Steve B the Groundhopper

6.30pm 22 April  2024 Chester and Wirral League, Premier Division FC Farndon 1 Chester Nomads III 3 (att 25) Chester Nomads' third team went into their final league game of the season in a relegation position. By winning it they leapt a couple of places and left hosts Farndon possibly facing the drop instead. FC Farndon now need three points from their final two fixtures to climb back above Nomads, with Shaftesbury Youth also likely requiring points to be sure of preserving their top flight status. The away side deserved their win. They took an early lead, and doubled it shortly before half time. It then took them until a couple of minutes from the end before they got a third. Farndon's consolation was a great strike in the final minute.  It was a mostly scrappy encounter, although to be fair to the players they weren't helped by a poor pitch. Apparently it was the first league game Farndon have been able to play at home since last autumn. Their home is at Farndon Community...

3pm 20 April  2024 Cheshire League, League Two Wigan Town 1 Hartford 2 (att 35) Other commitments morning and evening meant a 3pm kick off close to home was ideal, so it was the perfect opportunity to visit a club coming to the end of a debut season in the Cheshire League. It's fair to say it's been a tough baptism. Going into this game they were bottom with just three points from 25 matches, thanks to a solitary victory in March. But, with visitors Hartford being only a single place and five points clear of them, Wigan Town would have had hopes of adding to their points tally. I was hoping for a match that'd be competitive. Hartford started well, and with better finishing would have established an early lead to set themselves up for a comfortable win. But they failed to take their chances and it was the home side, against the run of play, who opened the scoring. They couldn't hold onto their lead though. It was 1-1 by half time, and Hartford got a decisive winning goal...

6.40pm 19 April  2024 Manchester League, Premier Division Walshaw Sports Club 1 Govan and University of Manchester 2 (att 45) The second time I've seen Walshaw play a home game at Bury's Elton High School, but whereas last time, in August 2022, it was on a 3G pitch , this match was on grass. I'm not sure if the move is a permanent one or due to unavailability of the artificial surface, but for me the chance to visit a 'new' ground close to home on a Friday evening was welcome. The pitch is next to the car park, in front of the school buildings, and is fully enclosed, although there was no rope or rail to separate spectators from the playing area. A grass bank along one side provides a decent view. It was a feisty game between well-matched sides. Govan had the better of the first half and deserved their half time lead. But after the break Walshaw were more in the ascendency, and were good value for their equaliser, even if it came thanks to a soft-looking penalty. A ...

3pm 13 April  2024 Middlesex County League, Premier Division Feltham 1 London Tigers 1 (att 25) I've mentioned in previous blog posts that my first experience of non-league football was watching my then local team at Feltham Arena back in the 1980s. As I moved away I saw them less often, with new grounds becoming my main motivation for choosing matches. After a merger with Bedfont the old club effectively disappeared a few years ago, before being reborn at adult level this season. I watched their first game, a 4-0 thrashing at Larkspur Rovers , but it's taken until near the end of the season for me to finally get to a home game. By my reckoning the last time I saw Feltham FC at home was in February 1989, although a couple of years later I did see them at home under the short-lived name of Feltham and Hounslow Borough. It's been a tough debut season for the revived club. That opening day defeat was the first of many, and they went into this fixture adrift at the bottom of th...

6.15pm 10 April  2024 Wakefield and District League, Jim Callaghan Cup, Semi-Final Beechwood Working Mens Club 3 Great Preston 0 (att 120) Once the clocks go forward an hour groundhopping gets busy with extra midweek matches being played in the lighter evenings. At least that's usually the case, but until tonight the relentless rain had meant all my hoped-for matches had been postponed. I had my doubts about this fixture, but Beechwood's optimism about the state of their pitch was well-founded. Apart from one goalmouth the surface at Rein Park, in the Seacroft area of Leeds, was in good condition. It's a park pitch, but surrounding footpaths provide some hard standing and, on one side, an elevated view. That was were most home supporters congregated, and there was a good turnout to see Beechwood ease their way into the Wakefield League's main cup competition. Great Preston, from the league's middle division, were always underdogs against top flight Beechwood. The ho...

2pm 6 April  2024 Staffordshire County Senior League, Leek Cup, Third Round AFC Alsager 5 Albrighton 1 (att 25) The seemingly endless wet weather wiped out my hoped-for hopping during the week, and left me seeking the relative safety of an artificial pitch for a game on Saturday. There is a grass pitch at Alsager Sports Hub, railed off and where I believe AFC Alsager played previously. For reasons unknown they now use the adjacent caged 3G, which at least meant I could be confident this match would be on. It also gave me a 'tick', as in 2011 I'd seen MMU Cheshire play on a pitch that broadly overlaps the current grass pitch. The hub has been built on what was the site of Manchester Metropolitan University's Alsager Campus, although it's now unrecognisable. To be honest I had low expectations. I'd read reports by other groundhoppers of having to watch the action from behind the tall fence that encloses the pitch as,  unusually for a team at this level, there'...

3pm 1 April  2024 Midland Football League, Division Three Solihull Sporting 3 DSC United 4 (att 18) After a long drive home from Aberdeenshire on Easter Sunday I didn't want to travel any further than necessary on Bank Holiday Monday. This game was elevated from plan B when my first choice match, a few miles away at Coventrians, was off waterlogged. There were no such problems at Solihull Sporting's 3G pitch. It's at Tudor Grange Academy Kinghurst. As you'd expect the pitch is floodlit and enclosed by the usual high fence. There's a spectator area running most of the length of one side. On paper this didn't look a great fixture, with both sides in mid-table with little left to play for. It turned out to be something of a thriller, but the excitement was reserved for the second half. DSC bossed the opening period, racing into a 3-0 lead against a lacklustre Solihull. The home side must have had a talking to at half time as they were transformed after the break. T...