lions 5 (att 5) I'd set off for Bristol with hopes of seeing a couple of games including one at Western League side Avonmouth. But after that was, unsurprisingly, called off early in the morning I moved onto plan B. The West Midlands Christian League is one of the better sources of Saturday morning football. Matches usually have three officials, and the league's Full Time website is kept up to date. Had I spent longer studying the league table I might have given this fixture a miss, not because the home side were bottom but because it turned out this was their first match since early November. They can't all have been weather-related postponements. Whatever issues Living Hope Church have faced so far this season they had a full 11 players, plus substitutes, against Dudley Lions. And they put up a decent effort despite going down to a heavy defeat. Dudley's finishing was the main differen...

3pm 10 January  2026 Southern League, Premier Division South Wimborne Town 1 Basingstoke Town 1 (att 698) Recent visits to Everton and Cambridge City had left Wimborne Town's New Cuthbury as my only unvisited ground in the top eight levels of the English football pyramid. I'd seen them play at 'old' Cuthbury in 1990, for a Wessex League game against Havant Town. The club has progressed since then, both on and off the pitch. New Cuthbury, or the Wyatt Homes Stadium to namecheck its sponsors, is a good venue, although space is a little tight with a few hundred spectators packed inside. There are two seated stands on the clubhouse side, both ends are covered, one with some shallow terracing, while the far side is open standing. There are lots of friendly volunteers, including those who serve decent food and drink options to fans. Wimborne and Basingstoke went into this game locked together in mid-table, so it was no surprise that there was little between them on the pitch....

3pm 4 January  2026 Premier League Everton 2 Brentford 4 (att 52,514) I recompleted the full set of 92 Premier League and EFL grounds at Everton's new home 38 years, almost to the day, since my one and only visit to Goodison Park. On the first Sunday in January 1988 they beat Nottingham Forest in front of a little over 20,000 supporters. I can't recall how much I paid for a ticket, or whether I had to buy one in advance, but obviously top flight football has changed hugely in the years since. I was reliant on someone with membership to help me secure an affordable ticket for this game, although whether £60 is truly affordable for many is open to debate. Still, despite the cost there were relatively few unoccupied seats. The Hill Dickinson Stadium, despite its dull corporately-sponsored name, is a fantastic venue. I arrived early enough to have a look around, and to sample some of the extensive food and drink available. Of the recent additions to the UK's professional footba...

12noon 3 January  2026 Sheffield and Hallamshire County Senior League, Division Two Youdan 1 Elsecar Main 4 (att 12) Sometimes it can be hard to decide whether or not a 'new' football ground really is a new ground. There are groundhoppers who count redeveloped stadiums, such as Wembley, AFC Bournemouth or Gloucester City, as new 'ticks', but I tend not to. On the other hand the Cardiff City Stadium  overlaps part of what was the playing area of the demolished Leckwith Stadium, and Spurs' new home may cover a tiny fraction of the former White Hart Lane pitch, and I counted both of those as new. I'd been undecided about the Steel City Stadium in Sheffield, built as part of the Olympic Legacy Park on the site of what was the Don Valley Stadium. I visited Don Valley just once, for a Sheffield FC home game in 1991 when a crowd of less than 200 was lost among 25,000 seats. The stadium was built for that year's World Student Games, but became something of a white e...

8pm 2 January  2026 West Cheshire League, Division Three Moreton 4 Ellesmere Port Town U23 0 (att 30) Having twice watched my local adopted 'second team', Salford City, in the past week, once at home and once away, it's back to groundhopping this weekend beginning with a chilly Friday night on the Wirral. Moreton are new to the West Cheshire League this season, and all their home games are on Fridays on a floodlit artificial pitch at the Woodchurch Community Football Hub. It's a newish venue built on the site of what was a leisure centre. The 3G is fairly typical, and has a spectator area running along most of one side and at part of one end. The number of spare small-sided goals stored along the touchline make viewing difficult though, and for this game a blind eye was turned for the few spectators who elected to get a better view by instead standing on the far side. The remains of a large stand, a relic from the former sports centre, is adjacent to the pitch, while mo...