Hoppers Do It Together
Nearly Thirty-Seven Years Nearly thirty-seven years… that’s how long ago it’s been since my first and only previous visit to Brunton Park. It was a wet and windy day for a clash between Carlisle United and Stoke City, in front of a paltry crowd of 2,813. The previous year had seen Stoke City relegated from…
Back Where It All Began While I have visited many grounds over the years, Victoria Park, Hartlepool, is where my groundhopping adventures officially began at the beginning of last year. Ironically, it was for the visit of Blackpool in the FA Cup 3rd Round in January and it would also be a Championship side visiting…
Let There Be Light During the holiday season, travel can be difficult on public transport, or even non-existent. If you combine this negative thinking with the ongoing strikes and chaos surrounding transport, it seems obvious to stay local and that’s what we did. Just nine miles away from our town lies one of the northeast’s…
Options Narrowed This week, we had been planning to visit Seaham Red Star but with the weather all but wiping out football in the northeast, we decided it would be a good time to go and check out St. James’ Park. Although we have been to Newcastle United before, we had been lucky enough to…
We Got Lucky I have to say, we got lucky. Frosty, frozen pitches were the order of the day for many groundhoppers and their plans were sadly up in smoke, particularly for fans in Scotland and non-league clubs around the UK. Our game at Lincoln City‘s LNER Stadium was still on despite a 10:00 am…
Back to Berwick This is another return journey to a ground we visited last season but never got around to writing about it. We had an absolute blast last time we visited, thanks to a chance meeting in the Brewers Arms pub. We had been chatting with the owner, a lovely lady called Margaret, and…
Another Change of Plans Another Saturday, another rail strike and another change of plans. It’s becoming a familiar pattern for groundhoppers to lay down their plans only to find they must completely change them due to rail strikes. I have gotten to the stage where I no longer plan to attend games where tickets are…
The Best Laid Plans… In these days of public transport strikes and unreliability, it’s always wise to have a backup plan when travelling to games. This week, we intended to visit Partick Thistle’s Firhill, but it wasn’t to be. This time, it wasn’t a rail strike or shortage of staff that caused our train to…
Another One Off the Bucket List Celtic Park or Parkhead. Call it what you will, this is one of the iconic stadiums, not just in Scottish football, but football… period! This was most certainly a checkmark on life’s bucket list for me! I’ve been looking forward to visiting here ever since I managed to secure…
For only the second time since we started this ground-hopping journey back in January of 2022, we are going back to a stadium we have previously visited. The first stadium we have been back to was Hartlepool United‘s Victoria Park, the scene of our first Hop. This time, we would be returning to Mariners Park…